The basketball world is mourning the loss of Kobe Bryant
Hello there once again, thanks for joining us for episode 232 of Plain English for Monday, February 10, 2020. I’m Jeff, JR is the producer, and the full episode resources can be found at PlainEnglish.com/232.
Coming up today, remembering Kobe Bryant. He was one of the world’s biggest sports superstars and he was killed, along with his teenage daughter, in a helicopter crash outside of Los Angeles. In the second half of the program, we’ll talk about what it means to be “eligible for” something. We have a quote of the week. The video lesson is about superlatives—with a twist. When something is not quite the superlative, what do you say? It almost is the most or the best or the biggest, but not quite. That’s the subject of the video lesson today at PlainEnglish.com/232.
Sports world mourns Kobe Bryant
The sports world was stunned by the news that superstar Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash near Los Angeles. The crash happened mid-day on the morning of Sunday, January 26, in Calabasas, a mountainous area north of Los Angeles.
Bryant was taking his 13-year-old daughter Gianna to her own basketball game at the time of the crash; Gianna and all seven others on the helicopter also died. The exact reason for the crash is still unknown, but fog and poor visibility were cited as possible factors.
Bryant is one of the biggest stars in the history of the game, alongside Michael Jordan and LeBron James, and was widely recognized as among the very biggest sports stars on the planet. Most current NBA stars grew up watching him, and revered him for his talent and his dedication to the game. He was an 18-time all-star, five-time NBA champion, two-time NBA finals MVP, and the league MVP in 2008. He won gold medals with the American Olympic team in the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. He scored the second-most points ever in an NBA game, with 81 against the Toronto Raptors in 2006, and scored 60 points in his final NBA game, one of the most memorable superstar farewells in American sports history. He will become eligible for the Basketball Hall of Fame later this year.
At the time he retired in 2016, he was third on the all-time list of points scored. On the day before he died, LeBron James passed him on the all-time points list. Kobe’s last message on Twitter was congratulating LeBron on the accomplishment.
Kobe was famous for his work ethic and competitive spirit, sometimes clashing with other players. He wasn’t shy about his ambition to be among the best basketball players in history. Despite playing his entire career with the Los Angeles Lakers, he was never one for the nightclub or celebrity scene.
Kobe’s legacy was tainted in 2003 when a 19-year-old hotel receptionist accused him of sexual assault; the case never went to trial because the young woman was unwilling to testify in public and the two parties settled a lawsuit over the incident.
Unusually for many superstar athletes, Kobe had a vibrant and commercially successful career after basketball. Together with a business partner, he formed a venture capital firm that eventually grew to managing over $2 billion in assets. His firm invested in the creator of the video game Fortnite, the hot sauce Cholula, Dell, Alibaba, and others.
That’s not all. He founded a sports training academy and was active coaching his daughter Gianna’s basketball team. She had dreams of being a WNBA player. He wrote an animated short film that won an Academy Award, wrote books, and was collaborating with the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho on a children’s book. Hours after the crash, Coelho announced he would delete the draft rather than finish without his co-author.
In the days following the crash, the sports world publicly grieved the loss of one of its biggest stars. All players at the NBA All-Star Game will wear either number 24, Kobe’s number with the Lakers, or 2, his daughter’s number. The Lakers placed his initials on the court and will wear “KB” armbands for the rest of the season. Shaquille O’Neal, the massive center who played with Bryant for a few tumultuous years in Los Angeles, gave a moving tribute on television. Alicia Keys sang “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” at the Grammy Awards. Shakira and Jennifer Lopez dedicated songs to him during their halftime show at the Super Bowl. In Italy, where Kobe grew up watching his father play professional basketball, the town of Reggio Emilia named a public plaza after him.
The helicopter was en route from the Bryant home in the Orange County suburbs to the youth sports facility where Gianna was scheduled to play a game. The cause of the crash is still under investigation. Kobe Bryant was 41.
I mentioned the video lesson earlier today. We started doing the video lessons with episode 179, and we are now on episode 232. That means we have 53 video lessons online, each about 8 to 15 minutes. If you’re not a member of Plain English Plus+. , then you’re not getting these videos. I just took a survey of Plain English Plus+ members, and the video lessons were the number-one favorite feature among members. And they now all have subtitles. If you join today, you’ll get immediate access to all 53 videos, plus two more each week. Come see what it’s all about at PlainEnglish.com/Plus.
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