Local hoopsters reflect on Kobe

Once upon a time, a basketball player could go from starting his career in a high school gym to hooping it up in an NBA arena in just 5 years.

Kobe Bryant made that great leap forward in 1996, from Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, Pa., to the Los Angeles Lakers, where he would go on to become one of professional basketball's all-time greats before his retirement in 2016.

As a high school freshman, Bryant played varsity on a team that finished 4-20 in 1992-93. His meteoric rise among the national high school ranks led to a state championship his senior year, and 2 years later he played in his first of 18 NBA All-Star games – and just 2 years after that, he led the Lakers to the first of five NBA championships.

Sometime between Michael Jordan and LeBron James there was Kobe Bryant, a mega-star basketball player who was at the top of the basketball world for many years. Anyone in such a position will be noticed by those who aspire to one day become as good as he is.

When Bryant, 41, died Sunday in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, Calif., it was a massive shock to those who grew up with him as an influence in their adolescence, especially for those who played high school basketball.

Adding to that shock was the death of his daughter, Gianna, 13, who was on the same helicopter with her father and seven others, all of whom perished.

Bryant's legacy had its effect on those who grew up in the Sauk Valley. As reports were being published – some to lay claim to being the first, others with more accurate information – it proved to be quite hard to process on the day it happened.

Although basketball didn't become his future sport of choice, Kansas City Royals pitcher and 2011 Rock Falls High School graduate Jake Junis continues to honor his idol on the baseball diamond.

"Kobe Bryant was the sole reason I wore No. 24 my entire high school basketball career," Junis said. "I wore it in the minor leagues whenever I could get my hands on No. 24. His basketball shoes are the only ones I wear to this day.

"He was the Michael Jordan of my generation. His death was a complete shock and devastating blow to me personally, and, as you can see, most sports fans around the entire world."

Sterling Thornton, a 2016 Sterling graduate who scored more than 1,000 points in his career, took to Twitter and shared his love for the former Lakers great through video clips of highlights, including Bryant's 2017 animated inspirational short, "Dear Basketball."

"I used to watch Kobe's highlights day and night," said Thornton, who now is a manager for the Bradley men's basketball program. "I’d watch them on game days throughout the school day. I used to watch his games or highlights, then go to the gym and practice them. His stories on the work he put into the game was something I wanted to emulate.

"Kobe was my favorite player growing up. I had a Kobe binder I would carry around in middle school. He was one of the reasons I was and am so dedicated to the game."

Braiden Soltow, a 2019 graduate from Polo, was a guard on consecutive 20-win teams for the Marcos, and is continuing his hoops career at Eureka College. Bryant drove him to become the basketball player is is today, he said.

"Kobe was my favorite player of all time. He involuntarily taught me so many things about the game of basketball," Soltow said. "The passion. The competitiveness. The drive to succeed. He instilled a love for the game of basketball in me.

"The thing I most wanted from Kobe was his work ethic. There are so many stories about his work ethic and how he would prepare himself for a game, a practice, or even just a simple workout. I wanted that drive that fire. I tried to emulate that same drive and fire into myself. I worked and worked on my game every day. Sometimes mentally and sometimes physically.

"The stories about Kobe even sparked an interest in learning the game of basketball from a coaches standpoint, as in, having a great basketball IQ because I knew it’d give me a step over the competition."

One of the many plays in Newman coach Ray Sharp's playbook is called "Kobe," an inbound play intended for a quick score or a game-winner during crunch time. Newman ran it Tuesday at Kewanee.

Such a play was successful many times in the fourth quarter, some of which were put up by Sharp's son, A.J., now Sauk Valley Community College's men's coach.

They got it from watching a Lakers game together.

"Mostly it was because of our affection for Kobe," Ray Sharp said. "It's a good name to call it."

One of their favorite basketball books is Sports Illustrated writer Chris Ballard's "Art of the Beautiful Game," published in 2009. The first chapter, “Killer Instinct: Why Kobe Bryant Wants to Beat You at Everything," takes a look at what many consider Bryant's "Mamba mentality."

The younger Sharp dove deep into Kobe during the offseason between his sophomore and junior years at Newman.

"You research him and look into him a little bit, and it is very intense, the way he was," he said. "You had to respect his work ethic."

Many players on Sauk's team caught Bryant on the tail end of his career, A.J. said, when LeBron James began playing in his prime. A message board of inspiration hangs within the Skyhawks' gym, and Sharp is putting up much of what he learned from Bryant to help his players as the conference season is in full swing.

Bryant may be gone, but it's up to those who admired him to continue on his legacy.

"It is hard losing someone that you grew up watching, and I think it's been hard on our guys, but they also admired him to the point where he worked hard every day," A.J. Sharp said. "That's helped our guys, too."