News of Kobe Bryant’s passing hit like a tropical thunderstorm. So did the emotional outpour that followed, spreading on social media Sunday afternoon like wildfire. I watched TV in the basement and cried. Many people did.

It’s not a stretch to say Kobe was the biggest basketball figure for many in my generation. The de facto defining basketball athlete of our time.

The “larger than life” cliché doesn’t quite capture it. I don’t remember exactly the first time I learned about Kobe, but it was definitely before I watched an actual NBA basketball game. As a high school kid in the early 2000s in Rwanda, it was nearly impossible to wake up at 3 a.m. to watch him as a young phenom wreaking havoc through the association.

There was no YouTube to catch highlights. But it was not rare to see a random youngster rocking No. 8 purple-and-gold jersey on the streets of Kigali. His posters were plastered all over the barbershop walls. You knew the Black Mamba moniker. You didn’t know much about him, but you knew he was Kobe and he was great.

It was a little different for Scarborough video editor Jordan Hayles, who grew up in Toronto and would miss Kobe’s late games on the west coast but watch games when Lakers visited the east. Kobe, not Michael Jordan, was the topic of conversations among friends at school. Kids wanted to play like him at the gym. He was a fierce competitor, and they loved him for that.

“It only drew me in more to appreciating the player he was, even though he was responsible for a lot of heartbreak towards the Raptors,” says Hayles, 30.

On Sunday, Hayles had just finished watching the All The Smoke podcast where Kobe was recently a guest of former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson when the tragic news broke. He froze. It still doesn’t feel real for him. He remembers Kobe’s playoffs battles as “poetic,” his moves crafty and powerful.

Kobe’s relentless pursuit of excellence is something Hayles says he will continue to emulate. Success for Kobe was not a destination but a mindset, and that’s something to inspire millennials and younger generations.

“Mamba Mentality meant attacking every and anything you want in life with intensity, in order to propel yourself in a way where success doesn’t become something that happens by accident, it’s what is earned because you put in the work to get there,” says Hayles.

“Never stop growing, never stop being hungry.”

Toronto’s Remy Carrera, 28, has a collection of Kobe jerseys and sneakers as the main part of his wardrobe. He became a self-proclaimed Laker for life while in high school as he watched Kobe break record after record, destroying other players on the court with no fear. He “fell in love” with Kobe’s fadeaway jumpshot, his footwork and his pump fake.

“My best memory of him is when he got injured and I saw him crying, but you could tell in his eyes he didn’t want to go down like that, and he came back,” says Carrera, admiring Kobe’s spirit of not ever breaking. He’d always go down trying.

Just hours before Kobe died, Carrera posted on Instagram a picture of his 3-year-old son Zion hanging on the basketball rim with a caption that he knew all along there was some Black Mamba blood in the toddler. He hoped his son would grow up to learn how Kobe had changed the game of basketball. He has been crying since.

“Seeing him go is very sad but I will cherish every single night I spent searching him up before I went to sleep,” says Carrera, who works in construction. “Kobe Bryant made me love the game and for that matter I am a Laker for life and nothing will change that.”

Like many people all over the world, Chol Gaidit Aweer simply took to social media to express his shock.

“Why the young Mamba Lord?!?! He was going to Hall of Fame THIS Year and hasn’t even given his speech; has young family of daughters that needed him; had great business plans of his own and he is such a brilliant, extremely hardworking young man and an avid reader; hasn’t yet lived his life! Lord nooo!,” he posted on Facebook.

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Aweer was a young teen growing up in South Sudan and Kenya in the early 2000s when Kobe started to “single-handedly torch” the league, season after season. When he later came to Canada, he became a closer follower of Kobe’s games. He watched every playoff game Kobe played in the 2008-09 season.

His personal favourite time while watching the Black Mamba was during the 2009-10 NBA Finals against the arch-rival Boston Celtics.

Everyone has their favourite memory of Kobe. I cursed when he scored 41 points against Toronto in March 2013 and beat the Raptors in overtime. Then his final NBA all-star appearance in Toronto in 2016. And his final NBA game later that season, when he dropped 60 points against Utah.

The world lost a legend in Bryant. An impromptu memorial quickly formed outside Staples Centre right after the news broke. A memorial is being organized at Maple Leaf Square on Tuesday. Kobe’s images have been playing on the screens outside Scotiabank Arena.

He was 41. His influence and inspiration to the young generation might last 100. Or forever.