Los Angeles Lakers great Kobe Bryant was reflectively defiant in a Friday night Facebook posting that he admitted he had to write to “vent” over a “BS” injury that made “no damn sense.”
More than anything, the Facebook note reflected the defiance, will, and mental toughness that are on par with Michael Jordan’s and Tiger Woods’s.
Bryant wrote the note after he tore his Achilles tendon in Los Angeles’s Friday night victory over Golden State at Staples Center. The guard had played nearly every minute in every game the last two weeks as he willed the Lakers to the eight and final Western Conference playoff spot.
“This is such BS!” Bryant wrote. “All the training and sacrifice just flew out the window with one step that I’ve done millions of times!”
He wrote that the “frustration is unbearable” and the “anger is rage.”
“Why the hell did this happen ?!?,” Bryant wrote. ” Makes no damn sense.”
After pondering whether he could come back nearly as good at 35 years of age, Bryant continued, “Do I have the consistent will to overcome this thing? Maybe I should break out the rocking chair and reminisce on the career that was.
“Maybe this is how my book ends. Maybe Father Time has defeated me…Then again maybe not!”
He said it felt good to vent on social media because his injury was the “WORST” thing “EVER” and then noted “there are far greater issues/challenges in the world then a torn achilles. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, find the silver lining and get to work with the same belief, same drive and same conviction as ever. “
Bryant wrote he loved the quote that says, “If you see me in a fight with a bear, prey for the bear.”
He said that quote represents the “mamba mentality.”
“We don’t quit, we don’t cower, we don’t run. We endure and conquer,” Bryant wrote.
He said Saturday’s surgery would be the first step of a new challenge and said he would be “Coach Vino,” in reference to Bryant’s tweets earlier in the season in which he compared himself to a fine wine that gets better with age.
“I have faith in my teammates,” he said. “They will come thru.”
Bryant, like Jordan, uses anything as motivation to constantly push himself to be better. The fact that a similar injury ended the career of his longtime rival Shaquille O’Neal–in addition to his initial doubters in the mainstream sports media–may push him to will himself to a comeback to prove his doubters wrong and one-up O’Neal in their never-ending battle.
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