‘Kobe is responsible for some of my best friendships’: America mourns a national hero who transcended sport
Dex Alonso arrived early outside New York’s NBA store to pay his respects to Kobe Bryant, the basketball legend whose death has shaken the sporting world.
He was one of a dozen or so people who came early on Monday to the Fifth Avenue shop, waiting outside in the cold for it to open at 10am. They had come to grab a jersey or perhaps a cap as a keepsake
But they had also come to participate in a nation-wide outpouring of grief that has included shocked moments of silence in America’s stadiums, tears from professional athletes inside those same arenas and moving tributes from seemingly everyone from presidents to kids who grew up playing basketball and revering “the Black Mamba” — a larger-than-life figure whose life has now been ended alongside his teenage daughter in a tragic California helicopter crash.
“Me and my friends grew up debating who was the best,” Mr Alonso, 25, told The Independent, describing a debate that every American who grew up watching Kobe Bryant face off with Michael Jordan and then, later, LeBron James, would instantly recognise.
“Those debates were responsible for some of my best friendships,” Mr Alonso, who grew up playing basketball in the parks of Manhattan’s Lower East Side neighbourhood, said.
The death of Bryant, 41, has shown the sheer level of love felt towards the five time NBA champion whose career spanned two decades. During those 20 years, Bryant helped lead the Los Angeles Lakers to five championships, earned himself the second most career All Star team nods at 18, and retired with the third most career points in league history (a ranking he enjoyed up until the night before his death, when Lebron James overtook him). And those are just a small selection of stats that back up his ranking amongst the best to have ever played the game of basketball.
In the hours after his death, virtually every top trending topic on Twitter in the United States was related to the apparent fog-induced crash in Calabasas.
And across the country, memorials and tributes popped up everywhere.
His old high school jersey was placed delicately at the centre of a makeshift memorial in front of the gymnasium at his former high school in the Philadelphia suburb of Ardmore, Lower Merion High School — a school he had reportedly continued to patronize as a superstar, and one that honoured him by putting his name on that same gym.
The scene outside of Lower Merion High School, Kobe Bryant’s alma mater. There is an outpouring of support from those in the area. #RIPMamba pic.twitter.com/B2YzaicHz9
— Jack Bloomfield (@JackCBloomfield)
At the Staples Center where Bryant became a Los Angeles hero, the crowd packed in to pay their respects. Among those spotted mourning was current Lakers guard Quinn Cook, who was seen crying and clutching the same Jersey that had sold out in New York City on Sunday night when Mr Alonso first tried to buy it.
Thousands of miles away at New York’s Madison Square Garden, the sentiment dominated the game between the Knicks and Nets on Sunday night. Bryant played his first All Star game there in 1998 and continually packed the house even as the home-team Knicks dwindled and attracted considerably less enthusiasm (in 2009, Bryant broke the arena’s scoring record, too).
On Monday, just outside of the Garden, fans still stopped to snap photos of the tribute that was projected across the street, before hurrying off to work.
One of those who stopped to take a picture was Caroline, whose son is a basketball player himself. At 11-years-old, her son would have been just seven when Bryant retired in 2016, underscoring the enduring legacy of a player whose appeal spans generations.
“He admires him a lot,” she said.
While Bryant’s legacy on the court is indisputable, the death of the man whose post-basketball years saw him entering into a second phase of life as a writer and film producer — he won an Oscar in 2018 for his animated film “Dear Basketball — has nonetheless resurfaced at least one sordid moment from his history.
“Dear Basketball.” A short film by Kobe. Hits really hard. pic.twitter.com/wa7CcLH19P
— David Wertheim (@Dave11W)
In 2003, Bryant was accused of rape in Colorado, after a 19-year-old hotel worker claimed he had forced himself upon her in his hotel room. Those charges were ultimately dropped after the alleged victim decided against testifying, and after a civil settlement that included an apology from Bryant, who maintained his innocence while admitting to adultery.
The investigation into the Sunday crash is being led by federal authorities, and has already determined that Bryant’s mid-sized helicopter had been flying in foggy weather just after 9am when it crashed. It is expected that the investigation could continue for days.
Meanwhile, the family of Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Ghianna, must now grieve a loss of life that has left the broader NBA family in tears. Orange Coast College coach John Altobelli was also killed in the crash alongside his wife, Keri, and daughter, Alyssa. Christina Mauser, a girl's basketball coach, was also killed in the crash.
Barack Obama, who once praised Bryant during an event at the White House, was among those to share his shock at the death, and the potential that was lost in the fog outside of Los Angeles on Sunday.
“Kobe was a legend on the court and just getting started in what would have been just as meaningful a second act,” Mr Obama wrote on Sunday on Twitter. “To lose Gianna is even more heartbreaking to us as parents. Michelle and I send love and prayers to Vanessa and the entire Bryant family on an unthinkable day.”
