Kobe Bryant’s legacy will not just be measured by the accolades he won, it will be measured by the lives he touched, and the people he inspired. The Black Mamba’s desire to develop youth basketball was infectious, and his former teammate, Caron Butler is keeping the legend’s legacy alive through his words.
Butler appeared on the Locked On Heat podcast to discuss his new book, CLUTCHTIME. It’s the second children’s book written by the Miami Heat assistant coach, and likely not the last. After all, he has a promise to keep.
“My last dinner that I had with Kobe Bryant, we made a promise to each other that we was gonna create a basketball universe of just, literacy. And he was already doing that, and I was inspired by that,” Caron Butler admitted.
Bryant believed in the transformative power of basketball and decided to get that message through writing. His retirement poem, ‘Dear Basketball’, provided the first glimpse of the five-time champion’s story-telling chops.
Two years after retiring, Kobe built on it with his first book, ‘The Mamba Mentality’. And over the next 24 months, he would follow it up with ten more publications. Notably, most of these were children’s books, including seven stories from ‘The Wizenard Series’.
The series followed a team of five young hoopers from a poor neighborhood and their new coach, who helps the children improve as players and people. It symbolizes what Bryant wanted to achieve with basketball literacy; teaching the youth how passion and commitment can change their lives.
Bryant’s writing also achieved a side quest by inspiring Butler to work on his own children’s book, SHOT CLOCK. “I was inspired to go down that path and just do it. I have to tell these stories…It was the best thing I ever done,” the 2011 NBA champion added.
There’s a reason why books became the medium that Bryant and Butler chose to pursue. It speaks to the very ethos of their lives.
Kobe’s reason for championing literacy
During the podcast, Butler touched on how he had often heard that children of color often don’t like reading. Though he believed the problem was not with them, but with the materials they were provided.
Bryant previously shared how publishers focus on “the same type of plots, same looking characters” because of their market-oriented nature. This leads to libraries full of books reflecting only a specific experience of life, one that not all children can relate to.
The drive Bryant had for furthering literacy came from a heart-warming place at the end of the day. “We write stories that come from the heart. And our characters are going to look like my daughters because my daughters don’t have characters out there that look like them,” the Black Mamba revealed.
Thanks to his passion and work ethic, Bryant’s pursuit of literacy lives on in his books and in his peers, who strive to fulfill the promises they made. And hopefully, it will lead to a world filled with books and stories that his daughters and others can relate to.
