With people in sports it’s even more difficult IMO because they’re so young and vital and we see them more frequently than actors. And basketball players more than others because one player has a much greater influence on the game. It’s also a bit different than other sports in that the game is fairly young, so it’s only been in the last 10-15 years where we’ve started to lose legends. The game doesn’t have legends who have been dead 60 years. When the 50th anniversary team was announced, we were only missing Maravich. As late as 2013, 45 of the 50 were still around. Something like this hasn’t really hit pro basketball before. Maravich was a bit similar, but not as high profile. Chamberlain was a shock, but he was already 63. Stokes was a pretty high profile guy in the middle of his career, but he wasn’t at the top of the mountain. The closest thing was probably the Magic Johnson HIV announcement and retirement. That felt like a retirement and funeral service at the same time because that’s what HIV meant c. his announcement.
Apparently he'd been taking helicopters around for years, pretty sensible way to beat LA traffic. Until something like this happens....
Same here, and I stopped watching basketball well before the Kobe era started. But I was tuned into him from the beginning of his career because my younger brother stayed a huge Lakers fan and loved him. And then I became more aware of him later when I found out he'd grown up in Italy and was a huge soccer fan and had apparently been an excellent player. One of the cases where "but our best athletes choose other sports" was actually true.
He could be a little bitch, no doubt. lmao... In any case, his bitchness was on full display when he was arrested for said assault and promptly put Shaq's extramarital business in the street. Yep, I grew up watching the Showtime Lakers myself, from a distance.
There's a lot of that into Manhattan as well. My wife and I stayed at a hotel on the river in Jersey City a couple years ago (not at our expense) and it looked like ********ing Apocalypse Now from around 7:00 to 9:00 or 9:30.
I fantasize about riding a helicopter every day on my way to work. Until something like this happens...
The consensus among veterans is that if you have to ride helicopters by the time you get out of the service the last thing you want to do is ride in one. My first experience was pretty awesome, every ride there after was white knuckle. I’d rather munch an edible and sit in traffic for two hours listening to jazz. YMMV
Ibex, you need to step back. As a teacher in an Urban area, I have more than 10 former students whom I personally worked closely with and mentored who died, most murder/homicide. I'm very in touch with the emotional investment of people only to be knocked up side my head. Also, don't give me the time and place crap and try and bring in the others who died in the crash as a rebuke to my criticism of Kobe. I spoke of Kobe, only. Kobe was a flawed individual, and as others have also pointed out. Nobody doubts how great of a player he is, and as for myself, I was opining as one who also grew up in LA but did not have the same connection. You connected to Kobe, that's fine and I don't have an issue with that. I'm pointing out that a fellow LA person has a different perspective. Additionally I have other thoughts which you would not like, but I'm keeping them to myself as they will muddle this conversation.
When is the proper time to examine the individual as a whole? We can all look at the untimely death of a sports/music/acting superstar as being a time to both mourn and to look at what that person did in their life outside of their reason for celebrity. Everyone is flawed, but our flaws aren't on display.
Good question. The Washington Post suspended a reporter for publishing accurate statements about Kobe Bryant's rape trial, shortly after Kobe died. I don't think that the Post should have done that, although I also think that the reporter showed poor judgement. But others will have different views.
Poor judgement from a politically correct viewpoint. Perhaps that reporter has been the victim of abuse and was reacting to the collective ignoring of Kobe's history? I don't know much about Kobe other than his successes on the court and the incident in 2003. From all reports his wife forgave him and he looked to be an good father to his kids, but reading the reports of the rape allegation makes it hard to justify ignoring what he did. https://www.yahoo.com/sports/why-kobe-bryant-was-a-different-breed-of-superstar-020225143.html
I took a helicopter tour over Kuaui when I was a teenager and it was fun as hell. And I'm glad that's where I left that experience.
We were down in West Baden/French Lick about a year ago and stopped in to a restaurant run by on of Bird’s friends called 33 Brick Street. Food was just okay, but the place is Larry’s trophy really room. MVP trophies, all-star trophies, three point shoot out awards, game balls, college player of the year trophies, the whole bit. The owner went behind the bar and tossed a giant warmup on both of my kids. It looked like a giant “get along” shirt or a Snuggie on them. They proceeded to walk around the bar with the thing draped on the two of them. It was the Dream Team jacket Bird wore on the podium in his last official act as a player in 92. Super cool, but I was nervous as hell they were going to get in a fight and tear it or find some way to have us banned for life. Better all around player for sure, but not the more impactful or greater player. My in-laws tried to get me to do the same excursion when we were there in 2006 or so. I believe my words were, “Hell no.” If it was TC’s helicopter from Magnum PI I might hafta think about it for a second though.
We stayed at house in Ste. Catherines Ontario this summer, and someone had recommended a local diner for breakfast. It had a hockey theme, with each table and all the coffee mugs having a different NHL team logo. There were a lot of pictures, but I noticed that a lot of them were of Marcel Dionne. It turns out he owns the place and I asked the waitress, she pointed him out and asked if I wanted to meet him. So he was one of my favorite players and I did have a pic of him on my wall as a kid, but I felt a little funny, so I declined. Later, my daughter told me I should have taken a picture with him and posted it on Facebook. The caption would have been that between the two of us, we scored 731 goals in the NHL. OK, technically he scored all of them, but who's really counting?