Dearica Hamby always smiles at the memory of Kobe Bryant sitting on the field in the WNBA matches.
She had met him years ago. He came to see his old team, Las Vegas Aces, play all the time.
“I think one of the first things he told me was that I could play in defense,” recalls Hamby. “And I said to myself ‘what?’ … This is something that I will cherish forever.
This embodies the relationship of the late NBA player with women’s football. After the end of his 20-year player career, Bryant turned to the next generation, supervising some of the biggest female basketball stars, the WNBA champion and Olympic gold medal Diana Taurasi Star of Oregon Sabrina Ionescu.
He worked with them, analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of their game and pushed them to reach the same peaks of popularity as he and his peers of the NBA.
For Hamby, now with the Sparks of Los Angeles, Bryant saw an aspect of her game that she did not even know.
“If Kobe tells you that you can play in defense, you can play in defense,” she joked.
Five years after Bryant, his daughter Gianna, 13, and seven other people were killed in a helicopter accident In Calabasas, California, several basketball players thought about what he represented for their game and the way he defended him. Many of them thought that Bryant would be satisfied with the overall progress of female sport, which has has skyrocketed in terms of popularity and scope in recent years.
This growth was particularly important in the women’s basketball arenas that Bryant and Gianna loved so much.
The WNBA had its most watched regular season last season last season in 24 years and its best attendance in 22 seasons. Some of the most popular players in the League are currently competing in a new Ligue 3 against 3 In southern Florida, called Unrivaled, founded by the Olympic gold medalists Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart.
“We are continuing this for him,” said Sutou Sabally, a Dallas Wings striker from the WNBA who plays for the Phantom team in Unrivaled. “He would be so proud of this league. He would be proud of “Phe and Stewie”. I know that he looks down and I hope he smiles and he is proud of us.
Sabally said that she was still moved when she thought to date on January 26, 2020. This reminds her of her days of play in Oregon, when she, Ionescu and their Ducks teammates connected around Bryant.
“I think of the way we have all linked ourselves to Kobe and the way we got into the rest of our lives because he had so much impact,” added Sabally. “He was really a person who considered women as the talents we are. He came to the matches, he was very frankly and he really supported us. “
The shock of the death of the superstar has resonated in the world of sport and entertainment, many being those who have turned to social networks to publish moving tributes in Bryant while expressing their disbelief.
People were taped to their phones and television screens while the news of the accident spread. NBA players were in tears before the matches of that day.
“I still remember exactly where I was every time we learned the news,” Kate Martin of the Golden State Valkyries told Laces BC in Unrivaled, “and no one really knew if it was False or real.
Martin never met Bryant, but said that she cherished his mentality – he had relentless competitiveness – and the way he raised female sport.
Bryant got strongly involved in the journey of his daughters and led to the Gianna youth team. He often attended women’s basketball matches, notably academics, with Gianna, fascinated by Uconn Huskies. Gianna was about to perpetuate Bryant’s heritage on the ground. The plan was that it frequents Connecticut, and the WNBA would surely be the next one.
Bryant was passionate about female sport, even if some thought that he should not have been involved in women at all due to an accusation made in 2003 accusing him of having sexually assaulted an employee of 19 years in a Colorado hotel complex.
Bryant said the two men had consensual sexual relations, and the charges were finally abandoned when the woman refused to testify to the trial. The woman then brought a civil action against Bryant who was settled amicably.
There is an image that still circulates in the world of sport today: Kobe and Gianna sitting by the field in a 2019 match featuring his Los Angeles Lakers. He wore a bright orange sweater with a white WNBA logo on the front. Gianna was sitting alongside her, radiant.
“I think many people have started to follow Kobe because he recognized our donation and our talent and how special,” said Teresa Weathrspoon, former chicago Sky chicago coach and current vinyl vinyl coach BC of Unrivaled. “And her daughter was there too.”
This is what Bryant became: a face of the defense of female sports.
“We are missing a lot,” said Martin. “But now, his heritage will live forever.”
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