Reconciling Kobe’s legacy
This is not the first column I expected to write; however, I do expect it to be the most difficult.
After learning of Kobe Bryant’s passing Sunday, I felt consumed — consumed by shock, consumed by sadness, consumed by a deep sense of loss. Kobe was an idol of mine as a child. I grew up watching Lakers games throughout elementary and middle school and could probably still find his jersey buried somewhere in my closet at home, the first jersey my father ever bought for me.
However, the rush of all these emotions was accompanied by something almost just as painful: a consuming sense of conflict and confusion as I tried to reconcile Kobe’s near God-like standing in my childhood with his complicated off-the-court legacy.
As nearly every news outlet has described, Kobe was many things: an 18-time NBA All-Star, league MVP and five-time NBA champion. Kobe was also a role model with a work ethic and tenacity so legendary that they served as an inspiration not only for basketball but also life.
Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke expressed these same sentiments following Kobe’s death.
“On your best days, the days you landed a big account or aced a big test or just survived a battle with traffic, you felt like Kobe,” Plaschke wrote. “You were Kobe.”
Countless others have written and spoken about Kobe’s life in some form or another since his untimely death. Bill Simmons, famed sports columnist and host of the B.S. podcast, called the day the saddest in NBA history. Jimmy Kimmel, host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” described Kobe as “a hero in the way Superman is a hero” before choking back tears later in his monologue.
From celebrities to former presidents, it felt as if the entire world stopped on Sunday to remember and pay tribute to the man that was Kobe Bryant.
I do not blame them.
By all accounts, Kobe appears to have been a curious, hard-working man who sincerely loved his family and was deeply devoted to his daughters — a man whom, in many aspects of his life, we should all aspire to resemble.
Unfortunately, the tributes, stats and stories do not tell the full story of Kobe’s legacy. Along with all of the accolades, points scored and records broken, a dark chapter of Kobe’s career has been glossed over and cast aside as “off-the-court stuff” in the wake of his death.
However, the aforementioned chapter of Kobe’s life was far more than just an incident. It was when a 19-year-old girl accused then 24-year-old Bryant of rape in 2003.
According to the accuser, who was then a desk clerk at a hotel in Colorado, she was giving Kobe a tour of the hotel when Kobe began to grope and kiss her. The details of what allegedly happened next are disturbing and include the allegation that Bryant raped the young women over her repeated cries for him to stop.
According to the police transcript of an interview conducted with the woman the next day, she knew Bryant could hear her because “every time I said no he tightened his hold around me.”
When police questioned Kobe, he denied having sex with the woman three times before learning they’d taken semen and blood evidence. He then admitted to having sexual intercourse with the accuser but argued that it was consensual.
Kobe was charged with felony assault. Over the course of his 14-month criminal proceedings, Kobe’s defense team, along with much of the media, emphasized his accuser’s promiscuity, her struggles with depression and her enthusiasm to meet the basketball legend. The case ended when the young woman stopped cooperating after her name was revealed to the media three times. In the post-#MeToo era, it is not difficult to surmise why she may have asked prosecutors to drop her case.
I confess I do not know exactly what to do with this information. In the days since Kobe’s death I have alternated between feeling empty at the sudden loss of a childhood hero to feeling enraged at the prospect that on at least one night, he might’ve been a monster.
I also admit that I am somewhat fearful about writing this column. I am fearful that I may be inappropriately besmirching a man’s memory only days after his death and the death of his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna. I am fearful that I might be more concerned with protecting a powerful man’s name than acknowledging the indescribable pain of a potential rape survivor.
However, in light of all this, I do not believe it is either controversial or heroic to merely recommend that, as we discuss and reconstruct Kobe’s legacy over the upcoming days, months and years, we consider the worst elements of his legacy along with the best.
It is easy to claim you believe women, that you are attuned and enlightened to the social sensitivities of our time or that you have no tolerance for sexual misconduct. It becomes more difficult when the man at the center of said misconduct is Kobe Bryant.
The #MeToo movement challenged many people’s conscious and subconscious attitudes toward women and victims of sexual harassment and violence. Since its start, countless men who previously escaped consequences have faced justice.
If we have learned anything from the national reckoning that was that movement, and if we hope to live by its highest virtues, we must remember Kobe’s legacy in its entirety.
Stuart Carson is a junior writing about the intersection of sports, politics and American society. He is also a sports editor at the Daily Trojan. His column, “The State of Play,” runs every other Wednesday.