Kobe Bryant's death prompts battle over focus on star's rape charge

Sports

Kobe Bryant’s death prompts battle over focus on star’s rape charge

Published

4 years ago

January 28, 2020

Harry Miller

For author and attorney Mark Shaw, there’s one memory of Kobe Bryant seared into his brain — that of a young basketball star seated in a Colorado courtroom with what he perceived as a flippant attitude to the charge of sexual assault against him.

“Here was Kobe with an arrogant look on his face,” said Shaw, who covered the case for ESPN in 2004.

“It bothered me and it bothered all of the other reporters. He wasn’t taking this seriously at all. I don’t know if he was in denial or whatever, but he just didn’t take it seriously.”

Shaw, who is convinced of Bryant’s guilt, said he is particularly bothered by the coverage of Bryant’s death, that not enough emphasis has been placed on this part of the athlete’s life.

The tragic death of Bryant, along with his 13-year-old daughter and seven others in a helicopter crash Sunday, has sparked an outpouring of grief and tributes for the basketball great who helped lead the Los Angeles Lakers to five NBA titles during his 20-year career. But others have been quick to note that Bryant’s legacy is also marked by an allegation of sexual assault. And that, in turn, has sparked a backlash from some fans angered that the allegations were revisited so soon after his death.

“When someone passes away, certainly you want to highlight what they did well in life. And apparently he did kind of turn his life around from that point and became a great father, and the things that he’s done and all of that, that’s great,” said Shaw.

“But you just need to tell both sides of the story. A lot of times people just don’t want to really know the truth. They would rather discard that and only look at the positives that were involved with somebody’s life.”

Bryant at the Eagle County Justice Center in 2004 for pretrial motions in connection with the alleged rape of a 19-year-old woman. (Ed Andrieski/The Associated Press)

Indeed, a Washington Post reporter faced considerable social media backlash and death threats after she tweeted a link to an old article about the sexual assault allegation against Bryant shortly after he was killed. (Felicia Sonmez was suspended by the paper, which then seemed to back off on Tuesday.)

Jill Filipovic, lawyer and author of The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness, said it’s possible to “grieve a life lost and also address that life honestly.”

“To everyone yelling NOT NOW: Then when? When are we supposed to grapple with, and tell the whole truth about, the lives of people many admire?” she tweeted Sunday.

I’m now returning to my Twitter hiatus, but to everyone yelling NOT NOW: Then when? When are we supposed to grapple with, and tell the whole truth about, the lives of people many admire? We can grieve a life lost and also address that life honestly. <br><br>Also read it before yelling.

—@JillFilipovic

In a blog posted titled Kobe Bryant and Complicated Legacies, Filipovic wrote that all of his success in sports is “key to Kobe’s story” but also “is not the whole story.”

“Out of some mislaid definition of ‘respect,’ we are so excellent at sidelining the inconvenient parts, at least when the inconvenient parts are women we’ve made invisible and the one inconvenienced is a man we would prefer to keep admiring, without complication,” she wrote.

Bryant with his daughter Gianna at the 2019 WNBA All-Star Game. Gianna was also killed in the helicopter crash Sunday. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

In 2003, Bryant was charged with sexually assaulting a 19-year-old employee at a Colorado resort. He had said the two had consensual sex. Prosecutors later dropped the felony sexual assault charge at the request of the accuser, in exchange for a public apology. Bryant also settled a civil suit against him by the accuser for an undisclosed amount of money.

While some endorsements dried up, including McDonald’s, other major companies like Nike stuck by Bryant. He was largely able to put the allegations behind him, going on to have one of the most successful careers in the NBA, eventually retiring in 2016 as the third-leading scorer in the league’s history.

However, in the wake of the #MeToo movement, those allegations resurfaced. In March 2018, after he won an Oscar for the short animated film Dear Basketball, based on a poem he wrote, some criticized the Academy for its selection. And in Oct. 2018, he was ousted from the jury of an animated film festival after an online petition was circulated demanding he be dropped.

Shaw said in recounting Bryant’s legacy, it’s fine to talk about how Bryant seemed to change his ways following the alleged attack.

