Tag: legacy

Categories
Sports

Kobe Bryant’s legacy will live on

On Jan. 26, the world lost a legend. Kobe Bryant was not just one of the best basketball players of all time. He was an icon, an Oscar winner, a mentor to many, but above all he was a husband and father.

I’ve never met Kobe, nor have I ever seen him play live. To be honest, I’m not much of a basketball guy. But growing up watching SportsCentre before school every morning, there was always something about Kobe Bryant. I, alongside countless others, grew up watching Kobe do his thing.

Kobe’s death shook the entire basketball community around the world. I asked some members of the Stingers basketball community what Kobe Bryant meant to them.

 

Tenicha Gittens: “Kobe Bryant to me is the definition of that competitive spirit, that intestinal fortitude that people say you’re supposed to have. He was borderline obsessed with the game of basketball and just wanted to be the best. He encompasses everything that it means to be a true athlete. And it wasn’t just about him. He wanted to make his teammates better and just be the ultimate fighter, competitor, warrior, whatever you wanna call it. Mamba mentality. It’s a real thing. Just saying it feels like it gives you power, like you can be Mamba. Basketball-wise—he was just the ultimate competitor. He made it okay to not care about what was said on the court. He would pull your heart out and be the first one to check up on you after. Off the court he was the ultimate advocate as well for women’s sports and basketball. You know, 41 years old—he didn’t have to coach his daughter and be an advocate but he wanted to continue to grow the game on all sides. His legacy is going to be his legacy on the court, but we got cut short of everything he was doing off the court. He was just scratching the surface. He was constantly watching women’s basketball—his daughter Gianna was the reason he started watching basketball again. It’s so easy for a male professional athlete to detach themselves from the women’s game for whatever reason, but it takes a vision to say ‘we need to be a part of this too. We need to be able to help support them and supply them with resources to grow their game.’ He means a whole lot. I have literally never cried like that for someone I have never met.”

Rastko Popovic: “I was on my couch in my living room resting Sunday morning when I found out about the helicopter crash, on Twitter and just saw the TMZ tweet. I had to look twice. My phone started buzzing so I get messages from people and it’s just, it’s unreal. And to be honest, you know, it’s not really if you’re a Kobe Bryant fan at this point. If you know basketball you understand how good he was and how much of a great competitor he was. You just appreciate what he did for the game of basketball and some guys obviously grew up idolizing him and for as long as you know basketball, you respect the champion, the competitive [player] that he was. It really puts things in perspective—I was involved in a big car accident two weeks ago. I missed the game against UQAM, and was pretty badly injured to start. You know, I just appreciated life to that sense where I was just saying I was just happy to be alive. I won’t lie to you, I kissed my two daughters at night and I had some tears. You never know what life’s gonna throw at you certain days and, you think some people are indestructible then something like this happens.”

Olivier Simon: “Mamba mentality—it’s a big thing. It defines Kobe—it’s work ethic in its purest form. And I think we play, we practice every day and it’s huge in our life, not just basketball. It’s the moment until you can put it to work, with your family, and basketball. It’s a way to live your everyday life. So I just try to have fun, and just do the best I can with whatever I’m doing. That’s what Mamba mentality is for me. I was talking to my coaches, like, everyone who knows when we heard about the story. Everyone is talking about his death as if we were personally affected, like as if we knew who he was. It was just hard because, you know, we’ve watched Kobe for a long time. The whole day was just really weird because I just imagined him, his family and his daughters. It was a hard day.”

