A man dies, a city resurrects itself.
The man is the late NBA superstar Kobe Bryant and the city is Rome, aka the Eternal City.
On January 25th, 2020, basketball superstar Kobe Bryant died in a small plane crash near Calabasas, California. The crash took the life of 13 people on-board, including the pilot, Kobe’s 13 year-old daughter Gianna, and his best friend, minor league baseball coach John Altobelli.
To commemorate that sad occasion, CNN has produced a documentary series about Bryant called, Kobe: The Making of a Legend.
It began on January 26th, 2025 and will continue throughout the month. Well-worth watching, both for basketball fans and, more specifically, Italian Americans. In fact, the first episode in the series should have a subheading: “Kobe Bryant is More Italian than Most Italian Americans.” Absolutely true.
As the first episode demonstrates, Bryant literally grew up in Italy. His father, Joe “Jellybean” Bryant (so named after his love of sweets), crashed out in the NBA after a few seasons and decided to try his luck playing European basketball in Italy. He took his entire family with him: wife Pam, young daughters Sharia and Shaya, and their youngest child, six-year-old Kobe. Surrounded by loving and supportive Italians, the family flourished. Indeed, as Kobe notes in a clip in the CNN special, when his father opted to return to the United States after seven years, he and his sisters were crestfallen.
Anyone who has visited Italy for any length of time knows the feeling. They don’t call the Italian way of life la dolce vita for nothing.
But, with that solid foundation behind him, it was Kobe’s turn, like his father’s, to transform himself into a basketball star and then a committed husband and father. And that he did. Bravo, Kobe!
Click on the link below to learn more from a CNN on-line article accompanying the Bryant special.
As for Roma: When Pope Francis declared 2025 as a Jubilee Year last May, it was also a clarion call for city workers: Let the rejuvenation begin!
Within the span of seven months, the city cleaned up numerous famous monuments and even created a few new pedestrian piazzas, as well. All on schedule, I might add. So much for the stereotype voiced in the acclaimed new American film The Brutalist, where a WASP businessman, while in Carrara looking for marble, refers to Italians as “the spics of Europe” (lazy). Nice! Yet another casual insult, casually ignored by the American public.
If Kobe were still alive, he’d definitely have a thing or two to say to that film’s writer-director.
But I digress.
A vlogster (video blogger) named Elyssa Bernard, who has lived in Rome for 20 years, posted a nice, concise (10 minute) video on YouTube noting many of the city’s new projects. Click on the link below for her insights. The Caput Mundi (Capital of the World) looks brand spanking new.
Enjoy! -BDC
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/25/sport/kobe-bryant-italy-nba-legend-spt-intl/index.html
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