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The fifth anniversary of a Sikorsky S-76B helicopter crashing into a foggy hillside in Calabasas, claiming the lives of basketball legend Kobe Bryant and all eight others on board, is Sunday.
Ryan Badrtalei, an assistant coach at San Diego State, will be with the team preparing for a Tuesday game against San Jose State, practicing, watching film, meeting with fellow coaches, fine-tuning the scouting report.
But once that ends, once he’s alone, he’ll find some quiet time, thumb open a journal and begin writing down his thoughts, his feelings, his memories of a unique relationship with one of the game’s brightest stars — just as he does every year on the anniversary of his death.
“It’s an emotional time, just raw emotions that come rushing back,” Badrtalei says, his eyes brimming with tears. “It’s one of those things that never gets easier. You think time heals all wounds, and the reality is it doesn’t.
“It still feels very fresh and raw, something that is almost a reminder of how hard it is to believe.”
Badrtalei joined coach Brian Dutcher’s staff at SDSU last summer. Before that, he spent 18 years at UC Irvine, first as a volunteer video coordinator, then as director of basketball operations, then an assistant under two different head coaches.
In the spring of 2007, he was the program’s DOBO — director of basketball operations — when an associate athletic director passed along a message from Bryant’s camp saying the Newport resident wanted to visit the facilities as a possible offseason workout location. Badrtalei shrugged and called back. They’d like to come that night.
He showed Bryant around, walked through 50-year-old Crawford Court where the team practiced, took them downstairs to the dingy weight room. He gave them his number and figured that was that.
Two hours later, his phone rang with an unknown number. He let it go to voicemail. It was Kobe Bryant: “How does tomorrow morning work, 6 a.m.?”
Bryant, then 29, had just completed his 11th NBA season with the Los Angeles Lakers, but it had been five years since they had claimed back-to-back-to-back titles and he was losing confidence that management would surround him with enough talent to win another. He requested a trade and made it known that the Chicago Bulls were his first choice.
Bryant arrived that morning at Crawford Court with a man named Tom “Rev” Evans, one of Michael Jordan’s former trainers from his days with the Bulls. Badrtalei, a lifelong Lakers fan who grew up in Orange County, overheard them talking about the plan to work out at UC Irvine until he left for Chicago for training camp.
“One of my first interactions with him was, ‘You’re going to Chicago?’ ” Badrtalei says. “He looked at me and was like, ‘You’re not a fan, are you?’ He was challenging me, that you’re not going to have an issue with this.”
Bryant came back the next morning, and the next and the next and the next. Badrtalei sat on the stage along one side of the court, silently observing. Bryant thought he was a facilities worker until Evans mentioned he was on the Anteaters’ basketball staff.
“He turns to me and says, ‘Are you just going to (expletive) sit there, or are you going to help us out?’ ” Badrtalei said. “I’m looking around, like, no one else is here, I think he’s talking to me.”
Soon, he was rebounding for a guy who would play 1,346 NBA games, average 25.0 points per game and win five rings. Then he was spotting him on the bench press in the weight room. Then, learning the intricacies of his unrivaled workout regimen.
As spring turned to summer and trade rumors persisted, Badrtalei figured this would be it. Bryant would head off to Chicago, and he would return to just being a 27-year-old DOBO of a mid-major program making $20,000 a year and sharing an apartment with the assistant track coach.
Then Bryant stayed with the Lakers and won his only NBA MVP award. The guy who never played college basketball and went to UCLA with the intention of going to medical school became the Lakers legend’s primary offseason trainer and, ultimately, close confidant.
“It took a long time to build trust,” says Badrtalei, who started coaching at Capistrano Valley High School, his alma mater, while living with his parents and studying for the MCATs. “If anything, he taught me how important it is to build trust with people you work with. With him, it took just so long. In my eyes, it was inappropriately too long. I’d spent countless hours with him … But the more you get to know him, you understand why he’s so guarded and needs to be the way he is. You don’t really take to offense to it anymore.
“It took a while to build that relationship, but it turned into a back-and-forth relationship, a personal relationship, a friendship.”
Badrtalei began designing the offseason workouts instead of just helping administer them. When Bryant went on vacation to Europe with his family, he’d send them remotely.
When Bryant was in town, they regularly worked out at 5 a.m., then again at 9 p.m. once they both put their kids to bed. Sometimes during the season, Bryant would call him driving home after games at 11 p.m., wanting to get up some shots at Crawford Court or sit in the ice bath.
When Bryant was rehabbing an injury and needed low-impact exercises, Badrtalei consulted his wife, a former national team water polo player, and developed lung-scorching swim sets.
“He loved swimming because he was bad at swimming and because of how hard it is,” Badrtalei says. “He enjoyed trying to perfect it and get good at it, and he enjoyed how it made him feel, the discomfort. That was the same thing on the court. He enjoyed leaning into that discomfort. If it didn’t make him feel uncomfortable, he’d be really frustrated.
“That was a lot of our back and forth, creating challenges for him, making him uncomfortable, making him feel certain ways that would help him grow.”
It wasn’t all giggles and chuckles.
“It was challenging,” Badrtalei says. “I kid you not, there were days where I’d had enough of him. It was exhausting. We’d get into it. I’d get out here and put a body on him. It wasn’t personal, it was just always competitive. You couldn’t show up at 5 in the morning and be sleepy. You had to be on one and at his level.
“He was absolutely relentless, and I don’t use that word lightly. It’s human nature to let up, to relax, when everyone tells you how great you are, to take a deep breath and take a vacation. And this dude was insane. He’d win a championship, and he wanted more. He’d win an MVP, and he wanted more. All of it was what his legacy would be. A lot of people won’t believe me, it was never selfish intentions. It was what he felt like he owed the game.”
Few people outside of UCI knew of their relationship. SDSU’s players don’t know the details, but they can see the fingerprints. Guard Nick Boyd began regular workouts with Badrtalei shortly after arriving on campus last summer as a transfer from Florida Atlantic.
“I almost threw up,” Boyd says. “I was close. I never throw up in workouts, but I was close. I asked for water, and he said, ‘Nope, no water, right back to it.’ That first workout, it was like, ‘Yeah, he’s definitely been around Kobe before. He doesn’t really say much, but you can tell.’ ”
Says Badrtalei: “Kobe’s influenced my workouts, but also my approach and delivery with guys in terms of challenging them. As a young coach, you have this urge to push guys really hard, but you question yourself: Am I pushing them too hard, am I pushing them past the limit? Being with Kobe only strengthened my belief how hard you can push people.”
Bryant and Badrtalei went to dinner regularly. Badrtalei traveled with him to Las Vegas for USA Basketball camps. He accompanied him to Germany to get a specialized treatment. He went to family functions. He was on the Lakers’ bus during the downtown parade for the 2009 championship. He flew in the Sikorsky S-76B helicopter with Bryant too many times to count.
Bryant’s agent called Badrtalei after the 2009 championship asking for his ring size. Badrtalei declined, saying he felt uncomfortable receiving one. Seven years later, after retiring, Bryant asked Badrtalei to come meet him.
Had something for him: a 2009 championship ring.
Only once did Badrtalei defy Bryant’s admonition about being a fan. It was late in the summer of 2007, their first together. Badrtalei assumed Bryant was leaving for Chicago and he’d never see him again.
Badrtalei showed up one morning for their 5 a.m. workout with his most treasured possession, a leather NBA basketball that was a childhood gift from his parents, so cherished that he’d never dribbled it outside. He asked Bryant to sign it.
It sits in his office at SDSU.
Originally Published:
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