Standing outside the gym of Granada High in Livermore on Sunday, my prayers having been lifted and my psyche still rattled, I tried meditating to get myself together. When it became clear to me the news of Kobe Bryant’s death was indeed true, I had to leave the gym where my daughter was playing in her first AAU tournament, her first ever volleyball matches. I was reorganizing my daughter’s volleyball bag. She changed shoes after the second game and left them out. Fixing it was almost an involuntary reaction to the shock, me hoping being busy would allow the emotions to peak and peter out, like an allergic reaction. But it wasn’t working.
I stood as still as possible, closed my eyes, took some deep breaths. Focused on the brisk cold air on my face, the scent of the light rain. Meditating outside in the cold always calms my spirit. I laser focused on the whispers of thoughts racing to my brain, trying to corral them, slow them down enough so I could hear them. One at a time.
Your daughter is probably looking for you.
Get it together.
The Lord is sovereign and righteous.
Go be a volleyball dad.
Stay off social media.
Stay in this moment.
The burning in my nose stopped. The intensity subsided. I went back into the gym. Almost as soon as I sat down, she looked back at my seat. She waved with a huge grin. She was on the bench, standing with her team as the action went on. I pointed for her to focus on the court. She nodded and focused her eyes on the court. Then she looked down, noticed her shoes were untied.
She knelt down to tie them. I wondered what she was doing. That’s when I remembered she changed her shoes. She was wearing her white Kobes. Those feelings flooded back instantly.
Photo courtesy of Marcus Thompson II / The Athletic
One of my favorite memories from writing “Golden” came in Toronto after the 2016 All-Star Game. Chronicling Stephen Curry’s movements led me to a staging area where players waited before and after their podium interviews. Kobe Bryant caught Curry before he went on for his interview.
This All-Star Game was all about Kobe. It was his final appearance. Fellow All-Stars tripped over themselves to get one last moment with the legend. But in this moment, he wasn’t Kobe. He was just a dad, cashing in his clout to make his daughters smile. He asked Curry for a favor: a photo with Natalia and Gianna.
“My girls love you,” Kobe told Curry.
It was his weekend, a highlight in the season-long serenade of his final campaign. Yet, here he was, gracious and excited as he used his phone to capture this moment. The girls looked nervous as Curry put arms around them. Gianna, then 9, held a basketball with both hands. Kobe flashed that full pendulum swing of a smile he’s known for as he leaned back to get the framing perfect.
My daughter was also 9 at the time. I remember thinking about her instantly, missing her. Players ask their peers for photos and jerseys all the time. But Kobe, as high as he was in the hierarchy of NBA grandeur, just seemed so giddy just being their old man. Seeing the daddy-daughter moments of others are like a blanket for my soul. This one was especially warming.
That is why Sunday’s news hit me harder than any such news has in a long time.
I’ll confess right now: I wrote this for me. I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve talked to Kobe. He was great every time, approachable and engaging. But I wouldn’t dare consider myself worthy of encapsulating him. Nor do I have the words or wisdom to make sense of the trauma Vanessa Bryant must be experiencing or the dad-sized hole in the hearts of their daughters Natalia, Bianka and Capri. I normally shut my mouth and open my ears during these times.
But writing helps me process. And I need to process this. I needed to grapple with why this hit me so hard. I have experienced so many deaths over the last three years. My sister passed. My best friend lost his son. Another close friend of mine lost his mother recently. Death was starting to numb me.
But why did Kobe Bryant’s tragic helicopter crash spark more grief in me than deaths happening in my actual life? Why couldn’t I shake the sadness? Why was I even feeling it? I got texts from several friends, with similar queries, and it became clear why this bothered us so much. We are fathers. We all have daughters. The death of Kobe and Gianna was terrifying.
I’ve never liked Kobe more than I did the last few years. First as he grew into the O.G. with no filter in his final years in the league, and more as he and Gianna barnstormed the sports world together. I loved this Kobe, the one who sat courtside with his daughter. The one who could have had any role he wanted in the NBA and yet prioritized being the biggest advocate for his daughters’ dreams. I watched every video. Listened to every interview. I couldn’t get enough of the two.
Let me explain. I wasn’t a great father when my daughter was …
Hold on. Let me get it together real quick.
I was a selfish dad for the early years of my daughter’s life. I cared about my career as it started to take off. I figured providing for my wife and daughter was a job fulfilled. So I worked, to get better, to make more money. I left most everything else to my wife. I wasn’t present. I helped, but it was out of obligation, to relieve my wife because I did recognize the toll raising a child takes. Truth be told, I didn’t really like babies. Toddlers even less. Still don’t, really.