Dwight Walton: “It’s not what he meant to me. It’s what he was about. His commitment to excellence, his commitment to skill development, his commitment to the process of what it took to win. And whether you were a fan of his or not, you respected that about him because, listen, he—throughout his career, you heard stuff. I won’t pretend to have been around the Lakers when he played. But you heard his teammates, he would alienate himself from his teammates a lot. But it’s because he wanted to win so, so badly, so whether you thought he was a selfish player, or whatever word you wanted to use for him; his commitment to wanting to win so much is what stands out for me. When you mimic, to who I consider the best player of all time, Michael Jordan, that’s the biggest compliment you could give to somebody; he wants to be what Michael Jordan was. The same traits, that commitment to excellence, that commitment to his body, his skill development, all of that stuff. That’s what resonated with me. I’m not gonna sit here and say that I was a huge Kobe Bryant fan, but I respected the process he went through to make sure that he was the best player that he could be. You see all the outpouring of love and affection that he’s been getting since the news broke on Sunday. Everybody knows the great basketball player he was but I think the reason why everybody is so emotional is because of the transition he made to being a great father, a great husband. And a great mentor to not only his kids but to the youth, especially the women, the little girls that wanted to play basketball. He was a major advocate for women’s basketball. His daughter Gianna, by all accounts was on her way to doing big, big and better things basketball-wise. And if you noticed, when Kobe Bryant first retired, he wasn’t a fixture at Laker games. He wasn’t going to a lot of games. But I think his daughter’s love for the game reinvigorated, reenergized him and his love for the game of basketball. He put the same relentless work ethic into becoming a great producer in the media world, a best-selling author, he won an Academy Award for his short film. Some people are saying that he lived a full life in his 41 years, but I think his life was just getting started.”

 

Graphic by @sundaeghost

Categories
Sports

Notes from a fan: coping with Kobe’s death

When news broke about the deaths of Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven others aboard the helicopter, I was in disbelief.

I’d always thought incredulity at the revelation of tragedy was a hyperbole, I thought people were just emphasizing the significance of the event/loss. On Jan. 26, my ignorance was destroyed as I experienced the phenomenon first-hand.

I spent the weekend in New York City, gladly welcoming the opportunity to wind down before mayhem between school and work would undoubtedly ensue. The itinerary was picturesque and arranged; Broadway show on Saturday, Knicks on Sunday––feasting and shopping along the way.

Saturday came and NYC was as mesmerizing as ever, with billboards simulating 24-hour daylight and shopping centres bustling through the p.m. and early a.m.. The Sunday morning weather was beautiful and the clusters of people lining the streets reflected it.

By nighttime, the billboards once meant to display ads that cost companies more monthly than what I’ll earn in my life were replaced instantly, diehard New York sports fans littered the streets wearing Laker apparel and mimicked the message the billboards held in cold-hard truth.

The advertisements pictured the Los Angeles legend over a bleak background that read: “Kobe Bryant 1978-2020”

I wandered the American streets without phone service when my girlfriend got the news from our friend who replied to a social media post. My friend (someone I would not consider an avid basketball fan) wrote: “We heard Kobe passed, how’s Liam taking it?”

I instinctively gravitated towards the fact that Lebron James had passed Kobe up in all-time points the night prior, but why would my friend care enough to bring that up? I quickly tossed that notion aside.

We momentarily got excited because it meant Kobe Bryant must be in town. My head started to spin, and the itinerary previously set in stone was about to cave in on itself.

It did, but for all the wrong reasons.

When articles were presented, I slated the gaps in knowledge and wanted more evidence. How could Kobe of all people be killed in such a way? I will always mentally scuffle at the thought.

Madison Square Garden, the historic arena garnering the brightest lights was overshadowed by the news that night. The home of the New York Knicks became the home of Kobe’s first NBA points (Nov. 3, 1996), the host of that evening’s game became the host of Kobe’s first All-Star game (Feb. 7, 1998). Spike Lee’s usual courtside antics were unusually minimal, as even the fan-favourite celebrity-cams failed to cheer up the Garden crowd.

And if not for my friend’s unassuming message hours before the game, I might have found out in the arena during the moment of silence. I am forever grateful that notion will remain fiction; she softened the blow for me.

It’ll take weeks before hoop fans can continue talking basketball, and that’s okay. We can never forget such a tragedy, but we must do our best to endure together. On Jan. 30, Vanessa Bryant released her first public statement, in which she perfectly sums up everyone’s sentiments this week.

“I wish they were here with us forever,” she wrote. “They were our beautiful blessings taken from us too soon.”

 

Feature photo by Liam Sharp

Categories
Music

Rap fans: where’s your loyalty?

GIF by @sundaeghost

In 2015, a Spotify employee released statistics related to genre consumption and fan loyalty. Of the 1,300 genres that were analyzed, metal heads were found to be the most faithful to their genre.

Spotify’s measurement of loyalty was the number of streams divided by the number of listeners, and under this criteria, the streaming platform is telling us that metal fans mostly listen to metal music. While this comes as no surprise to me, I had a question of my own: which fanbase is most loyal to their favourite artists?