“I think you can do it in a way where you say despite him being charged with sexual assault … Kobe Bryant had become a changed man. I think you can put a positive spin on this — but it does need to include this incident that happened back then.”

Globe and Mail investigative reporter Robyn Doolittle, whose recent book Had it Coming: What’s Fair in the Age of #MeToo? includes a chapter about the Bryant case, said it’s important to remember someone like Bryant as a whole person.

“He can be a basketball legend, and it means so much to so many people, and he can also be an amazing father, by all accounts. He can also be someone who faced very credible sexual assault or rape allegations,” she said.

“I don’t necessarily think that people should hate Kobe Bryant. My book is all about ‘It’s not black or white. The hot take isn’t necessarily the most productive one.'”

His death, the outpouring of grief, and what some might say is an effort by fans to ignore the most controversial chapter of his life is illustrative of the intense relationship many have with their celebrity idols, said Bradley Bond, a University of San Diego associate professor in communication studies.

Bond studies the psychological concept known as parasocial relationship: the way people develop very strong social and emotional ties to fictional characters and celebrities.

The nature of entertainment media is to continually disclose information about these people, and the public feels like they get to know them over the course of time, he said.

“So it makes sense that when one of those perceived relationships dissolves that we experience grief in a similar way.”

Eric Mascarenhas comforts his son Nicolas at a memorial for Bryant near the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Monday. (Ringo H.W. Chiu/The Associated Press)

And when a celebrity does something that conflicts with one’s own moral code, it either negatively influences the relationship or fans find a way to close that cognitive dissonance with some type of excuse, Bond said.

“I think the easiest case with something like Kobe’s complicated background is to simply not believe the accuser.”

As well, fans may also be able to separate an actor or athlete’s personal life with their performance.

“You can still admire that primary attribute even if secondary attributes might conflict with what you see as an admirable person. I think you can separate Kobe the athlete from Kobe the individual.”

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Tiger Woods finishes Masters with his highest score as a pro, sets sights on coming majors – The Globe and Mail

Published

6 hours ago

April 16, 2024

Harry Miller

Tiger Woods hits from the bunker on the 16th hole during final round at the Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club on April 14 in Augusta, Ga.Charlie Riedel/The Associated Press

Tiger Woods finished the Masters on Sunday with a record he could do without, walking off the course with a 16-over 304, his highest 72-hole score in a career that spans three decades.

Woods’s previous high was 302 at the Memorial in 2015. He has only failed to break 300 one other time at the Masters two years ago when he shot 78-78 on the weekend and finished at 301.

Despite the score, Woods called it a “good week” and said he’s going to begin preparing for the other three majors including the PGA Championship in May, the U.S. Open in June and the British Open in July.

“This is a golf course I knew going into it, so I’m going to do my homework going forward at Pinehurst, Valhalla and Troon,” Woods said. “But that’s kind of the game plan.”

Overall, he wasn’t unhappy with how he played.

“Coming in here, not having played a full tournament in a very long time, it was a good fight on Thursday and Friday,” Woods said. “Unfortunately [Saturday] didn’t quite turn out the way I wanted it to.”

It hardly mattered to the crowd.

The 48-year-old Woods, who is still dealing with the effects of numerous surgeries that have affected his body and limited his playing time on the PGA Tour, received a huge roar from the crowd as he pitched close to the hole on No. 18 and made par.

Wearing his traditional Sunday red, Woods tipped his hat to the crowd.

Woods has played only 24 holes in one tournament going into the Masters

“I’m just going to keep lifting, keep the motor going, keep the body moving, keep getting stronger, keep progressing,” Woods said. “Hopefully the practice sessions will keep getting longer.”

Woods was in last place among the 60 players who made the cut when he finished. The previous time he finished in last place was in the 2020 Genesis Invitational at Riviera.

He played the final 36 holes in 15 over, shooting 77 on Sunday in his 100th career round at the Masters.

