Basketball Dads

On Saturday, I competed in an intense Best of 3 basketball series. A 2-on-2 game that meant nothing yet in that gym we left it all on the floor. I talked to my wife about it at the dinner table that night. Basketball has filled my life with so many smiles.

The next morning, basketball legend Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash. He died with one of his daughters and left behind three more. I keep thinking about his wife. Thinking about a dinner table without a Dad. It is a devastating thought.

Watching Kobe play was often devastating. I always have loved basketball and I never loved Kobe. He was cocky. He was relentless. He was often the hardwood villain in Hollywood purple. I grew up in the basketball era that he shaped. He inspired others to play harder and he made it easy to root against him.

All of that is meaningless now.

His life and his legacy will be discussed at great Laker length. Our culture is consumed by tributes after tragedy. The mass media will create a cyclone of file footage, testimonials, and reactions to what no one could have predicted or planned for. And all I can think about is that empty dining room chair.

Kobe was a competitor and a Dad. That is meaningful now. When I received a text from my brother about Kobe, I was immediately stunned and surprisingly shook. My brother and I used to play 1-on-1 in our parents' driveway as if it were the NBA finals. Now, we are both Dads who visit that same house we grew up in. Our Dad has been elevated to Granddude, the proud grandfather to three little girls. The basketball hoop is no longer up, but the memories will forever be on that lane toward the garage door.

Basketball will be fine without Kobe. The game also will survive even if my brother and I never lace it up again on that hoop dream driveway. In a fast-paced world where my daughters are growing up faster, the news of Kobe's death gave me pause. The unimaginable nature of his passing is countered by an imaginable future - for his family and for mine.

Johnstown is a long way away from Los Angeles - in probably every imaginable way. Yet, for basketball Dads, maybe tonight you feel a weird closeness to Kobe. To be a Dad is to be flawed, to be part superhero and super duper vulnerable. In Positive Johnstown, Positive L.A., Positive Wherever You Are spirit, the tragic loss of a superstar is an opportunity to put on that superhero cape.

I am grateful for all the basketball games I have played. I look forward to the next time I step on the court.

But most importantly, I look forward to that next dinner with my wife and daughters.