'They're all gone.' Hours after John Altobelli was killed in a helicopter crash, his brother, Tony, went to work to pay tribute to him.
morning in Balboa Island, a harborside community off Newport Beach, and Tony Altobelli was getting his steps in. Around 11 a.m., his phone buzzed with a text message from his brother Jim. TMZ was reporting that Kobe Bryant had died in a helicopter accident. Tony tried to pull up the story, but the website crashed. He called Samantha Doucette, a women's basketball coach at Orange Coast College who previously worked at Bryant's Mamba Sports Academy.Tony was confused.
"I felt like I needed to do this for him," Tony said."I think he would've done the same thing for me."On Sunday morning, Tony, 49, asked his brother Jim to call their father and took it upon himself to relay the message to his four sisters. He checked in with John's surviving children -- Alexis, a junior in high school, and J.J., a Boston Red Sox scout in his late 20s -- then drove home, showered and reported to campus.
Before this, Tony spent 15 years as a sportswriter, working for virtually every newspaper in Southern California and some others in central Texas. By Sunday afternoon, it was time to put together the school's official statement about the deaths of John, Keri and Alyssa. Tony expected to write something heartfelt, something personal -- something poignant."I got nothing," he said."I couldn't even formulate a who-what-where-when-why sentence, which is Day 1 journalism stuff.
During the commute, while stuck in rush-hour traffic, the words finally started to come. He knew he needed to write about his brother. He skipped his exit, stayed on the 405, returned to his office and spent the next two hours crafting a 1,900-word letter that he titled,Tony Altobelli, SID at Orange Coast College, speaks at ceremonies for his brother John.
. And he was not only a good coach -- he was like a parent to a lot of these kids. He helped them get through life."by 5 a.m. on Tuesday and was at the facility by 8:30. He wanted to lock in on the pregame ceremony, which he considered the most important task of his career. He knew he would deliver a speech and he knew the family would be in attendance, including J.J. and Lexi. He wanted to make his brother proud.
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