As an avid hip hop head and rock ‘n’ roll fanatic, I ask myself this question because I’ve seen both sides of the spectrum.

Although I love rock ‘n’ roll, I’m a man who tends to revisit the classics instead of trying to dig through the crowd of ‘meh’ artists that we label as rock stars these days, to find something worth listening to. That being said, there’s no shortage of classics, as the golden age of rock that was the 60s and 70s have left us with an infinite amount of lifelong jams. The best part of it all is that these rock stars remain legends to this day, despite the material they may have released in their later years, which gained no significant traction in the music industry.

Paul McCartney. The Rolling Stones. Bob Dylan. John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival. Elton John. KISS. Ozzy Osbourne. The list goes on and on.

While some of these artists have released newer material in the past decade, the large majority continue to tour and sell out stadiums while playing through the same recycled songs that they wrote decades ago; some as far back as half a century. These men are legends and can do no wrong. Even if any were to hypothetically release an album in 2020 that completely flopped, their legacy would not be tarnished. They’d continue to sell out arenas fast, and would be absolved of all their sins, courtesy of their loyal fan base.

I don’t think the same can be said about the rap industry…

As an avid hip hop head, I’ve seen how quickly the tides can change and bring a hero to zero in mere months. Chance the Rapper’s most recent album, The Big Day, may be one of the best examples of a praised artist who developed a cult following after a string of successful albums, only to make one mistake and be persecuted in the hip hop community. Chance’s decision to dedicate an entire album to his newlywed didn’t sit well with most fans and he went on to say that he believed they wanted him to kill himself for releasing it.

While this is the most recent example that comes to mind, this lack of loyalty that comes along with the unwillingness to let rappers experiment in their works is not new. Kid Cudi, the “lonely stoner” who opened up doors for hip hop artists to address the struggles of mental health, and who connected with millions of youth on a personal level, gradually faded from the spotlight with the release of his experimental works Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven and Satellite Flight: The Journey to Mother Moon. T-Pain, the pioneer of autotune, announced last week that he would be cancelling his upcoming tour due to low ticket sales. Last year, Nicki Minaj cancelled her joint tour with Future for similar reasons despite reigning as the queen of hip hop for quite some time.

Rock stars seem to be free to experiment with their works and make below-par projects once they have reached legendary status – no one seems to mind. The same cannot be said for rappers. Unfortunately, it seems like they’re only ever as good as their last release and there is little room for mistakes. Tough crowd, to say the least.

While rock fans treat their favourite artists as best friends in good times and in bad, hip hop heads seem to treat them as mere acquaintances no matter how close they once were.

Is it possible that this change in loyalty is due to the accessibility of music in the streaming era where artists are easily disposable and replaced by one of their peers? Does this accessibility create a generational gap that takes away from the attachment older generations once had with artists after waiting for their vinyl, physically going to the store to purchase it, and finally spending hours in awe as the record was spinning? Both are possible.

There seems to be only one definite solution to maintaining a lifelong legend status in the rap world. Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur remain the game’s most respected rappers of all time, but both of their legacies were cut short by their untimely deaths. Biggie only ever released two albums, while Tupac had time to drop five. Their careers were not long, but maybe that was for the best. Who knows the hit their legacy could have taken had they released a less than spectacular album.

Maybe the only solution to guaranteeing eternal legend status in the rap game is to die on top.

 

GIF by @sundaeghost

Categories
Student Life

Lest We Forget

Reflecting on the effect WWII had on one family

In 1918, Nov. 11 marked the day the Allies and Germany signed the armistice that ended World War I (WWI), supposedly around 11 a.m. Now known as Remembrance Day, Nov. 11 is a day to remember the sacrifices made by those in the line of duty, the lives lost during times of war and lives still being lost today. It’s a dark memorial day for many, and each person’s familial ties with both WWI and World War II (WWII) will invariably differ. However, the act of remembering those enlisted, albeit willingly or not, who have lost their lives to political conflicts is an act of respect we should all put our personal politics aside for.

