Chester’s Linehan reflects on Kobe, the friend and adversary
Chester great John Linehan was in the middle of practice Sunday afternoon at the University of Georgia, where he is a first-year assistant coach, when he was approached by one of the team’s managers.
“Did you hear?,” the manager asked Linehan. “Kobe Bryant just died.”
The news stopped Linehan in his tracks.
“‘What?’” Linehan recalled saying when reached by phone late Sunday night. “‘What are you talking about?’”
The manager repeated the information and Linehan immediately went to his office to confirm the awful news that Bryant and is 13-year-old daughter Gianna were among nine people killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, Calif., shortly before 1 p.m. EST.
“I was devastated,” Linehan said. “I was frozen.”
Linehan left the facility and went to a nearby church to pray for his friend, former adversary and AAU teammate.
“I thought that was the best thing I could do for him and his family,” Linehan said.
As difficult as it was for Linehan to comprehend that Bryant was gone at the way too young age of 41, the fact that Bryant’s oldest daughter was also among the victims was especially devastating for Linehan.
“That’s what makes it even harder,” Linehan said. “Obviously, Kobe’s Kobe, he had a great life and was an inspiration to us all and touched so many of us. But any time you lose a child it hits a different note. I have a son (Jaylen, 11) and I immediately thought of him when I saw she was aboard the helicopter. It’s just tough.”
Linehan’s life and basketball career is forever linked to Bryant. They were contemporaries in high school, Linehan at Chester and Bryant at Lower Merion. They played three times, with Bryant winning the last two meetings in epic fashion while leading the Aces to the 1996 PIAA Class 4A title.
Bryant, of course, went on to NBA greatness, while Linehan moved on to a successful college and professional career, too. Linehan set the NCAA Division I record for career steals (385), a mark he still holds. The 5-9, 165-pound guard also was a two-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year and the NABC national Defensive Player of the Year as a senior at Providence in 2002.
Linehan parlayed that into an 11-year pro career in the NBA G-League, Canadian Basketball Association and overseas, where he was a threetime French League Best Defender (2006, 2010, 2011), All-KML Defensive Player of the Year in Estonia (2009) and the French League finals MVP in 2011.
But it was as an AAU teammate for two summers that Linehan first got a glimpse of what would become known as the “Mamba mentality” that would make Bryant one of the greatest players in basketball history.
The team, which also featured Coatesville native and NBA All-Star Richard “Rip” Hamilton and was run by Sam Rines, was on the road for a tournament at the University of Maryland. Linehan’s team had played a few games and was scheduled to take on a squad led by Tim Thomas the next day.
Bryant and Linehan were roommates, and Linehan was in for a surprise when he got back to the team’s hotel.
“Its 8:30, 9 o’clock and the lights are out in our room,” Linehan said. “I’m a kid. I want to play games. I want to play video games, hang out and talk to girls and that kind of stuff and he was about business. He knew the matchup he had the next morning. He was just locked in at such an early age. That always stuck out to me how he approached day-by-day the game of basketball and the game of life.
“I knew then, early on, that he was going to be special. He was such a fierce competitor. He was just different. He had a different approach to the game of basketball. The way he carried himself as a human being was just different from us.”
Linehan and Bryant had their personal battles, too. There was the time when they went one-on-one in one of the smaller gyms at Temple’s Pearson and McGonigle Halls.
“It got pretty interesting,” Linehan said. “He hated to lose and I’m a competitor, too.”
So who won?
“We didn’t finish,” Linehan said. “There were a lot of fouls going on.”
That battle, though, left a lasting impression on Bryant. During the 2001 NBA playoffs Bryant was asked who was the toughest defender he had ever faced? Bryant’s reply caught the assembled media off guard.
“You may laugh, but it’s a guy named John Linehan,” Bryant said.
Linehan was “blown away” by the comment and still is.
“You’re talking about one of the best players to ever play the game and at the time he said it he was really getting into his stride as one of the top guys in the NBA,” Linehan said. “For him to say that, it had me smiling from ear-to-ear. That quote there has stayed with me throughout my career. Guys in France and Russia would come up to me and say, ‘Did Kobe Bryant really say that about you?’ This was 10 years later. That’s the impact that he had around the world and for him to say that I was the toughest player to play against him is an extreme honor.”
The ties, though, run much deeper than being contemporaries, adversaries and AAU teammates. Bryant’s father, former 76er Joe “Jelly Bean” Bryant, was Linehan’s first professional agent. Linehan and Bryant stayed in touch over the years, most recently through social media. Sunday, though, was a time for reflection.
“Somebody just posted a video of the 1996 game when we played them at the Palestra (in the state semifinals),” Linehan said. “I’m just sitting here watching it and thinking about him. Besides Michael Jordan, Kobe was probably the most famous basketball player ever. His impact on the world was Michael Jackson-like.”