Photo from: Kareem Alocillo
CEBU CITY, Philippines— After Kobe Bryant’s sudden demise on January 26, people around the world paid tribute to the fallen basketball star in their own little way.
Just recently, basketball superstar, Lebron James was seen with a new tattoo paying tribute to the “Black Mamba.”
Just like Lebron, a coach here in Cebu also wanted to remember the Black Mamba by getting a tattoo.
Read more: LeBron unveils ‘Mamba 4 Life’ tattoo in honor of Kobe
Kareem Alocillo, head coach and owner of Coach A Basketball, a basketball training on the weekends told CDN Digital why decided to get inked with the number 24 with a black mamba four days after Bryant’s tragic death.
“Well, I’m a 93’ kid. Kobe got drafted at 96’. So basically, me as a person and him as a basketball player grew together. One of the so many reasons why I play basketball,” said Alocillo.
Read more: In Photos: Cebuanos run for Kobe
Alocillo who played for two years in with the University of Cebu Webmasters during his college years.
“I’ll explain the tattoo, it has Kobe’s number 24 number, and as what you can see, it has a black mamba snake that shape as an infinite and as well as number 8 which is his 1st number. As you can see, the snake is slowly fading, it symbolizes that in life, even if you fall, you have to get back up and be better and there you are back at it again,” said Alocillo.
Read more: Avid Kobe fan from Cebu City uses talent to pay tribute to fallen basketball legend
He said he was still on the process of moving and accepting that the iconic basketball player was already gone forever, but the mamba mentality would live on and on. /dbs