‘Devoted to winning’: World mourns NBA legend
LOSANGELES: BASKETBALL legend Kobe Bryant’s death in a helicopter crash along with his teenage daughter sparked an outpouring of grief across the world on Monday.
Bryant, 41, was travelling on Sunday with his 13-yearold daughter Gianna and seven other passengers and crew when their helicopter slammed into a rugged hillside in thick fog in Calabasas, west of Los Angeles. There were no survivors.
A five-time NBA champion and two-time Olympic gold medallist, Bryant is widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players in history.
He was an iconic figure who became one of the faces of his sport during a glittering twodecade career with the Los Angeles Lakers.
All-time basketball great Michael Jordan said Bryant was “like a little brother” to him. “Words can’t describe the pain I’m feeling,” he said.
“We used to talk often and I will miss those conversations very much.” Dozens of firefighters and paramedics battled across hilly terrain to reach the flaming wreckage of the Sikorsky S-76 but found no survivors, officials said.
The National Transportation Safety Board said an 18-strong team of investigators would be sent to California
to probe the crash.
WORLDWIDE TRIBUTES
Tributes to Bryant flooded in from former US presidents, pop stars and athletes from different sports, a sign of how the man known as the “Black Mamba” had transcended basketball. “Kobe was a legend on the court,” Barack Obama tweeted.
“Laker Nation, the game of basketball & our city, will never be the same without Kobe,” former Los Angeles Lakers star Magic Johnson tweeted. “For 20 seasons, Kobe showed us what is possible when remarkable talent blends with an absolute devotion to winning. He was one of the most extraordinary players in the history of our game,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said.
LOSANGELES: Tiger Woods was on the course and in contention when news began to spread that his former training partner Kobe Bryant had died.
The mood at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in Southern California Sunday quickly turned sombre according to Rich Lerner, who was commenting for US television.
“Eerily quiet on the grounds of Torrey Pines,” he said. “People had their heads down, looking at their cellphones trying to come to grips with the terrible reality.
“This place was absolutely shaken.” Yet caddy Joey Lacava managed to keep the news from Tiger Woods, who knew Bryant and whose career for a long time ran parallel with the Laker great.
“I was trying to win the golf tournament,” Woods said immediately after the round.
“Joey realised that I was locked in on that and didn’t want to distract me with that type of news.”
DO IT FOR MAMBA
“People were yelling, ‘Do it for Mamba.’ Now I understand,” Woods said, referring to Bryant’s nickname.
“People yell things all the time, so I was just plodding along, doing my own thing. I grew up a diehard Laker fan. He was part of the most historic franchise in the NBA. Ultimate toughness. Ultimate competitor.” Before relocating to Florida, Woods lived not far from Bryant just outside Los Angeles.
“I had a house in Newport (Beach). We’d work out together and hang a little bit but when I sold that house I didn’t really see him that often every now and again he’d reach out and I’d reach out to him.
“I was always getting up early, he’d get up early and we’d work out. He missed being competitive,” said Woods, speaking to media “eight or nine minutes” after learning the news.
‘WE WERE CONNECTED’
“We really connected on the mental side the prep how much it takes to be prepared. I don’t have to react like he does in my sport. We can take our time, but you still have to pay attention to the details—that’s what he did probably better than any other player in NBA history.
“He paid attention to details, to those little things.
“That’s where he and I really connected. We’re very similar.” Woods, who is 44, turned professional in August 1996. Bryant, who was 41, was drafted June that year in by the Charlotte before being traded to the Lakers and made his NBA debut in November that year.
“He came in the league and I turned pro more or less the same time. We had our 20-year run together. It’s unbelievable, the reality that he’s no longer here,” said Woods.