Kobe Bryant, the American basketball star, who played his entire career as a shooting guard for the Los Angeles Lakers, has a connection with the Italy that many people don't know, and that comes from their childhood.
The story was told in an article published by the newspaper New York Post in January this year. The text, signed by journalist Gavin Newshaw, describes how the fact that Kobe Bryant lived in Italy for seven years as a child helped him become a big NBA star.
It all started in 1984, when his father, Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, a former winger for teams such as the Philadelphia 76ers, San Diego Clippers and Houston Rockets, accepted an invitation to play for the Sebastiani Rieti, team based in the city of Rieti, at the top of the hill, about 80 kilometers away from Rome.
So, after eight years playing in the NBA, Joe went to Italy with his family to live in a chalet with a garden and a BMW in the garage, gifts from the Italian team. In the backyard, there was a basketball hoop, so young Kobe could start shooting his balls. first steps in sport.
Culture shock
The move came as a shock to young Kobe, who was 6 years old and left his home in Houston, Texas, along with his mother, Pam, and his older sisters, Sharia and Shaya.
“The first time we turned on the TV, there was an Italian cartoon. They had the same cartoon in America. It was exactly the same cartoon, but it only had Italian words. It was weird, man. We were traveling,” she said.
However, those early days in Italy helped forge his future as a superstar, as Mike Sielski describes in the book “The Rise – Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality”, released in the United States in January.
Sielski's interviews with more than 100 people who knew Kobe, as well as transcripts of old interviews with Kobe Bryant, some recorded when he was a teenager, reveal “the essence of the man before he actually became a man,” according to the book's author.
Kobe Bryant, a smart boy
On Sundays, Kobe Bryant watched his father play for his new Italian team, often helping to wipe sweat off the court during breaks. A smart boy, he signed his first sponsorship deal with the owner of Joe's second club in Italy, the Olympia Pistoia, to wear a sweatshirt with his company's brand when cleaning – as long as they bought him a red bicycle.
In between cleaning the court, he would often grab a basketball and dazzle the crowd with his own “Kobe Show,” leaving the court only when game officials ejected him.
“He imitated what he had just seen, dribbling between his legs, practicing his midrange jumper, throwing a miniature version of Joe from afar. The arena crowd would stand and stare, and that never bothered the kid,” writes Sielski.
Family unit
Enrolled in a new school, Kobe Bryant and his older sisters learned to speak Italian fluently within months of moving. And, as a black family living in Europe, the Bryants were considered “curiosities and celebrities,” Sielski writes. Whenever they traveled to the city, strangers would buy them coffee, according to Kobe.
According to Sielski, the Bryant family also developed deeper bonds, becoming a much stronger unit with their mother, Pam, the true leader of the family.
It was also in Italy that Joe realized the true value of family, says the author, after a past scandal almost destroyed his marriage and career.
In 1976, Joe Bryant was playing for the Sixers when he was caught in a parked car with an old girlfriend, Linda Salter, 21, in the Fairmount Park West area of New York. Philadelphia. When police asked for his license, he sped up and collided with a road sign before crashing into two other cars and a wall. When searching the car, police found two plastic bags, both containing cocaine.
He was charged with resisting arrest, reckless driving and drug possession. He was later acquitted of all charges by the judge, who ruled that the search of the vehicle was illegal. Meanwhile, Pam stayed by Joe's side.
“She was a strong, black, Catholic woman, and the couple stayed together. End of explanation”, writes Sielski.
Revelation
Back in Italy, life was a revelation for Joe. The phase of endless flights and nights spent in hotels far from home was over. Now, he could play once a week and always came home afterwards.
“I became a family man,” he told The New York Times in 1985. “In the United States, I was more of a traveling man.”
Soon Kobe Bryant was recruited to play for his father's club's junior teams, often playing against boys two or three years older. And Joe was usually there to see his son flourish during the seven years they lived in the country.
“He scored the first ten points in his first game. The other nine players started crying and their parents started shouting for them to get this spoiled little guy off the court,” writes Sielski.
Kobe also forged his famous work ethic relentless in Italy. Not only did he go to the gym at 6 a.m. when the rest of his team showed up at 9, he often played injured. On one occasion, with his dominant right hand injured, Kobe caught the ball with his weaker left and still made a three-pointer, says Sielski.
Kobe Bryant and family return
In 1992, Joe Bryant retired from basketball. The family returned to the United States when Kobe was 13, and settled in Lower Merion, Montgomery County, Philadelphia.
One of the main reasons for returning to Philadelphia was that Joe didn't want his children to forget how to speak English. But Kobe struggled to readjust. He didn't know any of the new slang the kids were using and he didn't have the cultural references shared on TV or music to help you engage with other teens.
Even the clothes brought from Italy made him the target of teasing. In the photo of the school's baseball team, for example, there are 18 students, all wearing baseball uniforms with gloves on their hands - except one. Standing on the far right is Kobe Bryant, in a warm coat and multicolored sweater over a white shirt buttoned to the top.
Still, the overseas experience shaped Kobe for the better. “Growing up in Italy, I learned to play basketball the right way, learning the fundamentals first,” Kobe would later say.
The star is born
At Lower Merion HS, Kobe led the school's basketball team, the Aces, to their first state championship in 53 years. After that, he had his choice of colleges. But at age 17, he decided to go straight from high school to the NBA, becoming just the sixth player in league history to do so. His parents signed his three year contract and $3,5 million with the Los Angeles Lakers, as he was not yet old enough to sign on his own.
A 20-year career with the Lakers followed, earning him more than $320 million in salary alone. Kobe Bryant won five NBA championships and was an 18-time All-Star (second only to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 19). He was also the first player in NBA history to score at least 30.000 points and make 6.000 assists in his career, and won two Olympic gold medals with the USA Basketball team.
In 2001, at the age of 21, he married vanessa laine, 18, and the couple had four daughters – but his personal life was not without its problems. Although he learned the importance of family from his father, he also found himself embroiled in scandal when, in 2003, he was arrested for sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman. The case was settled out of court. Like Pamela Cox Bryant in 1976, Vanessa Bryant supported her husband.
Tragedy takes life of Kobe Bryant
Then, on January 26, 2020, tragedy struck.
Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others died when their helicopter crashed in Calabasas, California. Kobe was 41 years old and Gianna was just 13. Just as Joe had trained the young Kobe, Kobe was also training the girl, who they called “Gigi.”
When I played in Italy decade 1980, Joe once told a teammate about a prophecy made by his grandmother. She said that “someone would appear who would change the entire structure and direction of the family, who would accomplish great things and allow family members to live new lives,” Sielski writes.
“I know it’s not me,” Joe Bryant said, before pointing to his son. “But it could be him.”
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