Ticking Clocks and Kobe Bryant

Convivium, 31 January 2020

Last week’s helicopter crash that killed the basketball star and eight others leads us to ponder Jesus’ warning about death and thieves in the night.

Three 13-year-old girls died in the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash on Sunday – Gianna Bryant, Alyssa Altobelli and Payton Chester. 

Alyssa died with both her father and mother, John and Keri.

Payton died with her mother, Sarah.

And, of course, Gianna died with her father, Kobe.

Christina Mauser was an assistant basketball coach who was killed in the crash, as was the pilot, Ara Zobayan.

Three families suffered the sudden deaths of father and daughter, mother and daughter, father and mother and daughter. 

It is all rather unbearable, compounded with the rituals of celebrity mourning. 

My sense is that the public drama after Kobe’s death is more respectful than it was, say, after the reaction surrounding Michael Jackson or Diana, Princess of Wales. Perhaps the culture is learning how better to keep its balance, even when knocked down by the news of three teenage girls and their parents killed in a horrific accident. 

My thoughts about Kobe’s death are largely about time, about timing. 

Dear Basketball…

During Kobe’s retirement season, 2015-2016, he wrote a poem, a love letter to basketball: 

Dear Basketball,

From the moment
 I started rolling my dad’s tube socks
 And shooting imaginary
 Game-winning shots
 In the Great Western Forum
 I knew one thing was real:
  
 I fell in love with you.

This season is all I have left to give… 

And we both know, no matter what I do next
 I’ll always be that kid
 With the rolled up socks
Garbage can in the corner
 :05 seconds on the clock
 Ball in my hands.
 5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1

Love you always,
 Kobe

So much of a great athlete’s life is about time and timing. The difference between being good and great, between greatness and being the greatest of all time, is measured in little fractions of a second. And in basketball, so many of the dramatic moments are in those last seconds, 5… 4… 3… 2… 1.

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