N.B.A. Star Kobe Bryant Dies in California Helicopter Crash

She had charted Bryant’s professional career from its start: when he was 17, fresh out of Lower Merion, where he had led the basketball team to a state title in 1996.

“Aces Nation has lost its heartbeat,” Gregg Downer, who coached Bryant, said in a statement.

Indeed, others with ties to the school flocked to the campus on Sunday as word of Bryant’s death spread.

Brittany Ferro, 30, said she had also gone to Lower Merion and had been moved to come with two friends and her newborn son after she learned of Bryant’s death during dinner.

“We were very upset so we wanted to come and pay our respects,” she said. “He was one of the best of his times and he was admired by a lot of people.”

Bryant was a standout at Lower Merion, where he helped to elevate the basketball program to extraordinary heights. Bryant, who dominated the court from any position, was a draw — plenty would say the central draw in the mid-1990s.

“It was quite a treat to watch a future superstar,” said Rob Wilson, who still lives in Lower Merion Township and recalled taking his son to watch the adolescent Bryant play.

Soon after Bryant was drafted, he walked into a local diner while Wilson and his son were there.

“I remember him coming into Ruby’s and pointing him out and saying, ‘That guy’s a future superstar in the N.B.A., right here in our little Ruby’s,” Wilson recalled. “I was very touched by the fact that he was not being swarmed.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/26/sports/basketball/kobe-bryant-dead.html?emc=rss&partner=rss