I didn’t start a Kobe Bryant fan.

I didn’t start a Kobe Bryant fan. To grow up in the Bay Area is to vilify Los Angeles sports and everything associated with them. From 400 miles away, though, even I could tell he was a talented player. From 400 miles away, I periodically admired his tenacity, his skills, and how the internet claimed he played through games with broken bones and torn ligaments. Above all, he expected the best. Of himself, of others. To a fault.

As time went on, I learned to appreciate what he stood for: that desire to be the best at what you set out to do. I respected his pursuit for different perspectives from experts in any field; his passion for straight-up knowledge. He slowly became, in my mind, someone to look up to. By no means had I become a watch-every-game fan, but I was always happy to see him in the news and celebrate his successes.

In my late teens, I learned of the sexual assault allegations against him the way you learn that your favorite actor's hair is actually naturally brown. Someone had casually mentioned it to me and I was, to put it dramatically, devastated. I was just a kid when the cases were being tried in 2003. I thought to myself, I spent all this time admiring this dude, and he was just another man abusing his power who'd let me down.

By the mid-2010s, near the end of his long 20-year career, I had stopped reading about him when stories would come up. I was in college and thought everything and everyone was one or two dimensional at best; I couldn’t fathom more than good and bad. Before college, I didn’t understand any of the dynamics around race, gender, power or money. I didn’t understand oppression, assault or any of the other ugly words some of us learn early but many of us learn too late. I used to blame my extremely privileged upbringing for this, but I am as much at fault. Suddenly, with my newfound “woke” eyes and ears, everyone was canceled. Everyone had made mistakes I couldn’t tolerate. When people would tell me their idol was Kobe Bryant, I’d laugh in their face. “Did you know he sexually assaulted someone? And you still like him?” I’d taunt. I’m not proud of it, for lots of reasons.

In the summer of 2016, I went to Staples Center with my parents. We're big sports fans, so we figured we'd catch a WNBA game. Kobe had completed his final season as a player, a Laker, in that very arena a few months prior. I sat in that iconic space watching the game and I was so disappointed. There were only a few fans watching, numbering in maybe the 100s. The in-game announcer was making fun of the players’ appearances. There we were, watching the two best teams in the league duke it out and no one in the crowd looked interested. I sat there wondering what Kobe Bryant would think of this experience.

In my head, because I had categorized him in my brain as definitively "bad" I assumed he was also highly misogynistic, a chauvinist. I was only 20 and loved living in the pool of own bitterness. I pulled out my phone and Googled it. "Kobe Bryant women sports." I don't know what I expected to find. Probably videos of him bashing on the WNBA, or talking about how women would never amount to men when it came to athleticism or agility. Kobe was famous for being frank about what he thought, and I wanted him to prove me right about being a bad guy.

My Google search provided nothing I wanted to see, of course. As many people know, at the end of his career and in retirement, Kobe spent a lot of time advocating for women's sports. We can all assume this influence came from being the father of four daughters, that's easy enough. But there was also a part of his makeup that included candid honesty and commitment to things he genuinely believed in, women’s sports now included. He didn't have to give a shit about anything he didn't choose to. He was Kobe Bryant.

With a simple Google search, I realized that this person I had put into a box maybe had some nuance. This is the part that I look back on and laugh at. It sounds simple to say that people have more facets than we give them credit for. I mean, obviously. But when we talk about athletes, musicians, scientists, poets, we flatten them. This is not new, nor is it surprising. I bring it up only to say it was hard for me. As a young woman who's been in uncomfortable situations with men who were more powerful than me, I could sympathize with the woman who pressed charges against him. Who probably now in all his glorification is confused and upset. At 20, I didn't know what this new-to-me side of Kobe Bryant meant for my characterization of him. I don't think now, four years later, I've figured it out either.

I will never know what happened between him and that young woman in 2003 or how the subsequent public eye and humiliation made her decline to testify. I will never know if he thought about how the media coverage of his case set a precedent that affected other survivors of assault by public figures. I won't ever know what it did to him, mentally, if it did anything at all. If he thought about what he'd done for even a second after the case was settled.

What I do know, though, is that I was genuinely shocked and upset to learn of him and his daughter's passing. I know that people have flooded streets to confer and grieve over them. I know the stories that people have shared about him, which are about what he loved most. And that was never winning or basketball. It was his family, his daughters.

I think about my own very close relationship with my father, who is similar to Kobe. Just as stubborn, just as driven, sometimes arrogant, often intimidating. In his career, selfish to the point of success. But I also think about how if you asked him what accomplishment he was most proud of in this world, he would probably say me. I think about how if I was 13 and knew I was headed for my final moments on Earth but at least had my dad with me, I probably wouldn't be as scared. Above all, I think about how he is, much like everyone, the sum of all the worst parts about him along with the best. I hope with my whole heart that this is the takeaway here.

I also hope we remember that the people we idolize, who we give power to with our thoughts and beliefs, ultimately also have the power to let us down and earn our admiration over and over again. That has to be okay. I hope we choose to let them.

That the world outside sports mourns this man alongside his family, his teammates, and those in his field says a lot. I've learned that the pursuit of brilliance can be lonely, as many perceived Kobe to be throughout his career. But I've also learned that to be in search of greatness, wherever it is in the world, in whatever field, can open your mind up to the way the world could be more than it is. It can make you smarter. It can make you a better person, despite your mistakes. And I think, truly, that Kobe Bryant was on his way to being a better person each day. Are the rest of us?

Natasha WelingkarJanuary 28, 2020editorial, personal