Kobe, My Idol
Kobe Bryant | image shot by Ian Morrison for a Flaunt Magazine for a feature I wrote in 2018
When terrible things like someone dying happen, we attempt to make sense of them. Rationally, we try to find reasons. “Oh, they were sick,” we might say. Or, ”They shouldn’t have been there at that moment.”
Kobe Bryant died being a dad, flying with his daughter to her basketball game. He was doing a good thing with good people, on his way to a gym he created for children and peers alike to become better people via sport.
It’s terribly sad. I’ll never be able to make sense of it. It’s a catastrophe. No rationale. I’m not typically one to challenge the heavens, but I’m not sure how one spins this act into something positive.
After Kobe’s helicopter crashed, I didn’t know what to say about it on a public forum. Kobe meant a lot to me. And I wanted to write something long and beautiful. But all efforts came out messy and disjointed. Jumbled thoughts with no glue to attach them. So after sitting on them for a bit nearly a month, I decided to just turn them into little shorts. Below are some thoughts and memories I have about the first star I saw rise, then fall on January 26.
“A Little!”
I didn’t have the heart to do it in front of my barber. Back then, in high school, I had an afro. Well, to call it an afro would be a bit of an exaggeration. It wasn’t ‘70s, disco-era big. It was more-so about a third of whatever height you imagined initially, humbled by the gifted, surgeon-like hands of Basim, who still cuts my hair every now and then when I visit Maryland. In the early 2000s, I’d see him at least every two weeks. He’d pick my hair out, then mow it down to perfection.
My baby bush was approximately two inches long. Basim would always finish his sessions with intense stare-downs of his work—stepping back, then leaning in to see if a loose strand needed to be attacked by his scissors. Not a hair out of place. You knew he was comfortable when at last he’d reach for the Luster’s pink oil spray and coat my head with it. He’d spin my chair around for me to face his mirror and ask me if I was pleased with his work. I’d nod, then cough up $15, knowing I was still a few minutes away from true happiness.
It was my routine: I’d get that perfect, well-manicured haircut, walk out to the parking lot and make sure no one from the shop was within eyesight, then vigorously run my hands through my hair, ruining the work Basim put in, bunching it up, making in nappy, rugged. If a Hasbro toy car could have driven smoothly from my hairline to the back of my head before, when I was done it probably couldn’t make it a centimeter without crashing into a nap ditch. I was too embarrassed to do this in the shop. Basim, I thought, wouldn’t get it. I wanted it to look like Kobe Bryant’s. The Los Angeles Laker star rocked a messy bush from about 1998 to 2002.
It speaks volumes that as I sit here at 34, I still remember that one of the biggest compliments I got when I was in high school was from my basketball teammate who half-jokingly asked our all-girl statistician squad, “Don’t he kind-of look like Kobe?” after one practice during my sophomore year. They laughed, cocked their heads to the side and squinted as if trying to find Bryant’s mug within mine. “A little!” one said as others agreed. I smirked and played it off like I didn’t care, lightly denying it under a chuckle. But that shit made my day!
Kobe Bryant was my idol.
LIVE
It’s crunch time in my NBA Live All-Star Game. I love playing as the Lakers in Season Mode. Because Kobe, duh! I’m not ultra sure, but I can confidently say it’s the early 2000s, because Tracy McGrady is on the Orlando Magic and he’s the starting two-guard on the East. Around 2002. I’m a high schooler still in my upstairs bedroom, not yet moved to the basement. I’m playing as the West team and down two points with about 35-ish seconds left in the fourth quarter. I give Kobe the ball and quickly score on a mid-range jumper off a screen with 27-ish seconds left on clock. Tie game. T-Mac, who I is having a very realistic 20-something point game, is given the rock and burns down the shot clock as I/Kobe guard him in hopes of getting a stop and having a chance to win the game with the remaining time. With about four seconds left he pulls up for a 3-pointer, which I/Kobe block and got possession of before it bounces out of bounds.
Timeout!
The ball is advanced to half court. I call an inbound play for Kobe to catch and shoot for the win. I get a clean pass to Kobe (who has Tracy draped all over him) with two seconds left. He catches it in stride, takes one dribble left and rises for a three and the win… Swish. I leap from the edge of my bed, damn-near catching a cramp from such a sudden movement (my real-life basketball team’s practices are brutal and in this period of my life I drink way more Sprite than water). When I meet Kobe 15 years later while working, moments like this fill my mind as I attempt to maintain outward professional cool.
