This Week's Story
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Kobe continues trailblazing with his legendary work ethic, skills, and hunger for wisdom.
This Week’s Story relives American history and the Bible through brief inspiring stories presented on mp3 audio recordings and text for reading.
A lightning rod for change!
part four
“Kobe, Kobe, Kobe, Kobe!” The roar grew as the audience chanted and clapped thunderously as Kobe stepped onto the floor of the basketball court at the Los Angeles Staples Center. April 13, 2016! This night marked Kobe’s final National Basketball Association game with the Lakers, his retirement from twenty years of playing with the Lakers. This team he had championed and dreamed of joining since he was a little boy living in Italy.
The air was filled strongly with excitement, sadness, and appreciation. Some people felt something in it could be touched. Perhaps it was electricity exchanged with Kobe. The Utah Jazz team and U.S. fans knew that Kobe had brought a phenomenal energy, skill, and dedication to NBA games across the nation, and to two Olympic competitions. Kobe was on TEAM USA for 2008 Bejing and for 2012 London Olympics. In both, TEAM USA earned gold in men’s basketball.
Months earlier Kobe had announced his retirement by writing a poem entitled “Dear Basketball.” It was published in The Players’ Tribune by Minute Media. The poem brilliantly captured Kobe’s relationship with basketball.
Kobe was moving into new paths. Not for him was retirement a slack time of wondering what to do. He was ready for mentoring, many modes of story-telling, and helping to create opportunities for women in basketball. He had met weaknesses and temptations that can derail the rich and famous. He had learned by success and failure. His life was not going to be ego-driven.
He was asked, “What did you learn from your experience?”
Kobe replied, “God is great.”
“Is it that simple?”
“God is great. It gets no simpler than that.”
“Did you know that before your experience?”
“Almost everybody knows it. You can know it all you want, but until you pick up that cross that you can’t carry, then He picks it up for you. He carries you and the cross. Then you know!
“Let the situation go. It is what it is. Put it into God’s hand. He’ll carry it.”
The interview ended.
Kobe could speak straight. Teammates learned that his words had intent. Trash talk might have garbage slang, but it was with intent, purposeful. It there weren’t words, then Kobe showed what he meant by what he did. The Black Mamba might have an elbow in you, but he also increasingly might have some powerful advice for you. He learned. He grew. He was about much more than destruction for a win. He was team and keenly aware of how people around him could improve. One of his famous quotes was, “The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great at whatever they want to do.” Another often repeated quote of his was, “Once you know what failure feels like, determination chases success.”
Kobe was a lightning rod for change in his life and increasingly the lives of people nationally and internationally. In 2020 his life and his daughter Gianna’s ended in a helicopter accident. The influence of his life continues.
This is Barbara Steiner with Todd Warren, Carlos Gamez, Gwen Crawford, and Nathan Thomas.
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