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Call of the Wilde: Detroit shades Montreal Canadiens in OT as Habs’ season nears end – Global News

Published

9 hours ago

April 15, 2024

Harry Miller

A home-and-home with the Detroit Red Wings is all that remains for the Montreal Canadiens in the 2023-2024 season. It’s been a season of improvement, and that’s the simple goal in a rebuild.

This one carried extra excitement as it was the debut of college sensation Lane Hutson. The Canadiens and Red Wings played perhaps the most exciting game of the year.

The Wings kept their playoff hopes alive with a 5-4 overtime win.

Wilde Horses

If a player moves to a higher level and he can’t do his strengths, that is the first indication that he may be in for some difficult days. It isn’t about weaknesses. It’s what brought the player to the NHL — his strengths. Can he still achieve his best traits at higher levels?

The most obvious example is when a goal scorer has big totals in a junior hockey league, but can’t score at all at the NHL level. Another example would be a playmaker at the college level who has plenty of time to make plays, but at the NHL level, he can’t hold on to the puck to create success.

This is why the first period of game one in the career of Lane Hutson showed right away that he was going to have absolutely no difficulty with his strengths. On the first shift, he had very little time to make a pass to Juraj Slafkovsky and did it perfectly.

Wilde Goats

There are no goats. There were only outstanding performances.

Brendan Gallagher scored twice. He now has 15 goals on the season. That may not sound like a Gallagher season, but 15 is a respectable number for a player who gets little to no power play time. Gallagher and his contract are not liabilities. In fact, this was a solid season for Gallagher.

It was also a strong night for Rafael Harvey-Pinard, who scored on a terrific pass from Jake Evans. Evans also had a strong season. He was asked to assume a much larger role with the injury to Christian Dvorak, and he shone. There is an NHL spot for Evans on a stronger Canadiens club. Ultimately, when the team is of a higher quality, he would be a fourth-line centre and a good one.

Josh Anderson didn’t make an impression on the scoresheet, but he had a strong game. Anderson has been looking more comfortable finally. He is driving the net like he used to. He may be finding the courage he needs in his game again after his serious high-ankle sprain injury. It says here that Anderson recovers next year to have a strong season putting this year’s woes behind him.

The club is looking quite competitive in game 81. The pieces are coming together.

Wilde Cards

The Canadiens’ first 100-goal line in 31 years may already be assembled. The century mark in goals is difficult to attain. Generally, there are only five to 10 100-goal lines per season. This year, there are seven.

In Montreal, fans haven’t been able to count on one this century. Even in the high scoring days of Alex Kovalev, the last player to be a point-per-game in Montreal in 2008, no line has been even close to 100 goals.

The last line to achieve the 100-goal mark was Brian Bellows, Vincent Damphousse and Kirk Muller in 1993. That says a lot about how good that cup-winning team was, and even more about how much of a scoring black hole fans have lived through in Montreal for a long, long time.

It may finally be ending. A 100-goal line could actually be a reality as soon as next season. The sample size of Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky is getting solid enough to start dreaming. The arrival of Slafkovsky has changed everything.

In the last 41 games for the Canadiens, Slafkovsky has exploded with 15 goals after attaining only four goals in the first half of the season. Nick Suzuki has also had a tremendous second half as the top goal-getter on the line with 22 goals. Suzuki is playing the best hockey of his career. The laggard by only a small margin, even though he is considered the best sniper of the three, is Cole Caufield. He has 14 goals in the second half of the season.

Add that up and the Canadiens line has 51 goals in 41 games. There is your 100-goal line. Can they duplicate that for an entire season? It promises to be exciting to find out. In their favour is that all three players are still improving, especially Slafkkovsky, whose ceiling seems very high. Also in their favour is that they have a chance to get a little relief in match-ups in the coming years, if the second line can also provide some offence and be a threat.

This is the type of scoring talent not seen in Montreal since 1993. That seems bizarre to say, but the numbers tell the true story. The best scoring teams under head coach Guy Carbonneau did not have a line that scored at the pace of Caufield-Suzuki-Slafkovsky.

Next season should be exciting.

Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sports writer, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after each Canadiens game.

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Call of the Wilde

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