Throughout my childhood, Remembrance Day was a day where I’d proudly watch my grandpa, Ryzard Guziak, address his fellow veterans at his branch of The Royal Canadian Legion in Toronto. Dressed to the nines in full uniform, adorned with pins and ribbons, him and his lifelong friends would oscillate between warmly reminiscing their youth and sadly remembering their fallen friends who were denied life beyond adolescence.

Nov. 11 is a day of remembering Ryzard’s sacrifices throughout WWII; about remembering my other grandpa, Roger Hutchins, and his decision to join the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1943, and the sacrifices that entailed. It should be noted, though, that Ryzard and Roger’s war stories are vastly different. Roger willingly joined the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve and remained stationed in Canada until the war ended, before eventually transferring to the Fleet Air Arm by 1950. Ryzard’s story, however, is much more complex. Since both of them have passed away, all I have are my memories.

Remembrance Day is one where I remember the decisions they made for freedom; for the freedom of future generations. I think of my sisters and I—of my niece, Stella, who neither of my grandpas got the chance to meet—and of the privilege we all had of growing up in stable conditions. I think of the freedom we have in our everyday lives; the freedom to mobilize and express our thoughts. Nov. 11 is a day where I remember Roger and Ryzard’s lives—how WWII adversely affected them, both on and off the battlefields—and what theirs, and so many other sacrifices, mean to the liberties we’re accustomed to.

Ryzard Guziak, my mother’s father, was born in Krynki, Poland in 1923, and raised in Bródno, a town in the northeast section of the Warsaw borough. My great-grandfather, Karol Guziak, was chief of detectives in Bródno, according to my grandma, Evelyn Guziak. When WWII was declared in 1939, the Germans immediately invaded Poland due to the proximity of their borders. “The Nazis just walked in and took over everything,” said Evelyn. Karol, Ryzard, and his mother were caught by Nazis at the Polish border while trying to flee to Lithuania. Nazis took Karol away and imprisoned him somewhere in Poland. Ryzard and his mother never saw Karol again; it’s assumed he was killed while imprisoned.

Ryzard was 16 at the time, temporarily living with his mother under Nazi occupation. However, their house was seized by Nazis, their valuables taken from them and, eventually, my grandfather too. According to Evelyn, in 1940, the Nazis came for Ryzard and many other young men in the middle of the night and, within hours, he was forcibly put on a train headed for Siberia. For the next few years, Ryzard worked in extremely poor conditions in the Russian salt mines, while tensions grew between the Nazis and Russians. By 1942, Russia was knee-deep in combat against the Nazis, and released most of their prisoners working in the mines, Ryzard included.

With absolutely nothing, not even proper clothes to weather the harsh temperatures in Russia, Ryzard jumped from train to train in hopes of finding a Polish recruitment centre he’d heard rumours of somewhere deep in Russia. After eventually finding the recruitment centre, around 1943, Ryzard made his way by train from Russia to Egypt to join the The Polish II Corps. But when Ryzard arrived, already incredibly ill from malnourishment, he contracted a skin disease from a dirty razor, causing his health to decline even further.

After barely recovering, Ryzard joined The Polish II Corps to fight against the Nazis, mostly through Italy. He lost many of his close friends in the Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944. “It wasn’t a fun time,” said Evelyn. “He never told me the dark stories. He would always try to make a joke of it. That’s the only way they could deal with it.”

Evelyn recalled a story Ryzard once told her, which likely occurred during the Battle of Monte Cassino. He and his platoon partner were on patrol somewhere in central Italy, and took a break to go to the bathroom in the woods. Only a few feet from Ryzard, his friend stepped on a landmine. “I’m sure [Ryzard] got splattered,” said Evelyn with a shudder. Luckily, Ryzard came out of the Battle relatively unscathed, except for a knick on his chin from a sniper that barely missed him.

WWII ended while Ryzard was still stationed in Italy, and since Poland had become communist throughout the war, he and his friends decided to stay in Modena for the time being. By the end of 1945, Ryzard’s station was moved to Britain, and eventually to Glasgow, Scotland, where he met my grandmother. At the time, Evelyn’s maiden name was McElroy. My grandparents met in a dance club called The Locarno, where they ballroom-danced the night away. Within six months, they were married. By 1952, they immigrated to Canada together, first docking in Montreal but eventually choosing Toronto as their final destination. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Feature image archive photo courtesy of the Guziak and Hutchins family.

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