After years of working on myself, I can say with confidence it was because they make sure every situation was about them, which meant it wasn’t about me. I would tell myself, and even my wife, when my daughter was like 7, 8, that’s when I’d step it up. Being valuable on my terms was most important to me. Just being honest.
Plus, I’m so much better with teenagers. When I was a youth director at my church, I left the little kids to my capable co-laborers. Young adults and high school students were my specialties. So when my daughter got to be around that age, it was on.
It really happened at like 9. She was more talkative. We could have conversations. She was old enough to come with me to places. I grew to love her being with me. No joke. If I were running to the store and it was her bed time, I’d irritate my wife by taking my daughter with me. We’d take too long to get back because we were playing tag in the aisle of Target. Or she wanted to sing a song together one more time before we went back into the house, and it ended up being three more times.
The older she got, the closer we got, the more I just loved having her around. She’s been with me to late-night studio sessions, video shoots, Warriors practices, Starbucks writing sessions, any errand I’ve had to run, to do ministry work. It works the other way, too. I don’t miss anything. Plays. Musicals. Games. I’m at every one. She has to see me there. I know she is going to look for me, and I want to smile back at her.
When she performed her first rap, I was in the crowd hype. When she sang in the choir, I was up close recording. I saw every blow into her flute, every strum of her violin, every line she had in every play. I missed Game 3 of the 2017 NBA Finals because it conflicted with her graduation from Kaiser Elementary.
I’m not saying this because I’m such a great dad. Mostly I am admitting I wasn’t. But my relationship with my daughter made me revere Kobe and the way he was so proud of his, specifically with Gianna. I didn’t know Kobe like many others in this NBA sphere, but I felt connected to him. He felt like one of us in the society of fathers with daughters who would rob Earth of its moon and ransom it to give our daughter the stars.
This is why I had to leave that gym. This is also why I had to go back in.
Kobe made us cool. Us dads who are still cool to our young daughters are already cool enough. As long as that lasts, we’re straight. But it was still special for Kobe to take our way of life and splash it on the mainstream. I don’t have a son. And while it’s nice to see fathers and sons have their moments, it doesn’t hit me like fathers and daughters. Kobe was our celebrity rep.
That made Sunday all the more devastating. To learn Gianna was on the flight with him turned this from a sad moment to a traumatic one. To think of what their final moments might have been, the terror he must have felt knowing he couldn’t protect his little girl, it rocked me. If all of Kobe’s wealth couldn’t save Gianna, what chance does my meager shekels have? We know he would have traded everything to make sure she wasn’t on that helicopter. Imagining his helplessness spurned my own. As mighty and as strong as my daughter thinks I am, I know that I am weak and powerless, really, and life’s cruelty can touch her at any moment.
As morbid and depressing as that felt, Kobe helped me get back in that gym. Because if that is true, then I might as well cherish every second, make the most of every situation, be visible in her every memory. At least I can do my part to make her feel secure in a world, in a life, that often seems anything but.
I am thankful for Kobe. His unabashed love of his daughters, his special bond with Gianna and related support of women athletes, is a legacy worth remembering. It’s a part of him that shouldn’t go overlooked. Perhaps it should even be preeminent over his championships, his scoring prowess, his magnetic aura.
Mamba Mentality is about relentlessness. It is about putting in the work. It is about appreciating the sacrifice. It is about flexing back at the adversity that seeks to deter. It is about an aggressive and unwavering pursuit. It was how he approached basketball. It was how he approached business. But it was also how he approached fatherhood.
Mamba Mentality is exactly what I needed to get back in that gym and lock-in on 13-and-under volleyball games.
When the games were done, my daughter and her new teammates wanted to get ice cream. So we drove to Pleasanton and they ate soft serve in the cold. I answered texts and read stories, sharing every new detail I learned with my wife. When I started obsessing, I put my phone away and watched my daughter giggling with her teammates, who were still in their uniforms and completely unfazed by the three Ls they just took.
I wasn’t going to tell her I was rattled, that I was hurting. My sadness had no business in her day. But when we left, and she said goodbye to her friends and got in the car, she broke the news to me.
“Daddy,” she said, “Guess what? The man whose shoes I’m wearing, he died today.”
I know, sweetheart. I know.
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(Top Photo: Rob Carr / Getty Images)
