This is not the blog I planned on writing today. Sadly, on this day January 26th, 2020 we have lost one of the greatest athletes of our generation, and probably of all time, Kobe Bean Bryant. My goal is to typically keep things light hearted and fun on this site, but by not saying a few words about Black Mamba would be doing him a disservice.  

Kobe is not the first celebrity death that has caused me a great deal of emotional distress. I would say the first was Robin Williams. His death upset me because in my childhood he always seemed to be so happy and joyus, when in reality it he was struggling with his own demons all along. The second celebrity death that caused similar feelings was Mac Miller. For me and a lot of others his music helped us feel less alone, and his songs were the anthems to our coming of age. Mac was the first celebrity I ever shed a tear over. Now the second is Kobe Bryant. 

I cannot pretend that basketball played a major role in my life. I grew up in Kentucky, were college basketball is the pinnacle of entertainment, but even in that environment it was never anything more than a fun hobby of mine. I never really played on an actual team and I haven’t been that interested in the NBA for years, aside from playing NBA 2K.  So why I do I feel so distraught I wonder?  

Kobe Bryant was not just an athlete to me and other kids growing up. He was a superhero, a legend, a mythical being that seemed to do things that were not humanly possible on a daily basis. He was an inspiration to so many, because his work ethic and reputation were unlike anything seen before. I did not think of Kobe a basketball player, I thought of him as a modern day Greek God of sorts,with a Pual Bunyan type persona who captivated my imagination and made me believe I could do anything . That is why this is so hard for me as well as it must be for 1000’s of others. To have someone as iconic and popular stricken down in the blink of an eye by something as obscure s a helicopter crash is just hard to imagine. I had not even fully ruled out the idea of Kobe one day returning to the league, but here I set in awe and disbelief. 

Personally the death of Kobe Bryant truly feels like the final nail in the coffin that was my childhood. People always say that young people “think they’re invincible”, and for a while I truly thought I was. For so long death seemed like something reserved for the elderly, now I think differently.  Part of growing up is seeing how precious life truly is, and how it can be taken at any second. Even the legends parish in unlikely ways. Death does not care about how many triple doubles you recorded, or how many championship rings you won. 

I wish nothing but the best Vanessa Bryant and her children as they grief. I hope she gets the privacy and support she deserves as she deals with the loss of her Husband and Daughter. I can not imagine the pain the Bryant family must be in right now. To me Kobe Bryant will live on in my head as something so much more than his stat line. He represents my youth, the fragility of life, and what it means to leave a legacy. There is a reason that every-time a 12 year shots a paper ball in a trash bin they yell “Kobe”, I hope that never changes. RIP to a legend.