There aren’t a lot of things that can make a grown man cry, but watching Kobe have an epic final game is one of them. I missed the live telecast, but followed the highlights with a warm smile. Kobe Bryant AKA The Black Mamba is an iconic figure that transcends the sport of basketball and has become to many people of my generation a scion of our era. It was difficult to watch him these last few years, a man still young in my eyes but in such massive physical decline that he couldn’t put up with the night to night strains of the game he’s been playing since the womb.
Kobe started his career right out of high school. He was the cocky know it all (read: me) who felt he could jump into his professional career without the training wheels of college to guide him in. He was right. Kobe was an instant starter and superstar by year’s end. He went head to head with Jordan and others who were the scions of their time and came out on top more often than he didn’t. Over time he developed the nickname ‘The Black Mamba’ because of he was clearly the most dangerous player in the NBA.
All of this focus on his basketball life covered up a man who’d already had an amazing off-court life. His father was a ballplayer overseas. As a result Kobe speaks fluent Italian and Spanish. Most of us struggle to speak proper English. Of course, tabloids don’t care how smart or traveled an athlete is, they are just interested in who shares his bed at night. Unfortunately for Kobe one such companion was a 19 year old concierge in a Colorado hotel, and when word about the sex got out, she cried rape. I’m being very particular about the order of events here, because once the charge was leveled against Bryant he lost virtually all of his endorsements and credibility. This is before there even was a trial.
Still, Kobe is Kobe and once the charges were dropped, the praise and adulation flooded back into the empty space like water into a dry spring bed. He spent the rest of his career dominating opponents, and rebuilding the brand of the Black Mamba. Last night he turned the page on that career, with a final 60 point game and a win to carry him out. In the words of Kobe, “Mamba Out.”