Kobe Bryant had various meanings to people. Good, bad, indifferent. For me, he was, by far, the most thoughtful high profile athlete I know of. In terms of how he dissected getting better, his desire to improve his game, his entire approach towards life. I’m not sure you’ll come across an athlete who had, and could articulate, their views like he did.
I can’t say that always translated to agreeing with his actions. After he scored 60 points in his last game I was the dude saying “but he took 50 shots?!?” In some ways I think the fascination is from seeing him change in response to his mistakes. Regardless, I always enjoyed listening to him talk and hearing his point of view.
I thought I’d give a little mention of him while tying into a topic this site has talked about.
Like many recently, I’ve been listening to him more due to how many mentions of him keep popping up, like videos on Youtube.
I enjoyed this one, where at the 20 minute mark he mentions eating a pepperoni pizza the night before, and a quarter pounder with cheese the meal before, scoring 81 points- the greatest scoring performance in modern basketball.
A general theme I’ve liked to hear Kobe talk about was focusing on what matters and what doesn’t. I’ve profiled all kinds of accounts of various high profile athletes simply not worrying all that much about the types of food they eat. Yet at the level we’re talking, there’s no detail that’s not considered. Thus, granular nutrition is consciously very much not considered. To the point, I mean, between Kobe’s story and Usain Bolt eating chicken nuggets before becoming the fastest person ever, McDonald’s is on the verge of being a sports performance company.
RIP.
Posted on February 19, 2020