The Kobe Factor, and His Never-ending Influence
by Steve McGill
With the NBA season about to start up again, I find myself thinking back on the career of the legendary Kobe Bryant, whose life was cut short in January 2020 when he perished in a helicopter crash in California. Kobe’s death was devastating to many people on a personal level, even if most of us didn’t ever know him personally. Though he was far from a perfect person, he represented something in sports that all athletes strive for — a total dedication to his sport, to mastering his craft. He gave everything he had to the sport of basketball. So we can look at him as someone who serves as an example. Though we can’t aspire to be as talented as him, or to be as decorated as him, we can aspire to dedicate ourselves totally to what we love.
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On the court, Kobe was a “killer,” as rival Allen Iverson always likes to say. Kobe was the black mamba, always ready to strike, to take his opponents’ will away. Post-career Kobe was better known as a “girl dad” who loved his three daughters, including Gianna, who tragically died in the helicopter crash with him. He was also a storyteller and writer, and a mentor to many younger athletes whom he had battled against a few years earlier.
We’ll never know how far he would’ve gone in this new life, as he seemed to transition easily from epic warrior to dad/husband/mentor. About six months after his passing, I had a dream in which Kobe appeared to me. Most of my dreams have very little effect on me, even ones that I remember when I wake up. But I would say there have been about 20-30 dreams I’ve had during my lifetime that served as “whoa” moments, meaning that I felt that some type of message was being delivered to me. The message isn’t always in the form of words, but in the images and the energy. This Kobe dream was one of those dreams, and I continue to feel its influence in my never-ending journey as a hurdler/hurdle coach. Here is the dream as I wrote it down the following morning:
Kobe Bryant Dream June 12, 2020
I’m in a room with several other people and we’re sitting around doing nothing, when I suddenly ask, “Who’s better, prime D Wade (Dwayne Wade of the Miami Heat) or prime Steph Curry (of the Golden State Warriors)? One of the dudes, right after I say “who’s better” but before I say “prime D Wade,” says “Prime D Wade” right as I’m thinking it. To my surprise, nearly everybody among the six or so of us answers that D Wade is better. That part of the dream ends, and I’m in another part of the same place—which seems to be a sports bar type of place—and I’m talking with Kobe Bryant. We’re chatting about whatever for a while, kind of just hanging out. Then I bring up the helicopter accident, and ask him, “Man, I thought you got killed in a helicopter crash. What’s up with that? How are you still here?” And he’s like, “Yeah man, it was close. I ain’t gonna lie. I was shook for a minute.” And I’m relieved to know that he did, in fact, make it out alive, and I don’t inquire any further. Then he’s like, “Hey, ya wanna bowl?” And I realize we’re standing right in front of a bowling lane. The room we’re in seems dark and small at this point. Like a living room in someone’s home. There’s just the one lane. I’m thinking, Sure I’d love to bowl. But then I remember that he’s a hyper-competitive athlete who will probably want to kick my ass just because he can, and I also remember that another hyper-competitive athlete I know—Renaldo Nehemiah—is an outstanding bowler who owns his own ball, scores over 200 on the regular, and knows how to put spin on the ball. I give Kobe a suspicious look, and I’m about to ask him if he puts spin on the ball, and, just like with the dude earlier, it’s like he can read my mind. Before I even get the question out he says, “Don’t worry, I don’t put spin on the ball.” So we’re about to start playing when this dude walks in, apparently the owner of the place, and he’s like, “Guys, I’m about to close up. I gotta hoop game in half an hour. I’m in a rec league. So I’m kicking everybody out, but you two can stay and finish up your game. Just lock the door when you leave.” He’s a middle-aged guy with black hair and flecks of gray. He’s very pleasant, and does a jumpshot motion when mentioning the rec league. We thank him profusely, wondering why he’s letting us stay, and that’s where the dream ends.
This dream feels like a visitation. At the time when I had the dream, I had just recently finished reading Phil Jackson’s book, The Last Season, in which Kobe came off as very much a selfish a**hole who was disrespectful to basically everybody. In the book, Jackson talks about Kobe’s rape trial and instability it caused the team, and how Kobe complained about the team not giving him a private plane to travel back and forth from the trial. After reading the book, I had been thinking a lot about the contrast between the Kobe in the book vs. the Kobe who says such deep stuff in interviews about mindfulness and how failure doesn’t exist, as well as the Kobe who was a self-proclaimed “girl dad.” But the thing that makes me feel like this dream was a visitation as well is the fact that the Kobe in the dream was neither the belligerent a**hole, nor the deep thinker, nor the girl dad. He was just a guy. At peace with everything, ego-free, emotion-free. I felt like I was seeing him as he really was, experiencing his presence as it actually is, unfiltered by all the stuff that comes with being a human being in a physical body on this earth.
When I think back on this dream now, almost four years later, I find myself thinking that the Kobe I saw in my dream was the purest version of him, and that all of us have a purest version of ourselves beneath all the identities we have thrust upon us in this life. For me, the hurdles are a path to walk so that I can discover that purest self, just as, for Kobe, basketball was the path. Just as Phil Jackson once said, there’s much more to basketball than basketball. And there’s much more to the hurdles than hurdling.
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