Kobe Bryant was Superman to some of us. To others he was just that basketball guy. The way he shaped the game and the mentality of winning and stepping into who you are has shaped the way that I and many others live our lives. The thing about life is that one moment you are alive and the next it's all over and what is left is your legacy.

Not many will ever embody the idea that hard work pays off like Kobe Bryant and as a fan of the Indiana Pacers I hated watching the Lakers take us out year after year but in that I got to see greatness. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that Kobe won basketball games because he did the work. It was also in adulthood and more recently that I figured out that he was just getting started.

There is no question that his mission was so much greater than sports and for a brief moment in time we got to witness that. I will always have to wonder how great he could have really been but I guess that legacy lives in each of us. That Mamba Mentality is now embedded in culture and in sports legacy. Even in greatness he was faced with human mistakes, we can't fail to take that into consideration but despite falling he did what he did best and rose again.

I'll always be a Kobe Bryant fan and he'll always seem like Superman to me because well, he was. Mamba forever. Rest in Peace. And to the the families of those lost along with Kobe and his daughter my heart and my strength goes out to you.