Kobe is my idol.
LOST
In the fall of 2017 I’m an editor at Flaunt Magazine. While scrolling Instagram I notice that the marketing team for Kobe Bryant’s Dear Basketball animated short has created an account to promote it as award season nears. There’s an email address in the bio for press inquiries. I nab it and send a note asking to speak with Kobe about the film and his transition from hoop god to rookie storyteller. It’s a long shot. I’d never scored such a massive celeb interview through IG. But it works! Weeks later I meet him in Burbank. We—me, Kobe and Basketball animator Glen Keane—sit and have an insightful conversation which would have been seamless on my end had it not been for one moment.
About halfway through our time together, I set up a Kobe question by telling him about how NBA players who entered the league in the mid-‘90s are the ones I feel like I truly grew with. I mention Allen Iverson, Tim Duncan, and Kevin Garnett. And him. But before I catch my stride, I’m overwhelmed with emotion. The kind that takes your speech away, wipes your mind of present thoughts and floods it with nostalgia. In a split second, I’m in my feelings and memories. Me watching NBA Finals games starring the early aughts Lakers with my dad. Me practicing Kobe’s long-armed right-to-left (and vice-versa) crossover in my driveway. The Kobe posters I tactfully peeled from Slam Magazine staples and taped to my bedroom walls…
When I come-to, I don’t even remember what I was getting at and peter into another question. I’m not sure if they ever even caught my stumble, but it was the first time in my 10-year career as an entertainment journalist that I was star-struck. I still have the audio from that interview on my hard drive. I’ll listen to it again some time.
Kobe was my idol.
DARING TO BE GREAT
I definitely revered and held the same admiration for people like Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan. But I was born in 1985. By the time I was 10, both were already certified legends. The King of Pop had umpteen multi-platinum records. Air Jordan had championship rings. Both had crowded trophy rooms.
Kobe was drafted into the NBA in the spring of 1996 at age 17. I got to see him at ground zero. I wore a pair of his Adidas until they fell apart. I replayed the 2001 All-Star Game where he balled out in the clutch ad nauseam in my basement, rooted for him with Shaq, even more without Shaq. I defended him when people said he was selfish. I went to sleep a bit easier when his Lakers teams won. I was a fan.
When he died on January 26, it felt a portion of my heart twist into a knot. As I’ve spent the last month trying to untangle my feelings and figure out why his passing hurts me in a unique manner, I’ve come to the realization that he meant even more to me than I thought. He was a part of my childhood, a fixture whose growth, work ethic and success has functioned as one of a few blueprints I’ve infused into my design and makeup.
I remember when I was a kid, some people would tease me for being a Kobe fanatic. “He’s just trying to be like Mike!” The “Fake Michael Jordan” tag was put on him early and, yeah, was mostly accurate. If you play old Kobe Bryant interviews, you’ll find a teen and early 20-something Bryant seemingly auditioning for the starring role in a yet-to-be produced MJ biopic—cadence and gestures nailed to a T. He’d eventually come into his own as a man and hooper, though shades of Jordan remained present. So?
When I look at the initial Kobe criticism, I think it’s even crazier now than I did then. When you talk to a regular church-goer, they’d proudly tell you that their goal is to be Christ-like. And that’s not—nor should it be—considered laughable. But when a kid came into the NBA and declared he wanted to the best, setting his aim at the player who Larry Bird said “God disguised” himself as, everyone was up in arms.
No one dreams that big out loud. Hardly anyone works hard enough to grasp that glory. Kobe did. Unlike the aforementioned MJs, I got to watch Bryant chisel himself into a Hall of Fame career. He dared to be great, against the odds and despite the jeers.
When news first came of his death, friends called to share grief. Both of my parents buzzed me. Similar to when Michael Jackson passed and they hit me to send their condolences. They knew I was sitting down somewhere, sad. Admittedly, Kobe and I—like the many millions of people grieving in his untimely absence—had a one-sided relationship. He never gloated to any of his friends about me, never cursed out a naysayer on my behalf as I did for him. But damn, that shit hurt. It still does.
My boy said something pretty cool when we were talking about it the other day: “It’s the perfect time to install discipline into your life.” He’s using Kobe’s passing as a marker for when he decided to be a better person in at least one way. That’s pretty dope. If you’re a fan, the Kobiest thing you can do to honor him (and help yourself) is to prove your love to whatever your goals are. Study. Practice. Do. Set massive goals. Give your all to achieve them. I’m going to do that.
Kobe is my idol.