Kobe and Alto: A Bond Between Two Champions

ESPN Daily

ESPN

Sports

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2022

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It has been exactly two years since a helicopter crash claimed the lives of Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, three members of the Altobelli family and four others. Alyssa Altobelli was a teammate of Gianna’s, and she was accompanied by her parents John and Keri. As it turns out, John was a legendary figure in his own right as the head baseball coach of Orange Coast College, a junior college in Orange County. In his 27 years at the helm of the program, John won over 700 games and four state championships. ESPN’s Chris Connelly explains the mutual respect John and Kobe had for each other, and just how big of an impact John had on his team…and in his community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Chris Connolly, where does the story begin?
0:05.0	Pablo, we start two years ago.
0:10.0	The date is January 28th, 2020, and we've got a junior college baseball team, the Pirates of Orange Coast College.
0:20.0	They're playing in their home opener, in a stadium that's sort of conventionally known as the house that Alto built.
0:29.6	Chris Connolly is a correspondent for ESPN and ABC News.
0:34.6	And yet for the first time in almost three decades, this team is taking the field for its opening day without the man who defined the program, John Altebelli.
0:46.3	When I say this is the house that Alto built, he didn't do it lightly. This was his dream job,
0:55.7	and he loved every second of this job. His leadership, his love of competition, he kind of embodied
1:05.1	the Mamba mentality. I've described him as the Kobe Bryant-I junior college baseball because he knew how to win.
1:13.6	And so while two years ago, so much of the world was mourning the loss of Kobe Bryant,
1:19.6	this team and this community was mourning someone very close to them as well.
1:25.6	They were mourning the loss of a husband, a father,
1:30.3	a leader, a role model, and a pillar of the community.
1:35.3	I know that he's proud of our guys for being out here today,
1:39.3	and we're going to do the best we can to honor him and everything we do moving forward.
1:57.5	It's been exactly two years since a helicopter crashed in the mountains near Los Angeles,
2:03.6	stopping the entire world with news about who was on board.
2:08.6	But in addition to Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, three members of another Southern
2:14.6	California family were among the nine who lost their lives that day.
2:18.5	And they were a sports family too, it turns out.
2:22.9	Today, we hear their story.
2:28.0	I'm Pablo Torre. It's Wednesday, January 26th.
	...

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