Fresno team was set to play at Kobe Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy. Then tragedy struck
A Fresno youth team was about to compete at Kobe Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy on Sunday when they received stunning news – the five-time NBA champion Bryant, his 13 year-old daughter Gianna and seven others had died in a helicopter crash.
Demetrius Porter, a former Fresno State basketball player and coach of the Fresno Lady Heat 14-under team, said the news came in the form of an alert on his phone.
The Fresno Lady Heat were scheduled to play 2 p.m. Sunday in an Amateur Athletic Union tournament against the Mamba team, of which Bryant’s daughter Gianna was a member.
The tournament director informed Porter the tournament was canceled because of the crash.
“We walked into the gym and everyone was on their knees and praying,” Porter said. “(My girls) were crying and in disbelief. They were excited to play against Kobe Bryant’s daughter and take a picture with him and this tragic event happened.”.
The death of the Los Angeles Lakers legend rocked the sports world, and the youth who had gathered in Thousand Oaks for the tournament.
Porter said his boys and girls teams arrived in Southern California on Saturday and got to meet Bryant that afternoon, less than a day before the helicopter crash.
“He was standing there and he said, ‘Let me run to the bathroom real quick,’” Porter said, recalling Bryant’s graciousness on Saturday. “He came out and signed autographs and took pictures with my son and his teammates and my girls team.”
Porter called Bryant’s death “super sad.”
Bryant retired in 2016 as the third-leading scorer in NBA history, finishing two decades with the Lakers as a prolific scorer with a sublime all-around game and a relentless competitive ethic.
He held that spot in the league scoring ranks until Saturday night, when the Lakers’ LeBron James passed him for third place during a game in Philadelphia, Bryant’s hometown.
More details about crash emerge
The helicopter that crashed was operating under special flight rules for bad weather, The New York Times reported. It was flying in foggy conditions when it went down, according to multiple reports.
The helicopter, a Sikorsky S-76B, left Orange County’s John Wayne Airport at 9:06 a.m., the Los Angeles Times reports.
The first call about the crash to 911 came at 9:47 a.m., ESPN reports.
The fog in the area was so bad Sunday morning that police and the sheriff’s department in the area had grounded their helicopters, according to the LA Times.
“The weather situation did not meet our minimum standards for flying,” Los Angeles police spokesman Josh Rubenstein said, according to ESPN.
The Burbank Airport control tower had authorized the helicopter’s pilot to fly under “special visual flight rules,” an air-traffic conversation shows, KTLA reported. Those rules are more stringent than visual flight rules allowed under normal conditions.
The crash happened in mountainous terrain, making it difficult for first-responders to get to the scene, according to KABC. Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva called the crash site a “logistical nightmare,” the station reported.
Firefighters had to hike to the helicopter crash site, The New York Times reports.
There were eight passengers and a pilot on board the helicopter when it crashed. All died in the crash.
Bryant is survived by his wife Vanessa and three other daughters, the youngest of whom was born in June, CNN reports.
JC baseball coach among victims
John Altobelli, head baseball coach for Orange Coast College, was also on board with his wife Keri and daughter Alyssa, the college said. He had coached the championship baseball team for 27 years, according to the school. Altobelli’s Pirates won four state championships (2009, ‘14, ‘15 and last year), all in the four-team finals at John Euless Ballpark at Fresno City College.
“He truly personified what it means to be a baseball coach. The passion that he put into the game, but more importantly his athletes, was second to none - he treated them like family,” the college said.
Sarah Chester and her daughter Payton, a middle school student, were also on the helicopter, CBS News reports.
Harbor View Elementary School principal Todd Schmidt said on Facebook, “While the world mourns the loss of a dynamic athlete and humanitarian, I mourn the loss of two people just as important...their impact was just as meaningful, their loss will be just as keenly felt, and our hearts are just as broken,” CNN reports.
Payton attended elementary school at Harbor View, according to the network.
Christina Mauser was traveling with the group as a coach, The New York Times reported She had been a basketball coach and physical education teacher at Harbor Day School in Corona del Mar and had coached Gianna Bryant to a school championship in fall 2017.
Her husband, Matthew Mauser, who was also a coach of that team, confirmed her death. He said Bryant had hired Mauser to coach for a basketball team at his Mamba Academy and called her the “Mother of Defense” because she was so good at teaching zone defense to the eighth-grade players.
Authorities have not yet named the pilot involved in the crash.
This story was originally published January 26, 2020 at 5:03 PM.
