It was the day of the NFL Pro Bowl, and I was in the gym. When you go to a beat-up local gym like me, you get used to the earthy smell and rusted dumbbells that hurt your fingers when you grab them. However, you don’t want to be in that place for long, unless that is you like the dank smells of human sweat penetrating your nostrils. I for one don’t. Hence my urgency to get out.
Then something weird happened. People started watching TV.
See, my gym only has one television set and it’s probably the newest machine there. It’s tucked away in a corner — far from any gym equipment. You’d only go to this area to hang out or spin tales about your former lifting days. So, I found it strange when the area became unusually flooded with gym inhabitants.
“Why the heck are these people so interested in the Pro Bowl?” I kept asking myself. “That game sucks, the players don’t try and it’s always the worst game of the season! What’s wrong with these people?”
Gym goers continued to flock to the TV as if it was Mecca. Finally, someone stepped away and I caught him mumbling the spellbinding words, “This is crazy.”
“So it was the Pro Bowl after all!” I thought. Usually, I wouldn’t do this at the gym but I wanted to see what made this year’s Pro Bowl so special. I hurried to the TV and felt instant regret. There was no Pro Bowl on the television, only a breaking news report.
Kobe Bryant had died.
The Ball Never Lies
Kobe Bryant’s death flattened me. I felt like I was living in a simulation — a fake world where this couldn’t possibly be true. Bryant wasn’t old or experiencing any health complications. He wasn’t supposed to die this way. He was supposed to live for decades more I kept telling myself.
When Bryant retired in 2016, I could see his future clearly I thought. One day I’d see an old Kobe on TV getting a standing ovation in the Staple Center. He’d be regarded in the same way that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, and Jerry West are celebrated today.
I’d then tell my grandkids how great that man was. And even though they’d argue he couldn’t be as good as the players they watch in their era, I’d know deep down that no one could take on Kobe in his prime.
This idea always made me smile. But this was never going to happen. And as much as I didn’t want to believe it — that maybe I’d wake up and it wouldn’t be true — this was reality.
Modern Day Gladiators
I didn’t think about myself or my feelings next. I thought about one of my best friends from childhood, Christian Muriel, who’s a lifelong Lakers fan, but first and foremost, a Kobe fan.
You see, idols are something different when you’re a kid. They’re something more akin to mythological heroes.
When Christian and the rest of my friends watched Kobe growing up, we didn’t see a man, we saw a warrior. Christian, for example, mirrored his basketball game identically to Bryant. He developed a killer cross-over, he would take step-back jump shots and became clutch when it mattered most.
There are many kids, who like Christian, took after Kobe’s impeccable game. Even now I can hear some of them yelling “Kobe” as they take fadeaway 3-pointers.
Kobe Bryant’s Legacy
To say Bryant inspired us as kids would greatly undermine his influence. Many of the kids in my neighborhood wanted to be Bryant and felt that they could live vicariously through him.
There aren’t many people as admirable as that.
People who you respect so much, who exude self-expression, hard work, and confidence. People who you feel have unlocked the truth of their soul as Kobe did. As a kid, I couldn’t put it into words, but this is how we saw the man. His actions on the court showed us a pertinent example of what fulfilling your potential looks like. He taught us that living life to serve the status quo is bullshit.
The great Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky once wrote:
“Every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men and everything on earth… each one personally for all mankind and every individual man.”
It may seem like too big a burden to care for the entirety of the world as Dostoyevsky puts it. However, if you don’t fulfill the utmost of your potential you’ll never know if you were in fact, the savior of mankind.
If someone like Kobe didn’t live life the way he did, my friends and I wouldn’t be the men we are today. We wouldn’t have played basketball until the street lights came on at night, or kept our eyes glued to Lakers games to witness greatness.
We wouldn’t have felt the pain that the world felt on January 26, 2020.
The Final Analysis of Kobe Bryant
When I talked to my friend Christian later that week I initially felt confused. Christian didn’t feel sad — or at least he didn’t show it — instead, he felt driven.
He talked to me about Kobe’s greatness. And it wasn’t long before he began to rattle off about Kobe’s legendary work ethic. He told me the vigorous story of when Kobe added long-distance biking to his conditioning. No disrespect to Christian, but I like the way NBA star Blake Griffin tells it in a 2013 interview.
“The first night we all got into Las Vegas last summer for the USA Basketball camp, I heard Kobe went on some 40-mile bike ride at night through the desert. When I found out about that bike ride, I was so tempted to ask him if I could go next time.”
Kobe’s trainer, Tim Grover, later confirmed the story stating he and Bryant finished around 2 a.m. and were back in the gym by 7:30 in the morning.
My friend Christian went on about his favorite Kobe stories. He told me about when Bryant would shoot around in the dark, sometimes hours before an actual practice. Or how he would cold-call entrepreneurs and other successful business people to get advice and pick their brains.
Talking to Christian that day revealed that he’s the biggest Kobe fan that I know. And while I’m sure Kobe’s passing crushed him, above everything else, he felt more concerned with keeping Bryant’s energy alive.
Kobe taught guys like Christian that hard work trumps all; and a salient philosophy like that needs to be protected at all costs. If anything, so that more people live up to their potential and show others that anything is possible.
I still can’t believe we lost Kobe this year. But when I think of his untimely passing I’m reminded to never let his soul die. Moreover, I want others to be remembered for an uncompromising work ethic in their own final analysis.
“It’s the one thing you can control. You are responsible for how people remember you — or don’t. So don’t take it lightly.”— Kobe Bryant
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