NBA players can ease fears by getting vaccinated
How much influence does one athlete, one Black man, have on other Black men and women? On all of American society? We saw and felt some of that Tuesday on the first anniversary of Kobe Bryant’s death. The television clips, words of tribute, an unspeakable tragedy followed by 12 months of political chaos and pandemic death.
“I’m amazed it has been a year already,” Geno Auriemma said. “Amazed so much has transpired since last January. It doesn’t seem that long ago, does it? Yet given all that’s happened, it seems like forever ago.”
Among the few selected to speak at the memorial for Kobe and his daughter Gianna at Staples Center, Auriemma said he walked into his restaurant in Manchester
the other day. He looked up at the television and sure enough, there was a string of Kobe highlights.
He stood there and watched. The shots. The stares. The Mamba mentality that anything, especially in the most critical moments, was possible.
“It was good to get reminded, really good,” UConn’s Hall of Fame coach said. “And being reminded brings a lot of melancholy. It’s still hard to grip. Hard to fathom. All the noise that has happened this past year, all the incredible Hall of Famers that have died. Death has been a big part of this year. But his death? That’s a hard one to reconcile.”
Death is never easy to reconcile. And as Auriemma said, so many great athletes died over the last 12 months. From Tom Seaver to Tom Heinsohn, from Whitey Ford to Floyd Little, athletic heroes who meant so much to us. Kobe was so damn young.
None were perfect, al