| Has it really been a year? A year gone since you received the phone call or the text, or heard it on the radio or saw the television program you were watching interrupted by a devastating jolt of breaking news? A year since Kobe Bryantâs death overtook everything for a while, so encompassing it seemed there could be no bigger nor more dramatic story in 2020, not just in sports, but anywhere? We didnât know then what we know now, but we knew this. The world was ready to mourn, individually, collectively and without reservation, for an athlete who knew no other way than to give his all, whether in pursuit of championship trophies, business opportunities or quality time with his children.  â(I love) how we connect to the athlete through our storytelling,â Bryant told me in 2018. âA great story touches those emotional components.â Bryant had a career matched by only a few, but more than anything he had a story that reads like a gripping script and it did play with our emotions, all of them, all the way through. He came into the NBA while still a kid, arrogant and sometimes selfish in his initial years on the Los Angeles Lakers. There was the tumultuous soap opera with Shaquille OâNeal and the unstoppable drive that eventually led to five championships and a night that can only be described by a number (81). He learned to be a better teammate. There was the troubled mystery of the events in Eagle County, Colorado. The later advocacy for womenâs rights and womenâs sports. And the Mamba mentality that powered his closing legacy. Bryantâs life wasnât a Disney fairytale, it was a compelling narrative, the kind that he loved, full of layers and obstacles, tackled and overcome. It was a life lived at 100 percent, even in retirement, when heâd be up at 4 a.m. hitting the treadmill before creating stories, formulating concepts and watching his daughterâs games.  When the helicopter carrying Bryant, his 13-year-old Gianna and seven others crashed into the hills of Calabasas, Calif., he was crushing it in business, which he said he didnât find all that complicated, and often said he counted the extra time with wife Vanessa and their four daughters as a genuine blessing after all those years on the road. Soon after the accident, I wrote that no life is more important than another, yet naturally some resonate with us more. Yet there has been so much death since, so many faces gone. Simply, and heartbreakingly, loss of life doesnât impact it in the same way anymore. It hurts, it aches, but it doesnât shock or surprise, no longer. Weâve become weathered, not expectant, but prepared for the worst. And so, perhaps, the kind of outpouring that greeted Bryantâs passing may not happen again, not like that. A moment frozen in time, just like him, at age 41 and with so much still to do.  This year will bring a Super Bowl like no other but last yearâs was that, too. For the tragedy involving a basketball legend somehow overshadowed in part even the biggest game from another sport, and the grandest occasion in American entertainment. From a media night that was relatively sparse, with so many of the credentialed press still working the aftermath of Bryantâs death, to the game itself, when more than a dozen players from the Chiefs and 49ers wore Kobe-themed cleats and both squads got together before the game at the respective 24-yard lines in his honor. Everyone has their own story of Kobe and there are endless numbers of them. As a writer, I am grateful to have been able to tell some, a full gamut, from a return to his high school, to the bond he forged with the family of a young man who ultimately lost his life to cancer, to a look into his creative business mind as he co-founded athletic personal care brand Art of Sport. Even an article I recently wrote on the sale of Bryantâs childhood home earlier this year, complete with some stunning memorabilia, generated far more emails than usual.  Itâs January 26, so yes, it really has been a year. There are so many ways to remember Bryant, yet as with anyone who has gone, you tend to look at the goodbye and the way they said it. When Bryant left basketball, on that wild night in 2016 when he dropped 60 on the Utah Jazz and closed out 20 years of effort, he walked off with a verbal mic drop … âMamba Outâ. He later said what he was trying to do that night was to leave everyone a mini-blueprint for the Mamba mentality, the theme of resiliency, effort and a refusal to be defeated that he lived by. After the year thatâs been, we could all use a bit of that.  Hereâs what others have said … Ben Rohrbach, Yahoo Sports: âHe was a dedicated husband and father. He was burying the hatchets he had taken to the NBA for 20 years and inspiring the generation that came after him. It all translated to the advancement of the womenâs game and the trail his daughter was blazing.â Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN: âKobe Bryant will likely be best known for his gifts with the roundball. He was one of the best to take the court and one of basketball’s greatest ambassadors, heralding the men’s and women’s game at its youth, college, pro and international levels. Yet the Los Angeles Lakers luminary was multifaceted — serving as a writer, producer, spokesman, philanthropist, mentor and #girldad. The Black Mamba appreciated greatness in all its forms â and saw sport as transformative.â Skip Bayless, Undisputed: âIt still feels impossible. Not Kobe. He was invincible on and off the court. He was a dynamo in his career in basketball and in his second career. He won an Oscar. Thatâs impossibly great. Of all the icons, I thought, not Kobe ⌠It still feels impossible. Usually after someone passes, time will slowly heal your wound. Your pain and your grief and your agony over losing him or her. It feels like even one year later, I havenât even begun to heal yet.â |
 âThe most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do.â â Kobe Bryant |
