Padecky: Losing Kobe a reminder of how fragile our sports heroes can be

The only parallel that holds up to the light of comparison is Princess Diana dying in that 1997 car accident in France. It was unexpected, immediate, tragically numbing and overwhelmingly global. Princess Diana was the last celebrity death who moved as many people as Kobe Bryant did after he died in that helicopter crash Jan. 26.

Of all entertainers, athletes are the most visible. Unlike actors, singers, comedians and other performers who ply their trade before the public, professional athletes are on the stage most often.

A Major League Baseball field, for example, is open for daily inspection and controversy February to October. The NBA, the NFL and soccer have similar schedules. Include the offseason to any of these sports with their attendant hissy fits, trade rumors and police reports, and your favorite sport is a yearlong soap opera without an off day. Your thirst is always satiated.

To that add this exclamation point that makes them visible without compare: Athletes perform without a script! They are unpredictable. Matt Chapman can snag a smoking one-hop pea with the grace and ease as if he was bending to pick a flower. Steph Curry can hit a trey from the Bay Bridge. George Kittle can drag half a defense on his back.

Athletes do not play the same song, hit the same drum, repeat the same joke. They are on film like an actor with one notable variance. If you go to a theater and see the sleeper movie of the year, “Parasite,” you’ve seen the movie. You don’t need to see it again, which I have two more times. An athlete? Khris Davis strikes out and then three innings later whacks a moonshot.

Will Kobe go off for 81 points tonight or 21? Let’s go to Staples and find out.

The spotlight for a famous athlete is never turned off while he is playing. It is bright, unyielding and blistering. Truth to tell, more athletes lean away from the spotlight when they retire. To a surprising extent, many are introverted. Their physical skills are outwardly obvious and, by association, fans see that as their personality as well. Not true. Many retire to anonymity and are content with the choice.

Joe Montana is a relevant example. Joe is still Northern California’s most beloved athlete. Yet, in the 1980s, at the height of his fame, Joe would send out someone to do his grocery shopping. Joe wouldn’t even make it inside a store without getting mobbed for autographs.

Even now, 25 years after he retired, Joe is very selective on when and why he shows up in public. Such as this last Super Bowl. Joe was there all right, along with six other Hall of Fame quarterbacks, ones who are and a few others who will be. It is a selectivity easily understood.

Kobe? Kobe was in the Los Angeles spotlight for 20 years as a player. One could argue that L.A.’s glare is even more intense than New York’s. The latest Census Bureau’s tally has 22 million people living in the Los Angeles basin. Yet, only four years into retirement, Kobe was as visible as he was as a player. With his charity work, championing women’s sports and a humanitarian zest that bordered on the fanatic, Kobe didn’t walk away from the spotlight. He sprinted toward it.

In that, Kobe felt as vibrant as he did as a player. He was alive, pulsating it seemed, doting on his daughter, flying everywhere, that charismatic energy on the court now transferred to a public life. He was the Energizer ?Bunny, his heartbeat his ?batteries.

Kobe wasn’t just Los Angeles’ child. He was global. He spoke three languages, Spanish and French the others. Part of his youth was spent in Italy. He was a big-time supporter and spectator of soccer on that continent.

When that helicopter went down Jan. 26, somehow it felt like everyone saw it, which is ridiculous, of course. It felt so public even though it wasn’t. Nine people perished. Nine people will never get the chance to grow old, gray, chubby, slow afoot, wise with so much life to pass on for others to learn. Three 13-year-old girls were gone, a stake that truly penetrated the sadness.

It was Kobe’s chartered flight. They were headed to his basketball camp. Even the pilot - the only person Kobe would allow to ferry himself through such busy air space - was more than a casual acquaintance. So these were Kobe’s people. While we didn’t know much about most of them, we can be sure they knew Kobe. We can be sure they wouldn’t have been surprised to read the following anecdote.

It was 2000. The NBA All-Star Game was in Oakland. The day before the game, the players were available for media interviews. I joined the media horde surrounding Kobe.

We formed a crescent. I was about five rows back. For a minute there I thought Kobe was giving away free stuff, so enthusiastic and pushy was the assemblage.

I finally came close enough to ask a question. Four times I tried. Four times a talking head shoved a microphone in Kobe’s face and shouted a question. I retreated. I don’t shout over rudeness.

After the second time, Kobe noticed the frustration. After the fourth time, before the fifth blast of obnoxiousness, Kobe put up his hand, his palm facing the horde. It was his stop sign. The mouthpieces went silent, amazing in itself.

Kobe turned to me and asked, “Do you have a question?”

The microphone dudes looked at me like I had spaghetti dripping down my face. Felt terrific to be so unclean.

I don’t remember what I asked. I don’t care. What I do remember is Kobe didn’t have to do that. I was just another bow-legged, bespectacled dude with a notebook who spoke in a normal voice, a stranger for sure. It was a kindness, a classiness that those who have done this job rarely experience. If ever.

For me, that was the guy in that helicopter Jan. 26. That was the guy everyone with him knew, enjoyed, appreciated. They were with him in the truest sense of the phrase. They were with him as millions of us were.

R.I.P. Mamba.

To comment write to?bobpadecky@gmail.com.