Kobe
I hated Kobe Bryant. I hated him the way I hated Michael Jordan and now hate Lebron James. And there is one consuming reason for this hate. Kobe, like Michael and Lebron, was so good, was so dominant a player, the hate came almost automatically for simply being on the other side, on the other team, especially when that team was clobbering mine.
I have been a Celtics fan ever since I started truly appreciating the game. The Celtics has had its own share of great players, superstars in their own right. But they were always team players. Not that Kobe, or Michael and Lebron, were not team players. But they were of such skill and talent I would not be far off the mark if I say they, by their individual selves, can almost win a game on their own.
When my Celtics do not make it to the NBA finals and Kobe does (or Michael or Lebron), I always root for the other team. I make it a point to root for the other team. And it gives me immense pleasure during the rare times when whichever team I happen to be on happens to serve Kobe a thick fat slice of humble pie.
I must admit that I harbored secret feelings of smug delight when Kobe sailed into some rough waters of domestic, civil, and criminal crises brought on by charges of rape; feelings that I now regret and am ashamed of, especially on knowing that Kobe was, like me, a Catholic. I should not have allowed my feelings to spill out of the basketball court.
But that was some time ago and not being on social media, I have lost track of Kobe until the wife stunned me early Monday morning with the news that Kobe died in a California helicopter crash along with his daughter Gianna and several others. At first, the wife tried to check if it was not fake news. But as a journalist of nearly 40 years’ experience, I instinctively knew in my gut that this has got to be real. And it was.
I don't know why. Maybe it is age creeping up on me. But I suddenly felt a certain emptiness. I felt an inexplicable sense of loss. And over a man I hated all throughout his professional basketball career. A man I hated for no other reason than because he was so good. I never felt so bad about myself.
And so let me say to you, Kobe, wherever you may now be, that I am so sorry for being that way about you. I hated you for all the wrong reasons. It was selfish of me. And yet by your death you did one final slam dunk of a lesson that, of all people, you taught me. And that it is never good to hate anybody, especially for being just exactly the way God made him to be.
God made you a great basketball player, Kobe. And if you clobbered my Celtics many times, that was probably just in accordance with some divine plan, although I must admit further that in those many times, I secretly wondered if God was not himself a basketball nut (sorry, God) and was playing favorites. Whatever it is, godspeed Kobe. I may have hated you. But I will miss everything you brought into the game.
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