Saturday, while watching my girls, each a precious blessing, playing basketball, I thought about how special teaching them the game is going to be.
What they don’t know about the sport, compared to what they will know once I work with them, is going to bring us so much closer together.
I laughed out loud imagining the day, years from now, when we will make fun of how little they knew about the game — my double-dribbling 11-year-old, my airball-shooting 10-year-old — and how Daddy made a difference.
While scrolling through my Twitter timeline this morning, I saw a video clip of Kobe Bryant sitting courtside with his daughter. He was explaining some aspect of the game he loves to one of his four girls. She seemed so happy to be counseled her dad.
It hit me in an odd way. This is my dream.
I have a list of close friends, fathers to daughters, whom I admire and want to emulate. They are so much better than I am at this father thing.
This morning, I said to myself, “I want to be like Kobe.”
Bryant died Sunday in a helicopter crash. He was 41.
According to reports, that smiling girl, so pleased to be spending time with her father, was Gianna Bryant. She was also in that helicopter.
Thirteen years old. Gone.
All of the spin moves, dunks and jumpers that make up the highlight reel to Kobe’s sports life are not what I will remember most. I will always be touched by that father-daughter moment.
There should have been so many more.
The day I met Bryant, he was so young, so smooth. A kid.
After an interview, we chatted for a few minutes, the kind of talk I’ve had with hundreds of athletes. Those talks are almost always meaningful to me. I never expect them to matter much to the athletes, much less a 20-year-old budding superstar.
Usually, it takes a host of such interactions to form a simple bond of recognition.
But a few weeks later, I saw Bryant again. This time it was at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., as the Lakers were preparing to play the Rockets in a playoff series.
He spotted me and yelled at me across the floor. He wanted to reload the conversation from the Westside Tennis Club.
The topic wasn’t important, and I don’t remember exactly what it was, except he disagreed with my position and wanted to continue the debate. He wanted to win.
That is what we all saw from him throughout his career: A fierce desire to win.
What I saw in the clip of him with his daughter today, wasn’t about winning, but it showed how much of a winner he is. How much of a winner he was.
Kobe Bryant was a tremendous basketball player, a spectacular athlete.
It is heartbreaking that his life as a father has been cut short. That his adoring baby is no longer with us.
I pray that I can be like Kobe and show my girls the game that I love.
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January 27, 2020 at 04:22AM
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Solomon: Kobe Bryant was much more than a winner on the court - Houston Chronicle
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