When you watch great basketball players for a living, it's pretty easy to recall a first glimpse at the very best.
It was April of 1995 and a bucket-full of high school hot shots were playing in an all-star event at Providence College. Pete Gillen had just recruited a strong class led by God Shammgod but the kid everyone needed to see was a junior from Philadelphia named Kobe Bryant.
Sure enough, the 6-foot-6 son of former NBA'er Joe 'Jellybean' Bryant was smooth as silk, jumped out of the gym and smiled that smile that one day would make him hundreds of millions. I recall a PC fan or three hounding the teenager after a game, urging him to come play with his friend Shammgod in college.
Yeah, right.
A year later another peek into the future beckoned. On an off night in Philadelphia, I drove to Conestoga High off the Main Line near Villanova. Bryant's Lower Merion High was visiting and with the home fans yelling "overrated" in his ear all night, Kobe went for 33 points, 12 rebounds, 6 assists and 4 blocks. As he walked off the floor, fans flocked around him in search of autographs. Little kids with notepads giddily walked away holding the signature of a player they all just knew would be an NBA star one day.
The buzz surrounding Kobe then was if he'd jump straight from Lower Merion to the NBA. He was skinny, after all, and just 17 years old. "I don't think he could be an impact player in the NBA next year," said Tom Konchalski, the famed New York talent scout. "He'd be able to find his way and play in the league, though."
Well that's for sure.
Over the next 20 years, Kobe Bryant didn't live up to the hype. He blew it up. Like Russell and West, Bird and Magic, Michael and LeBron, Kobe crafted one of the greatest careers the basketball world has ever witnessed. While the five NBA championships, two Olympic gold medals and the 33,000-plus points separate him from most mere mortals, Bryant became a certifiable icon.
He owned the swag, starred in the commercials, sold the famous line of Nike sneakers. Kobe, the Black Mamba.
When the awful, gut-churning news of his death in a helicopter crash that also took the lives of his 13-year old daughter, Gianna, and seven other people broke Sunday, it hit this generation of hoopsters hard. Guys in their 30's and 40's cherished MJ. This generation had Kobe.
"No way bruh ... I'm shook right now," URI's Jeff Dowtin posted on Twitter. PC's A.J. Reeves echoed "This one hurts. KOBE did so much for the game and in life it's hard to think that he is gone. Just the other day I was shooting on a Nerf hoop and screamed 'Kobe on the fadeaway."
While born to be a star, those who know him best tell fascinating stories of a man who thrived on competition, loved putting in the extra hour of work that he just knew no one else would and cutting the heart out of his opponent.
In 2009 Mike Procopio, a short, bald, unathletic trainer from Boston penetrated Bryant's world. The two met via Procopio's boss, Tim Grover, an elite trainer employed by Bryant. Procopio was on the cutting edge of combining video and on-court hoop training and Bryant called one day looking for help.
"I told Kobe if I was going to work with him I'd go in full," Procopio said. "I told him 'I'm not going to be your friend or take pictures with you' and the first few emails weren't pretty. He said 'I got you.?
So began a four year working relationship where the NBA's best player would torch an opponent and then open his computer at three in the morning to see a breakdown of all his warts. Emails, Skype calls, the works. After winning the NBA title in seven games versus the Celtics in 2010, Kobe told the New York Times that Procopio "is my Jack Bauer," from the show '24.'
"I'm heart-broken," Procopio said. "We never had a personal conversation for the first two years but in 2011 Grover and I went out to his house in Newport Beach to work out. He taught himself to play piano and played for us for a half hour. I saw him two summers ago at a Nike event and he really looked happy."
Coach Mike Krzyzewski tried to get Bryant to attend Duke but had to wait until the 2008 and 2012 Olympics to work with him. The two formed a tight bond, Coach K said on a conference call Monday. "We shared two loves, love of the game and we both had daughters."
Krzyzewski watched other great players follow Kobe's lead in Beijing in 2008 where the Chinese fans fell for the USA's star. So did the coach's family. "They idolized him. My grandson's nickname is Mamba," Krzyzewski said.
After that high school game back in Philly so many years ago, I remember asking Kobe if he gets tired of people asking what his future plans would be. Within months he'd be drafted by the Lakers and off to a basketball life of dreams.
"I accept it. I like that people are interested," he said. "Right now, I'm enjoying high school and my senior year. I want to win at this level before I think about the next level. The future is the future."
Now Kobe is tragically gone, taken too soon at 41 years old alongside his daughter in a horrific accident. His final chapter will now be one of his most memorable.
"Kobe was one of a kind and he wasn't like anybody," Coach K said. "Everyone was trying to be like him. He was always in pursuit of special and the next moment. Instead of just pursuing it he always prepared. There's really nobody who prepared any harder than him and he was never afraid of the next moment."
