PHILADELPHIA — Along Interstate 95, heading into the city, there’s an electronic billboard bearing a tribute to Kobe Bryant: LEGEND. 1978-2020.
Houses on the banks of the Delaware River as well as the skyscrapers downtown are trimmed with purple lights — a nod to Bryant’s 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers. From the roof of Larry’s Steaks, Bryant’s favorite cheesesteak spot, hangs a banner: “Goodbye Kobe, Gianna Bryant. You will forever be missed.”
On the steps outside of Lower Merion High School, where Bryant played in the mid-1990s, sat Don Orji, who grew up in this wooded suburb of Philadelphia. His hand trembled and his pen hovered over a card he would add to a memorial at the school. How could he put into words what Bryant meant to him?
As the world tries to reconcile that Bryant is gone, dead at 41, in a helicopter crash that claimed eight others, including his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, a community mourns where the basketball legend began. Bryant Gymnasium, the athletic center he funded for the school that was dedicated in 2010, is now the site of a memorial to which Orji and others have come to pay their respects.
Bryant’s formative years were spent in Italy and he found celebrity by winning five championships in Los Angeles. But it was at Lower Merion that his basketball career began. At 39, Orji would have been in junior high when Bryant started high school.
“If you were a basketball fan, you started hearing things about this local kid in the area,” Orji said. “So yeah, we knew about him.”
In 1996, Bryant led the Lower Merion Aces to the Pennsylvania state championship for the first time in 53 years. Months later, he was in the NBA, the 13th pick in the draft at 17 years old.
Tuesday, the Warriors and 76ers played the first NBA game in Bryant’s hometown since his death. It began with a video of his final visit here as a player (Dec. 1, 2015), the final time he would be introduced to his hometown crowd. His jersey from Lower Merion, No. 33, was proudly displayed at center court. There were 33 seconds of silence.
At Bryant Gymnasium, a No. 33 jersey is stuffed into a collection of inscribed basketballs, purple flowers and worn sneakers. On one pair is written, “Legends never die… Mamba forever.” A card reads, “You’ve inspired millions like me to commit every second to excellence.” A basketball carries these handwritten words: “You were a legend to us growing up in the area.”
Bryant took pride in his blue-collar Pennsylvania roots even after becoming a global icon. Ronald Jennings, 68, used to live near the school but now he lives in Westchester, New York. He took a two-hour bus ride to be here.
When he arrived, he dropped to his knees and prayed amid the bustle of students leaving the building at the end of the school day. Tears welled in Jennings’ eyes.
“He made a name for this area,” Jennings said. “To have that recognition of starting here, at Lower Merion High School, playing ball, he knew it was his career. He knew it was what he was going to do.”
Next to the bouquet of flowers Jennings left at the memorial was a teddy bear wearing a University of Connecticut hoodie. This was for Gianna, Kobe’s 13-year-old daughter who also perished in the crash. She planned to play college basketball at UConn. Like her dad, she was a prodigy.
At first, there were 33 basketballs outside Bryant Gymnasium, now there are nearly 100. One reads: “R.I.P. Kobe and R.I.P Gigi.” Another has “Mamba and Mambacita” painted in purple and gold.
Tariek Warren and Nicholas Gaines, both 22, came from New Jersey, making a 45-minute drive and crossing over the purple jellybean-colored Ben Franklin Bridge along the way. Warren was wearing a No. 24 T-shirt and Gaines wore a No. 33 Aces jersey.
“My heart was in my stomach,” Warren said after seeing the memorial.
Gaines choked back tears as he talked about his favorite player. “He just means so much to me, so much to my life. He’s the reason I fell in love with the game of basketball. So I’m out here today to show some respect.”
On the steps, Orji rose to his feet. It had been almost 30 minutes, but he had found the words he wanted to put in that card.
“I pray your spirit soars to the highest of the heavens. I pray the hurt your friends and family feel is eased with time,” he wrote. “Watch over us Mamba.”
