There are certain terrible moments that leave an indelible mark on the world. They’re the kinds of moments where you remember exactly where you were, who you were with, and what you were doing. For instance, the tragic death of Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gigi, and everybody aboard their ill-fated helicopter on January 26, 2020 had everybody reeling.
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It seems everybody in the basketball world has at least a few Kobe stories, because he was such a legendary figure who was nonetheless so generous with his time. Kobe left the kind of lasting impact that went well beyond the basketball court.
For Nancy Lieberman, herself a basketball icon, the story of Kobe’s death is an especially personal one. On the Big3 3s and Ones podcast that premiered yesterday, she explained why.
As Lieberman told Michael Beasley and Chris Haynes, she had been going back and forth with Kobe for a long time about coaching his daughter Gigi’s team. Busy schedules got in the way, but finally they locked down a place and time to do it. Unfortunately, this resulted in a terrible scare for her son TJ.
“I told TJ Saturday morning, I said, ‘Hey I’m going out, I have to do something in California. I’m gonna coach Gigi’s team.’ I didn’t tell him when.”
“I’m at this conference Sunday morning, and it’s early. TJ’s blowing up my phone. I grab my purse, I run out the back door, and I’m like, ‘TJ I’m at a conference.'” That’s when she got the news from her son that Kobe had died.
Like so many, Lieberman was in disbelief at the news. “I go, ‘No he didn’t, he just called me last night. I’m going out there Wednesday.’ He goes, ‘Mom, Kobe died. His helicopter crashed, and basically I thought you were on it.’ I just about hit the floor and I heard a Secret Service guy grab me, and they took me in a back room.”
“I didn’t know if I was gonna have a heart attack,” she continued. “I couldn’t breathe. It was too close.”
Lieberman went on to tell a story of how Kobe helped her when she was an assistant coach with the Sacramento Kings. A young employee didn’t know any better, and so he wouldn’t let her into the locker room. Kobe took him aside and set him straight, using it as a teaching moment about the dangers of profiling and stereotyping.
“Kobe saved the day,” Lieberman said. “So many times he was there for me. He would pick up the phone, he’d check on TJ. He was really special. People thought he was ‘Mamba’ on the court, he was as much a Mamba of love off the court.”
Basketball was how the world came to know Kobe, and there are still countless stories of the incredible things he could do on the court. Who he was off it has endured even more though.
