The Collapse of Kobe Bryant
by Don Grose
After the Lakers won the game and the dust started settling on sports fans’ oh-so-predictable opinions, after all the repeatable soundbites from players, coaches, and sports analysts on Sports Center, and after spending at least four hours of my life watching all of this, the questions kept coming to me: Is Kobe Bryant going to be this generation’s Lou Gehrig? Muhammad Ali? Jake LaMotta? Is he instantaneously becoming the next punch drunk hero to be wheeled out and deified, memorialized, and argued over for going one too many rounds at his own expense?
As they continued showing Kobe Bryant falling to his knees over and over like his injury was comparable to the Twin Towers (all they needed to do was Photoshop this moment with dust and smoke all around him and have miniaturized people scurrying from beneath his girth), our cultural weirdnesses began to play themselves out. Yes, I study this stuff from both a sports fan’s POV and from the vantage point of the alien descending here scratching his big green head wondering, “Who ARE these strange people?”
Sports Center was particularly interesting in that it split the night’s focus on Kobe Bryant’s injury and Tiger Wood’s “epic” day at Augusta – drawing together two of the most revered and jeered athletes of our time, the egomaniac overachievers who made their rise as precocious wunderkind, both having their sexual misadventures exposed, their lives dissected, and to nevertheless keep on going – although Tiger seemed to fall off the planet for a while though Kobe never did. On this night it seemed like Sport Center’s mission was to show the human side of both men through sympathetic viewpoints of others. Cut to Pau Gasol tearing up about how much he loved and admired Bryant, Dwight Howard – a seven foot “superman” who looked more like a vulnerable little boy who couldn’t look into the camera as he mouthed the words, “It sucks…just when one player gets healthy, another one goes down.” And all the players, coaches, and fans tweeting in saying ad nauseum, “We pray for Bryant” as if he were suddenly put on life support instead of having sustained an ankle injury.
As I continued scratching my large, superior brain and looking around with my unblinking black eyes, I had to harken back to what Gabor Mate, the Canadian physician and addiction specialist, said about Lou Gehrig and others who have contracted ALS. He noted that it’s exactly that kind of personality that contracts the disease most often. Lou Gehrig’s unflinching dedication to the game kept him playing even when his hands could barely hold the bat. Apparently teammates themselves grimaced as they watched Gehrig play through the pain day after day, ultimately setting the record that stood for decades for consecutive games played and earning his moniker as “The Iron Horse.” His departure from the game was of course memorialized by his famous farewell speech at Yankee Stadium, and dramatized by Gary Cooper in “The Pride of the Yankees.”
Please don’t get me wrong, I love sports, I marvel at these athletes, I watch with childlike enthusiasm as the games come down to their nail-biting conclusions. I am and have always been a sports fanatic. I am in no way trying to belittle these men nor their superhuman feats. However, let’s be real, our gushing coverage of celebrities is bizarre and disconcerting. So even though I watched last night’s events with my typical sports fan’s eyes, I also had to take it all in with my typical WTF criticism. I also knew that this game and this image of Kobe Bryant barely able to walk off court was an historical moment. No doubt about it. The fact that my brother-in-law was at the game means that we will talk about this moment for many Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners to come. It reminded me – as I’m sure it did for others my age – of Willis Reed limping onto the court and miraculously playing through injury, of Michael Jordan willing himself through high fevers to astounding heights, but also of Muhammad Ali in the twilight of his career getting pounded by lesser opponents, and of many other athletes who continued to compete long after they should have retired.
My argument is not whether Kobe Bryant should retire, although the speculation on that subject last night was rampant. My contention was shared by others who put the blame on Mike D’Antoni – the Lakers’ coach – for allowing Bryant, at age 34, to play every single minute of every single game and watching his body get run into the ground. Anyone watching last night’s game could witness the collapse long before the final collapse. Bryant’s body started to give way throughout the game. He would come up lame, walk it off, get hit again, walk it off, fall down, and walk it off – until the last last image of him falling and then walking away as if truly crippled. A fan rightly, in my opinion, tweeted “Isn’t it the coach’s job to sometimes save the athlete from himself?” Amen, brother. A coach is supposed to have that kind of wisdom and insight and, quite frankly, the compassion to be more forward thinking than his younger athletes who are caught up in the game emotionally and willing to “leave it all on the court” if not advised not to do so. I don’t think that John Wooden, Phil Jackson, or any other great coach would have allowed what happened last night to happen. Mike D’Antoni is nowhere near that category of being a wise coach, and he’s proven that repeatedly throughout this year. Sadly, his misjudgments and shortsightedness helped produce this moment. But let’s keep this in perspective – Kobe Bryant is not on life support, and his iron horse pride may or may not lead to a tragedy in the way it did for Lou Gehrig or Muhammad Ali. I sure hope not. I’m an avid fan of Bryant’s and have loved watching him throughout the years, and I wouldn’t wish that kind of tragedy on anyone. I hope he does return to the game, play it out, and end his career in a way that befits his unquestionable prowess. I also hope the Lakers fire D’Antoni at the end of the season and send a clear message to all other coaches not to push or allow their players to grind themselves into the ground. That goes for professional and amateur sports alike. The days of Little League coaches and high school football coaches play-acting the part of Vince Lombardi should be long over. These are competitive games, not life or death situations. Sports to me and to so many others are metaphorical challenges to the human spirit, and can curiously draw us into a world of amazement when they exemplify what seems to go beyond physical possibilities. But they are not life and life itself, only a part of it. Kobe Bryant is not dead, ladies and gentlemen, so dry your tears. He will live to play again, I have no doubts, but I emphasize the word “play” in all its serious and childlike connotations. And we are but mere players, and spectators, on a much bigger stage.
Utopian Cow 