Georgia plays a basketball game at Missouri on Tuesday night. That notion seemed trivial Monday as the Bulldogs, like every other team that takes the sport of basketball seriously, were dealing with the tragic deaths of generational superstar Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old and seven other individuals in a helicopter crash Sunday in Calabasas, Calif.
Georgia’s team is made up of 18- to 22-year-olds, most of whom grew up idolizing Bryant as he transcended the sport in a 20-year NBA career with the Los Angeles Lakers. Count Anthony “Ant Man” Edwards and Jordan Harris among such players.
» COMPLETE COVERAGE: Life and death of Kobe Bryant
Coach Tom Crean said he immediately addressed the accident with his team when the news permeated the Bulldogs’ practice facility between split-squad sessions on Sunday. It gave Crean cause to shed his coach’s persona and assume his other one as a man of faith.
“The first thing that comes to my mind is that, in this world, we have no eternal security without God and we never know, right?” Crean said Monday. “We just never know the moment you walk out the door, you leave. Praying over our children and helping our children learn to pray and doing everything we can do to stay centered in God is so incredibly important. It is every day, and every once in a while it really gets magnified.”
Crean said he never got a chance to meet Bryant personally and regretted never getting a chance to watch one of his workouts, which were legendary in basketball coaching circles. Crean coached and remains close with Dwyane Wade, who counted Bryant as one of his closest friends, and Wade shared stories about Bryant often.
As it turned out, an unspecified Georgia player was dealing with own “friendship tragedy,” according to Crean. So the team gathered and had an impromptu discussion about the fragility of life.
“Obviously, something like this affects all of us,” Crean said.
It touched assistant coach John Linehan more than anybody else in Georgia’s camp. Linehan, who joined Crean’s staff just last year, played college ball at Providence but grew up going against Bryant as they played for rival high school and AAU teams in the Philadephia area.
Linehan shared that Bryant’s team ended his high school career in state semifinals his senior year.
"It was devastating,” Linehan said of learning of Bryant’s death between practice sessions. “It hit me like a ton of bricks because I didn't understand what he said at first. Then I just walked off the court and went to my office and saw it. I was frozen. Obviously, everyone knows what he's done basketball-wise, but he was an incredible person and just a giant in the world. It was shocking.”
Bryant once called Linehan the best defender he’d ever faced.
"It makes you feel good,” Linehad said. “It's an extreme honor for someone like that to say something like that about me. It's carried me and it's followed me throughout my entire career and it's helped me a lot. So, I can only thank him so much for what he's done for me and my life and the friendship we had."
Meanwhile, life continues and on the court the Bulldogs (11-8, 1-5 SEC) are having to pick up the pieces after losing to a previously SEC-winless team in Ole Miss in Athens this past Saturday. Now they’re back on the road to face a similarly-struggling Missouri squad (9-10, 1-5) that has lost six of seven games in 2020 and will be viewing UGA as an opponent that can be vanquished.
Crean vowed that his team with heads up, not down.
“My job is to make sure that we’re getting ready every day,” he said. “(Players have) to understand it’s about competition and it’s about fight. It’s not about, ‘well, I hope when they come in they feel better and I hope they’re too upset.’ No. We have to go, we have to get better. That’s what this is all about and you have to grow and nurture them and that’s what this is really all about.”
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