The death of Kobe Bryant, along with his daughter Gianna Bryant and seven others on Jan. 26th sent absolute shockwaves throughout all sports as no one was willing to believe the news.
No matter what sport it is, there are a ton of athletes who were seemingly inspired by Kobe and doing whatever they can to honor his memory. Even people who had never met Bryant found themselves emotional over his passing.
Randy Moss is one of those people. He was emotional speaking on the tragedy during ESPN’s pre-game coverage of the Super Bowl as he talked his life and legacy.
I think it’s just hard to talk about Kobe. Kobe Bryant was one of the, some of the greatest athletes of our world, of this generation’s athlete. You know, and I’ll take it back to when I was a kid, being able to respect and look at a man like Michael Jordan. Everything he meant to the game of basketball. You know how many kids around the world tried to emulate Michael Jordan. Come out with commercials. ‘I want to be just like Mike.’ And here comes a young kid straight out of high school to be able to get to the NBA and show us everything that we tried to do in the backyard to try to emulate arguably the greatest basketball player. But he put a stamp on this world. Not just in basketball but just as a whole. And just to have a man like that gone at such a young age. I told my wife that I was going to say this and this message is to the Bryant family, I’m sorry for your loss. In my Moss household, it’s Mamba forever.
And I just want, you know, I’m sorry I’m up here emotional, but that’s the first time I’ve heard anything about Kobe Bryant since his death. And since we were at the Pro Bowl, I had a lot of messages on my phone talking about, ‘Randy, you didn’t take time out to give Kobe his respects.’ But I didn’t want to say anything live on national television because we didn’t know if things were true or not. And I really appreciate you all giving me this platform but man, when I say ‘Mamba Forever’… I’m a big Michael Jordan fan, I really am. But when I say it’s ‘Mamba Forever,’ man, I say that Kobe Bryant to me, man. You take politics out of professional sports. Kobe Bryant is the best and the greatest basketball player, and I’m not saying since he’s here, anybody can check my resume. I love the game of basketball. Kobe Bryant, man, is the greatest basketball player, no disrespect to any of the greats out there. But now that he’s gone, I say it when he’s here. The greatest basketball player I’ve ever seen dribble a basketball is Kobe Bean Bryant man. God rest his soul.
Bryant was just 41-years-old and just four years into his retirement from the NBA.
