By Alex P. Vidal
“To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there.” – Barbara Bush
PROBABLY the most powerful image the world has been seeing on television, newspaper, and Internet these past two days is the photo of the late father and daughter Kobe Bryant and Gianna.
We are easily touched if we see a father and a daughter embracing each other in any photo.
We are greatly enamored and beguiled if we learn that the father and his daughter—or even a son—are like best friends.
Because Kobe, 41, and Gianna, 13, died violently together with seven (not five as previously reported) others in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California on January 26, their photos together have the power to send shiver down our spine; they have the power to make the world of basketball cry; they can easily wreck us emotionally if we know what happened to them.
How could a 13-year-old daughter together with an NBA legend die in such a horrific manner?
Gianna had a passion for basketball and was hoping to follow in NBA legend’s footsteps before the two died, Karman Allen’s ABC News reported.
Bryant wasn’t a frequent social media user, but his Instagram page was full of footage of Gianna on the court.
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One of his last posts featured an image of the teenager taking a jump shot on the hardwood while wearing a dress and stilettos. He captioned the photo “#HoopsAndHeels #StealsAndStilettos.”
“A lil one on one with my baby Gigi #footwork #stringmusic #mambacita,” the NBA player wrote in the video caption back in 2017.
Ramona Shelburne, an ESPN Senior Writer who developed a friendship with Bryant, said the father of four daughters once told her that kids are “the greatest blessing that God can give you.” The NBA legend “lived for” his family.
“Every time I talked to him that’s all he wanted to talk about,” she told “Good Morning America.” “The last few years all we would do is send each other texts about our kids.”
Gianna reportedly wanted to attend the University of Connecticut and even got a chance to meet with the school’s women’s basketball team when they visited Los Angeles in 2017.
Back in 2018, Kobe revealed that he started coaching Gianna’s middle school team when he retired in 2016, ending his 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers.
“It’s been fun!” he said in an interview with “Entertainment Tonight” in 2018. “We’ve been working together for a year and a half and they’ve improved tremendously in that time. I’ve got a group of great parents, a group of really, really intelligent, hardworking girls, and — they’re all seventh graders, they’re all 12 years old — but they’ve been playing so well!”
“They’ve been playing eighth and ninth grade, they’ve been winning tournaments. But the most important thing is they keep improving, keep getting better and they love doing it. They love being around each other,” he added.
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Bryant spoke about his daughter urging him to make the film “Dear Basketball,” which won an Academy Award.
“My daughter gave me the best piece of advice. I was a little worried about turning this into a film. I’d never done something like that before,” Bryant said after the Oscar win. “We were in the house and talking about it as a family and my little 11-year-old Gianna goes, ‘Well dad, you always tell us to go after our dreams so … man up.’ She’s 11. Man up. So I had to man up and go for it.”
Bryant’s “Dear Basketball” film, his books and podcasts for kids and his coaching were all part of the legacy he wanted to leave, according to Shelburne.
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)
