Kobe Bryant. A legend. An inspiration, some might even say, died in a horrible helicopter crash. And lets not forget his daughter, Gianna Bryant. I believe that she could have easily made the WNBA and instantly be a star. I idolized Kobe , and when I heard he died in a helicopter crash, I was devastated. I loved the whole idea of Mamba Mentality and gave me the determination to push through almost anything. I don’t think anything gave me as much motivation. Let me tell you the inspiring of what role Kobe played in my life.

I never really liked basketball that much until about when I was 13. Soccer was one of the main sports that I liked up until that age because that was all that my dad talked about. After about the age of 13, my brother started to get into basketball more. He started to watch basketball highlights and that is when I first saw him, dunking over 3 people. I asked my brother who that was because I thought it was amazing. Sure enough, it was Kobe Bryant. I did a bit more research into Kobe because I heard that he is being compared to Michael Jordan. Don’t get me wrong, Jordan is also one of the greatest players to ever touch a basketball. However, I feel that Scottie Pippen had a major effect on his greatness. Kobe, to me, was more unassisted at times.

As I got older, I started to like basketball more and more. The concept to me was so simple, yet so creative at the same time; get the ball into the hoop, with a certain amount of people trying to stop you. You could do almost anything you want with your hands in order to guide that ball in. It also was awesome to me how you could absolutely humiliate someone on the court by dunking over them or crossing them so hard that the they get confused and just fall to the ground. These were things that Kobe Bryant did amazingly well, and so my admiration for him grew.

Fast forward to now. I’m 15 years old and in grade 10. This tragedy happened in the summer after Grade 9, and I never really realized how much I could have learned from Kobe. He wasn’t just a great basketball player, he knew the philosophy that you need to succeed in life. I guess I never realized how much of an impact Kobe could’ve made on my life until he died. (what I’m trying to say is that he became irrelevant in my life.) After he died, I wondered why he was so great and what he did to get there. So I did some digging and found out that Kobe woke up at 5:30 every day he had a game, sneaked into the gym and took 700 to 900 practice shots. He then also did work with his trainer as well. After his last career game against the Utah Jazz-yes the game where he dropped 51 POINTS-he analyzed the tape and figured out what he should’ve done differently. So, I hope that you learned something positive about this and apply this into your life.