The 7 others who died with Bryant and his daughter
NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF.
Christina Mauser poured her heart and soul into coaching and teaching physical education at the school where young Gianna and her basketball star father Kobe Bryant were an integral part of the community.
The mother of three worked at the campus in Newport Beach for more than a decade and helped lead its eighth-grade basketball team to its first championship, Harbor Day School said in a statement.
Bouquets were laid at the entrance to the campus Monday, a day after a helicopter carrying Bryant, his 13-yearold daughter, Mauser, and six others to a youth basketball tournament crashed. Everyone aboard perished.
“This loss is indescribable,” the school said in the statement, describing Gianna as someone who never left anyone out, was mature beyond her years, and had an unmatched work ethic, “as is the loss of her father who was a respected and active member of the school community.”
Harbor Day is a private school in the idyllic seaside community where Bryant lived.
Mauser and her husband, Matt, taught and coached basketball at the school, which is how they met Bryant, Matt Mauser told NBC’s “Today“show.
She had a keen mind for defense, he said, and Bryant brought her on to help coach that skill at his Mamba Academy training facility where Gianna’s club team played.
“They called her the mother of defense: MOD,” he said.
“She was just an amazing person: beautiful, smart, funny,” Mauser said. “He didn’t pick her because she was a slouch. He picked her because she was amazing.”
At the school, some students arrived Monday wearing purple and gold, the colors of Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers.
Maria Paun, 81, stopped by to lay flowers at the campus where she said she remembered waiting to pick up her granddaughter more than a decade ago while Bryant waited for the eldest of his four daughters.
“He said, ‘I like your accent, Grandma,’ ” she recalled through tears. “He was somebody. And I am a nobody. But he bent down to give me a hug.”
The pilot of the helicopter was identified as Ara Zobayan. Peter and Claudia Lowry, owners of Group 3 Aviation in Los Angeles, said he previously worked there.
In a Facebook post, the couple said Zobayan came to their company in 1998 to learn to fly after taking a sightseeing flight at the Grand Canyon and deciding he wanted to become a pilot.
“Ara worked hard in other businesses to save enough money to pay for training,” they said. “Flying was his life’s passion.”
One of Zobayan’s flight students, Darren Kemp, told The Los Angeles Times that his teacher had been
Bryant’s private pilot: “He doesn’t let anyone else fly him around but Ara.”
Also among the victims of Sunday’s crash were Payton Chester, a 13-year-old member of Gianna’s basketball team, and her mother, Sarah, Payton’s grandmother, Catherine George, told KNBC-4 in Los Angeles.
“We’re just sad, I mean, we’re heartbroken,” Sarah Chester’s brother, Andy George, told the Orange County Register. “It’s starting to settle in a little bit, but I’m still in disbelief.”
Orange Coast College’s longtime baseball coach John Altobelli, his wife, Keri, and their daughter, Alyssa, were also on board, said Tony Altobelli, the coach’s brother. Alyssa also played on Gianna’s team.
Altobelli coached at the college for 28 years, won a state championship last season, and was named National Coach of the Year last year for his division, his brother said.
On Sunday, coaches, friends and former players gathered at the baseball field on the Costa Mesa campus. They swapped memories of Altobelli laying down carpet in the locker room, chiding the umpire during games, dressing as a pirate for Halloween, and providing endless support to his students.
“He treated his team like they were sons of his,” said Jason Kehler, the school’s athletic director.
Nate Johnson, associate head coach, looked around the field and said none of it would have been possible without the man known as “Alto.” Flowers were laid at home plate.
“This whole thing — I joke, it’s the house that Alto built, because he built it all,” he said.