Full disclosure demands my admission that prior to Sunday's news regarding the helicopter crash in or about Los Angeles that killed nine people, including Kobe Bryant and his thirteen-year-old daughter, Gianna, I neither knew how many children Kobe Bryant and his wife, Vanessa, had nor any of their names.
Everything I have learned about "Gigi" I have learned in the days since her death. My own daughter, Suzanne, celebrates a birthday tomorrow. She will be thirty-five. When she was Gianna Bryant's age (or thereabouts), she played basketball. The little, now-shuttered Catholic elementary school in Middlesex from which Suzanne and Rob both graduated, Our Lady of Mount Virgin, had a very good girl's basketball program. Suzanne started playing in either 4th or 5th grade and played on OLMV's school teams through 8th grade. When she was in 8th grade, I sat on the bench as an assistant coach. I did what all the kids and the other adults on that team did - listened to Jim Baglin and did whatever he told me to do.
Suzanne enjoyed basketball enough that while she was playing the game we used to make a couple of trips a season over to the RAC to watch C. Vivian Stringer's Scarlet Knights. Back in the day, Rutgers was a member of the Big East Conference and while RU was clearly the second-best team in that conference (as well as one of the Top Ten programs in the nation), the gap between RU and the Big East's big dog, Geno Auriemma's University of Connecticut Huskies, was fairly sizable.
Regular-season trips to the RAC way back when used to typically include Suz's small cadre of best friends and teammates, Leigh Ann, Katie, and Kristen. We would sit on the baseline, under the basket on RU's end of the floor, so that the girls could watch the action as if they were on the floor playing in the game. If memory serves, the only time I ever took Suz to the RAC to watch women's hoops when we did not sit in our customary seats was the 1998 Big East Championship Game between Rutgers and Connecticut.
I did not know of the long-time, deep connection between Kobe Bryant and Geno Auriemma. Nor did I know that Gigi, who apparently was one hell of a player, was such an avid U. Conn. fan that she and her dad had made multiple trips across country to attend Huskies home games at Gampel Pavilion and to cheer them on at road games. Her plan was to attend the University of Connecticut and to play basketball there.
Whether a thirteen-year-old girl's dreams should all come true may be a subject of debate. What is not open for debate, however, is how grossly unfair it is for a thirteen-year-old girl to be killed before she has a chance to follow her dreams and to put her life plan into action.
Monday night, Geno Auriemma's Huskies hosted Team USA in a friendly exhibition. Team USA's roster is dotted with a Who's Who of Coach Auriemma's All-Americans including Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, Tina Charles, and Breanna Stewart. Before the game, the Huskies reserved a seat in the middle of their bench for Gigi Bryant. Flowers and a jersey were placed on the seat in her honor.
I cannot commend to your reading enough this simply beautiful piece of writing by Laken Litman, which I read yesterday morning on the Sports Illustrated web site. If reading it does not make your heart hurt at least a little, then you might want to ask the Wizard for a new one the next time you travel to the Emerald City.
-AK
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