Philly shaken by loss of hometown hero Bryant
PHILADELPHIA >> Along Interstate 95, heading into the city, there’s an electronic billboard bearing a tribute to Kobe Bryant: LEGEND. 1978-2020.
Houses on the banks of the Delaware River as well as the skyscrapers downtown are trimmed with purple lights — a nod to Bryant’s 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers. From the roof of Larry’s Steaks, Bryant’s favorite cheesesteak spot, hangs a banner: “Goodbye Kobe, Gianna Bryant. You will forever be missed.”
Tuesday, on the steps outside of Lower Merion High School, where Bryant played in the mid-1990s, sat Don Orji. His hand trembled and his pen hovered over a card he would add to the memorial at the school.
Orji grew up here, How could he put into words what Bryant meant to him?
As the world tries to reconcile that Bryant is gone, dead at 41, in a helicopter crash that claimed eight others, including his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, a community mourns where the basketball legend began. Bryant Gymnasium, the athletic center he funded for the school that was dedicated in 2010, is now the site of a memorial to which Orji and others have come to pay their respects.
Bryant’s formative years were spent in Italy, and he found celebrity by winning five championships in Los Angeles. But it was at Lower Merion that his basketball career began. At 39, Orji would have been in junior high when Bryant started high school.
“If you were a basketball fan, you started hearing things about this local kid in the area,” Orji said. “So yeah, we knew about him.”
In 1996, Bryant led the Lower Merion Aces to the Pennsylvania state championship for the first time in 53 years. Months later, he was in the NBA, the 13th pick in the draft at 17 years old.
Tuesday, the Warriors and 76ers played the first NBA game in Bryant’s hometown since his death. It began with a video of his final visit here as a player — Dec. 1, 2015 — the final time he would be introduced to his hometown crowd.
His jersey from Lower Merion, No. 33, was proudly displayed at center court. There was 33 seconds of silence.
At Bryant Gymnasium, a No. 33 jersey is stuffed into a collection of inscribed basketballs, purple flowers and worn sneakers. On one pair is written, “Legends never die … Mamba forever.” A card reads, “You’ve inspired millions like me to commit every second to excellence.” A basketball carries these handwritten words: “You were a legend to us growing up in the area.”
Bryant took pride in his blue-collar, Pennsylvania roots even after becoming a global icon. Ronald Jennings, 68, used to live near the school but now he lives in Westchester, New York. He took a two-hour bus ride to be here.