Kobe Bryant loved being a ‘Girl Dad’ – Elle Duncan | SportsCenter

You're probably hearing a lot of personal anecdotes about Kobe Bryant, so here's mine. I met Kobe once backstage at an ESPN event in New York and I saw him and I thought, "Oh my God, that's Kobe. I have to take a photo for the 'gram. That's the photo. I didn't understand it for a few minutes because when I approached him immediately he commented on my pretty big eight month pregnant belly how are you how close are you to having a

girl

I said and then he high - he gave me five

girl

s they were the best I asked him for advice on how to raise girls. , since he was famous for having three at the time and he said, just be grateful that they gave you that gift because the girls are amazing.

His third daughter, Bianca, was about a year and a half at the time, like that. I asked him if he wanted more kids and he told me that his wife Vanessa really wanted to try again with a boy, but she was kind of jokingly worried that it would be another girl and I was like four girls. Are you kidding me? would you think? How would you feel? And without hesitation he said: I would have five more daughters if I could. I'm a girl dad when it comes to sports. He said his oldest daughter was an accomplished volleyball player and the youngest was a little girl, so TBD, but the middle one said the middle one was a monster, she's a beast, she's better than me at her. age, she is, the middle one, of course, was Gigi when I reflect on this tragedy and that half hour I spent with Kobe Bryant two years ago, I guess the only small source of comfort for me is knowing that he died doing what he he

loved

more, a bigger father,

being

a girl father.

I got to know him more as his daughter grew up. older as his family grows and his love for basketball and we went back and forth, you know, I'm a text message, that happy button like what are the most important things you teach when you play man-to-man defense, you know what what's all this said we have practice tonight and I have a you know, I'm teaching defense tonight. I just shook my head, you know, like you know, and he's guided me to make the world one of this, you know, growing up in Los Angeles, I don't even know if I can do this, he meant a lot to a city, that fighting spirit it had.

I think everyone had that in him and he found a way to make everyone be like that. This is my first game. I think it has even more meaning now when I broke my Achilles teeth as one of the first people to reach out to me, so, you know, I'll be back the day after I wear number 10, obviously knowing all your support for the youth obviously Tino says everything he has done for our basketball community is extremely sad and trying to make a happy day a sad day a happy day because you know, I think what you see from everyone is that Kobe would have

loved

us all .

Play and really have no doubts on the court and you know that's what I'm going to do.