Member-only story
The Insensitivity of Tearing Down Kobe Before the Smoke Has Cleared
I didn’t watch Kobe Bryant play basketball; the sport is just not on my radar. I’ve never seen a full game in all my 70 years, although I do know the big names from my past and a few from the present. My closest association with the game was when I narrated an audiobook of Jack McCallum’s The Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever. But that association hardly entitles me to comment on the rigors of the game, the work it takes to become an NBA star, or the vicissitudes of any given athlete’s career. And so, I can’t write a column about Kobe Bryant’s contribution to the sport, or about his life.
What I can write about is human frailty, human corruption, inhumane behavior, falling from grace, quests for vengeance, burning anger, real and false humility, true and faked redemption, and violent death. I can write about these things because I have either fallen prey to one or more of these character traits, or I have seen their effects up close, or I have been intimately associated with people who have. Even so, that is not what this article is about — except for the violent death part.
