“Kobe was our Jordan” — Reliving the NBA star’s passing and legacy through Aggie basketball’s eyes
On an otherwise ordinary Sunday in January, Utah State basketball guard, Marco Anthony, was on his way to Herm’s, anticipating enjoying a quiet brunch at a local delicacy, when a friend texted him a simple message.
Check Twitter.
Upon following this vague, though specific, advice, Anthony immediately saw the new his buddy was so wound up about — a nine-word tweet, posted by TMZ, that sent the entire social media site and basketball world into a fiery frenzy on a cold Sunday morning.
BREAKING: Kobe Bryant Has Died In A Helicopter Crash https://t.co/42oINV9ZUU
— TMZ (@TMZ) January 26, 2020
“BREAKING: Kobe Bryant Has Died In A Helicopter Crash.”
Anthony’s teammate, Alphonso Anderson, also saw the tweet within minutes of it being unleashed onto the world. The initial reaction from both was identical.
“I thought it was fake.”
“They [TMZ] put out false news all the time,” Anderson said, “so I was more hoping it was fake than anything.”
To believe otherwise would be unthinkable. Could Bryant, a man only 41 years old, just four years removed from one of the most storied NBA careers of all time and only months away from what would surely be a shoe-in Hall of Fame induction, really be dead?
But time would only corroborate the initial report. Though TMZ’s reputation brought on an initial wave of doubt, that skepticism hit a cold hard wall: reality.
Bryant had indeed died in a helicopter crash along with his daughter “Gigi” Gianna and seven more unfortunate souls.
“It was really heartbreaking. He was one guy I really looked up to,” said Anderson at the time. “Growing up (Kobe) was one of my idols so that really hurt.”
Mere hours after the news broke NBA Twitter, the Utah State men’s basketball team gathered for a Sunday afternoon practice, but the mood was nothing close to the usual for an energetic group of young men.
“As soon as I walk in the locker room doors, you can just kind of feel a different mood, a different vibe,” team manager Ryan Corbett said. “You could tell everyone’s faces are kind of down. They had turned the TVs off because they didn’t want to be reminded of that right before our practice.”
When the Aggies lined up on the practice court. Every member of the team who owned a pair of Kobe Bryant shoes were sporting said footwear. And with the world still trying to wrap their head around the loss of a basketball colossus, the Aggies ran through drills, business as usual, but with the added weight of Bryant’s passing creating a barrier that had to be pushed through.
Just as much as Bryant’s death held them down, his legacy helped guide these the men through this downtrodden practice session — a legacy that can be described in two words: the “Mamba Mentality.”
Among many other things, the Mamba Mentality represents the notion of never giving up, never letting adversity get you down permanently. It’s the part of Kobe’s legacy that even the most violent death could never mar, nor take away.
“The Mamba Mentality is real,” Anthony said. “You might be a little hurt, you might be a little banged up but what would Kobe do? He would just go out and still give it 110 percent.”
“You never see Kobe relax, you know, that Mamba Mentality,” Anderson said. “The hard work and the grit that he shows, it just makes you want to do better.”
USU head coach Craig Smith, a Lakers fan growing up, said that for whether someone loved or hated Bryant as a person, “at the end of the day everybody respects him as a basketball player,” much of that respect coming directly from his famous mindset.
“The biggest takeaway though is his passion for the game,” Smith said. “How much he loved the game. How hard he worked on his craft. You just weren’t going to outwork that guy. Now maybe there were a few guys that worked as hard, but you certainly weren’t going to outwork him.”
While Smith and the rest of the coaching staff had ascended to adulthood by the time Bryant entered the NBA scene straight out of Lower Merion High School in Pennsylvania, all of the players had barely outgrown diapers. But both players and staff were able to witness his immortal feats, catching and remembering forever their favorite moments from the starlit career, starting with his three-peat in the early 2000s, just when many of the younger players were just picking up their first basketballs. Then when the future Aggie forward grew older, the Kobe moments just kept coming. From the All-Star appearances — 18 in total where he also earned four All-Star Game MVPs (the trophy for which now bears his name) — and his back-to-back championships in 2008-09 and 2009-10.
Bryant’s spectacular and unique style of play that led to these immortal feats inspired an up-and-coming generation of basketball players. Even now, players like Anthony, who plays the same position as the late legend, pours over his game footage.
“I look at Kobe film all the time,” Anthony said. “His footwork, the ways he could score. He can make something out of nothing. The way that he led his team and everything like that. Just watching that film over and over has made me so much better than I was when I first started.”
Many in older generations of basketball disciples cling to legends of the 70s, 80s and 90s. For instance, Smith clings to Magic Johnson as his favorite player of all time. Others cling to Michael Jordan, the widely held “greatest of all time”; a player who changed basketball as we know it and the most recognizable name in the sports history. But the generation of basketball fans and players of which Anthony, Anderson and the rest of the current Aggie roster are a part of have someone else. As Anthony put it:
“Kobe was our Jordan.”
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