From Rieti to Reggio Emilia: this is how the Kobe myth was born

Two years after Kobe Bryant’s death. Two years after a sudden and ferocious news, which shocked the world, not just sports. Our memory today is not about his NBA prowess, rather his years of growth in Italy. Personal and basketball. The opportunity, and the testimonies of those memories, is offered by Mike Sielski’s book, The Rise. The rise of Kobe. In search of immortality, basketball, but not only. The chapter that interests us most is the fourth, make a note of it. The years in the beautiful country, so valued and appreciated at the time by the Bryant family. Joe, the father, having closed his NBA career – discreet, but unsatisfactory for dreams of glory and undoubted talent -, was able to build a second life in basketball in Europe. Taking with him his wife Pamela and three children: that promising boy and his sisters Sharia and Shaya. Kobe was 6 years old then.

Tour of Italy

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The prelude to the chapter is significant, in retrospect. Kobe’s words echo as a tribute: “Growing up in Italy I learned to play basketball the right way, I was taught the fundamentals. I will always be grateful to my first coaches for those lessons.” Dad Joe in the NBA had been a soloist forced to play a wingman role. Reluctantly, with regret. From 1984 to 1991 in Italy, first in the A-2 championship, in Rieti, Reggio Calabria and Pistoia, and then in the A-1 in Reggio Emilia, he was offered the opportunity to shine like a star. He didn’t let it slip away, enjoying it. How Kobe was able to enjoy Italy. The ice cream in the square and the videos of the Lakers from the showtime to watch and re-watch: Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar to idolize. In Rieti, first stop, the garden with the basket to target. Initially the American school in Rome, then the public one, elementary school, comfortable, in the Lazio town. “People here greet you on the street. Treat others as their equals. Family is important here.” Like having a father finally present with whom to study basketball together. To emulate. Going from an NBA calendar, with continuous travel, to one game a week, from a championship cadence in Italy, made Joe “Jellybean” a “family man”, suddenly.

Predestined

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Joe’s grandmother predicted it: a family descendant would change the fortunes of all the Bryants for the better. Kobe’s father wondered, looking at the child Kobe, if maybe it could be him … Meanwhile he was growing up with broader horizons than his American peers: “Thanks to this experience my children look at people as human beings, they are not trapped in stereotypes. of race or religion “. Kobe was passionate about football. But it was on the basketball court that he was rubbing his eyes. Too much too. His coaches were forced to put him on the bench because he dominated by mortifying opponents and teammates. He never passed, like his father …

The friend and the turning point

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Kobe had befriended Tamika Catching, the daughter of a friend and colleague of Joe’s. “We grew up thinking that anything was possible.” It was, for them. They were both inducted into the Hall of Fame on the same night, May 15, 2021. How many possibilities could there be, then? And yet… In Pistoia Kobe performed in the interval of matches. In front of everyone, the spectators did not frighten him. He copied the movements of the “grown-ups” and reinterpreted them in his own way. They had to drag him out to start the second half. In the summer, the Bryants returned to America. In Philadelphia. Where Kobe in 1992, at the age of 14, tasted the caliber and hardness of the Sonny Hill League. He spoke fluent Italian, but not a word of US “slang”. And he played with James Worthy goggles. Discounted target for local kids. In 25 games, playing against teenagers a couple of years older than him, he was unable to score a single basket. “It was a turning point for me.” Others of his age would have been discouraged, perhaps they would have chosen football. Kobe, on the other hand, to improve he started studying Michael Jordan …