The death of U.S. basketball legend Kobe Bryant in a helicopter crash Sunday has reverberated around the globe, with basketball fans worldwide paying tribute to the Los Angeles Lakers star.
University of Manitoba Bisons men’s basketball coach Kirby Schepp told 680 CJOB that the 41-year-old – who was killed in the crash along with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven other people – was a one-of-a-kind athlete.
“I think his impact was felt more in that we saw basketball take off as a global sport. Kobe was at the centre of that,” said Schepp.
“It’s really shocking. Someone so young, and obviously so unexpected… someone who was really a global icon more than he was an athlete in many, many ways.
“Someone in the vein of a Michael Jordan or a Muhammad Ali.”
Schepp said Bryant – a two-time Olympic gold medallist and five-time NBA champion with his name all over the record books – acted as a global ambassador for the sport to countries like China, which now has over 350 million basketball players, as well as a number of European countries and beyond.
“He just had a certain charisma about him. He was certainly a showman… Obviously, he was one of the best players,” he said.
“How many of us, every time we take a crumpled-up piece of garbage and turn and fire it, we say, ‘Kobe’?”
For Schepp, Bryant’s lasting legacy is in his dedication to training.
“He wasn’t without fault, he was certainly known as a selfish player in many ways and as a player who didn’t necessarily play well with others in many cases, but I think that came from being incredibly prepared,” he said.
“So the result becomes that you actually don’t trust anyone else to take the big shot or do it more than yourself because no one’s come close to putting in the work that you put in.”
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