Hours before the memorial for Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna was set to begin Monday, thousands of fans had already gathered in the chilly morning air outside Staples Center.
The crowd — many clad in black, purple and gold — was quiet, a stark contrast to the typical excited energy of a game day.
Berly Schwartz and her son, Bun Garcia, stood together among the crowd outside the venue, sharing memories of watching Bryant beat competitors during his two-decade career with the Lakers. Her voice broke as she recalled attending games with her late husband, Sam Schwartz, who died two years ago.
“I am just so emotional. I came to Kobe’s games with my husband. He loved Kobe and the Lakers,” she said. “I think of the families. It is so hard for them.”
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Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, were were among nine people killed last month when the helicopter they were flying in to Bryant’s Mamba Academy for a youth basketball game slammed into a hillside in Calabasas.
The news stunned Los Angeles. Almost a month later, Garcia, donning a Lakers jacket, said he still feels numb.
“I don’t know if the numbness will ever go away for L.A.,” he said. “At first people thought maybe they are wrong. Maybe Kobe isn’t dead. Today really brings home the reality.”
Out of respect for the families of those who died in the Jan. 26 helicopter crash, fans are being urged by police to stay away from Staples Center during the memorial unless they have a ticket.
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LAPD Chief Michel Moore said Friday that unless visitors to the downtown L.A. site are among the 20,000 ticketed mourners for the memorial, which begins at 10 a.m., they will not be allowed into the surrounding area, including L.A. Live. Anyone trying to breach the police lines will face arrest, he said.
The event will be streamed live by various news outlets, including the Los Angeles Times.
Staples Center President Lee Zeidman, who oversees the surrounding campus for Anschutz Entertainment Group, said the businesses at L.A. Live will be closed Monday morning, as will Georgia Street and Chick Hearn Court. The massive video screens outside the L.A. Live complex will be turned off.
Only ticket holders will be allowed in the area until the afternoon, Zeidman said, adding that all the tickets — which ranged in price from $24.02 to $224 — have been distributed. More than 80,000 applied for the ticket lottery, proceeds from which will be donated to the Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation.
Jerrod Mustaf, 50, and his 14-year-old son, Jaeden, booked their flight from Maryland to bid Bryant farewell before they knew they needed tickets.
Mustaf, a first-round NBA draft pick for the New York Knicks in 1990, said he chose Bryant as a role model for his son, the leading scorer on his middle school basketball team. It wasn’t just for his athletic supremacy, he said.
“He epitomized great character,” Mustaf said.
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Mustaf flipped through his phone to a photo of Jaeden at age 3 in a backpack with the words “Lil Kobe” on the back. Jaeden has worn number 24 since he was a baby, his father said.
Ben Morrison drove to Staples Center from Newport Beach to attend the service, which he said felt extremely personal to him. The 21-year-old attended Bryant’s church and remembers seeing him often, but he said he didn’t talk to him as much as he wanted.
The one personal interaction he had with Bryant happened during one 4th of July, when he saw Bryant buy $40 worth of fireworks. Morrison said Bryant gave the cashier a $100 bill and told him, “Keep the change.”
“He was a baller,” Morrison said as he walked toward Staples Center in a yellow No. 8 Lakers jersey. Morrison got one of the $24.02 tickets and said it was important to come so he could get closure.
“I think it’s powerful to come here with so many different people who are feeling the same way I’m feeling,” he said.
Bryant’s widow, Vanessa, previously noted on Instagram the significance of the date of the memorial: 2-24-20: Daughter Gianna, who also was killed in the helicopter crash, wore No. 2 while playing basketball, while her husband wore No. 24. The “20" denoting the current year is also the number of years Bryant played for the Lakers.
Many standing outside Staples Center said Bryant’s death felt like they had lost a member of their own families.
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“It’s so hard to explain why we are so emotional about someone we never knew personally, but he was a part of our family life,” Star Dodd of Palos Verdes said.
Ozzie Arnold captured much of the crowd’s attention outside Staples Center as he drove his personalized golf cart with a lift kit and large tires with purple-and-yellow rims around the venue. The cart’s purple base had a Lakers logo and the numbers 32 and 24 on the hood, in honor of Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant’s jersey numbers.
Arnold, 66, said he was devastated the day Bryant died. He had been working on the golf cart for about six years but never had a chance to ride it around in public.
“This is the one day I could do this,” he said. “Every other day, it’s covered up.”
He hopes the spectacle will help lighten the mood.
“It’s Kobe Day,” he said. “It’s the last day we have to celebrate his life. It’s a sad day, but it’s a happy day.”
Staples Center executives said they were “hopeful” that the event would finish by 1 p.m. and that everyone would leave promptly. The venue must be turned around to host a Clippers game against the Memphis Grizzlies at 7:30 that evening.
Fans who couldn’t make it to downtown Los Angeles gathered elsewhere in Southern California, including Orange County — where Bryant and his family have called home for years — to watch the memorial and pay tribute to the Lakers star.
After dropping off his wife at the airport, Scott Rubin decided the next thing he wanted to do was take a photo of a Bryant mural. His search brought him to downtown Santa Ana.
On 4th and Sturgeon streets, he stood alone, aiming his phone at himself as he took a selfie in front of the mural.
A portrait of Bryant was sprayed-painted on the wall with Bryant’s name and nickname, “Black Mamba,” spelled out in purple, yellow and black.
Rubin said he planned to watch the memorial with a friend at home. While he doesn’t call himself a Lakers fan, he said he was touched by Bryant’s death.
“He was more than a basketball player,” Rubin said. “He was human. He was a dad. It made you think about life.”
Times staff writers Colleen Shalby and Andrew Greif contributed to this report.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMijAFodHRwczovL3d3dy5sYXRpbWVzLmNvbS9jYWxpZm9ybmlhL3N0b3J5LzIwMjAtMDItMjQva29iZS1icnlhbnQtZmFucy11cmdlZC10by1zdGF5LWF3YXktZnJvbS1zdGFwbGVzLWNlbnRlci1tZW1vcmlhbC11bmxlc3MtdGhleS1oYXZlLXRpY2tldNIBAA?oc=5
2020-02-24 17:34:00Z
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