Why Kobe Bryant’s Death Matters

Martnehz
6 min readFeb 25, 2020

I’m not someone who watches sports. It’s not really for me. For someone who grew up always playing some type of team sport and lives as active a lifestyle as I, it does seem kind of odd that I usually have very little to say on the subject nowadays. Guess I was never *into* the consumption of sport. Just the production of it. Anyway.

But I was young once. And I’m not totally checked-out from the world.

What Kobe Bryant Left Behind

I remember Kobe Bryant growing up. He had a coolness and a flair and he seemed like a god on the basketball court. I drifted away from “sportball” and he got injured a few times & drifted away from the limelight.

Compared to the rest of America (& the world), I’m slightly an outlier to the normal experience of Kobe Bryant. I never met him and never witnessed first-hand his grounded & giving demeanor. I hadn’t followed his “Exeunt Stage Left” from the NBA. But I go to bars — where there are TVs — and as I’ve been watching the aftermath of the events of January 26th, it feels surreal to see what I’m seeing.

Not because I always thought that Kobe Bryant was going to be in my life. I didn’t.

Not because I lament the tragic circumstances surrounding the fateful helicopter ride. I mean… I do… but I don’t.

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Martnehz

I do things. Huge nerd otherwise. Interested in all types of media & creative-ish forms of expressions. Rawr!!