Locals remember Lakers legend on Kobe Bryant Day
Desiree Engle knows where to go when she wants to feel close to Kobe Bryant, to garner a bit of his “Mamba Mentality.”
The mural on the side of Social Kitchen + Craft Bar in Costa Mesa not only features the late Los Angeles Lakers superstar and his daughter Gianna, but also the seven others who died in the helicopter crash on Jan. 26, 2020.
“I go there to talk to him when I need advice, or I need to talk to him,” said Engle, a Newport Beach resident. “He sends me all of these signs.”
She said the song “Memories” by Maroon 5, the same song played at Bryant’s funeral, came on during her break from work at a supermarket on Monday. She doesn’t consider that an accident.
Engle and other locals have been remembering Bryant this week. The 20-year Laker would have celebrated his 43rd birthday on Monday. Tuesday was the second annual Kobe Bryant Day in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, as the date “8/24” represents both of the numbers he wore with the Lakers.
Engle, who has a sizable social media following on Instagram, is a longtime Lakers season-ticket holder in Section 313 who throws a Lakers-themed barbecue every year. She said she considered Bryant a friend. Each year she would present to him a gift, a jersey signed by the fans, actors, teammates, management and other well-wishers.
And when she started having epileptic seizures and had to undergo brain surgery, she said the five-time NBA champion was there for her as well.
“When I made it seizure-free, I reported to him each year that I made it another year,” Engle said. “The thing that stuck with me is when he saw me at the gas station, he took my phone and took a picture of me and him. He told me, ‘Des, you’ve got to own this surgery and kick its [behind].’ That just got me. After that, I was like, ‘I can’t let it beat me.’ It motivated me to fight.
“It was just such an awesome thing that this guy did on the down-low, that nobody even knew about, you know? He was super-amazing.”
Lakers fan Haresh Satiani, who lives in Newport Coast, is the chief operating officer of Renovo Solutions, a healthcare technology company based in Irvine. This year, Satiani decided to transform the company’s conference room into the “Kobe Bryant Conference Room.”
The seats are purple and gold, and dozens of magazines featuring Bryant are laid out on the conference room desk.
“Every time I saw him on the cover [of a periodical], I would buy it,” Satiani said. “I followed him from 1996 to the very last game that he played. He really captured the heart of the city.”
There are several pictures Satiani hung on the wall, including one in which Bryant describes that “Mamba Mentality.”
Satiani, a Lakers season-ticket holder for 16 years, also hung up a picture of himself and Bryant from a book signing at Barnes & Noble in Newport Beach in September 2019, just months before his passing.
Bryant was there to sign his first children’s book, “Legacy and the Queen,” co-authored with by Annie Matthew. On Tuesday, Bryant’s widow Vanessa announced via Instagram that the second book in the series, “Legacy and the Double,” will be coming out soon.
Satiani savors the memory of the last time he met Bryant at the book signing.
“He was the nicest person in the world,” Satiani said. “He had his hands around my shoulder, smiled at me and shook my hand like he knew me forever. He made me feel special.”
A few bouquets of flowers were left at the base of another prominent Bryant mural in the area around lunchtime Tuesday, at El Toro Bravo in Costa Mesa.
Paloma Nguyen of Huntington Beach, whose family owns the popular restaurant, said she will be remembering the “Black Mamba” this week. Her husband, Tyke Witnes, was the one who painted the mural just days after the helicopter crash.
Nguyen said remembering Bryant, who won an Academy Award for his animated short “Dear Basketball” in 2018, is important.
“I feel like we have to keep his legacy alive,” she said. “He had such a beautiful life. It was just cut so short … [but] I don’t want to think of his life as a tragedy. He did so much in such a short amount of time.”
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