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NBC's Heather Cox remembers meeting Kobe Bryant for the first time and how he was both a superstar and a father

"I will remember him and his immense love for his daughters. First and foremost, I mean, only, and he loved those girls," the veteran sports reporter said.

BOISE, Idaho — Millions of people are paying tribute to and remembering NBA star and cultural icon, Kobe Bryant.

Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, and seven others were killed Sunday after their helicopter crashed in California.

Monday, KTVB sat down with longtime NBA reporter and Boise resident, Heather Cox, who covered Bryant’s career while covering the NBA on ESPN and ABC. She still remembers how she met Kobe first time.

“Very first time I met Kobe it was actually my very first NBA game. I was doing a Lakers, Minnesota game, I believe, and I was doing a live stand up in the layup line and Shaquille O'Neal “accidentally” bumped into me, and literally, my nose hit the camera lens during my live stand-up," Cox recounted. "Kobe came up and made sure I was okay. He is one of a kind. There are so many wonderful athletes I've had the fortune of being around and learning from, I would say Kobe's next level, he really had a special gift that you everybody saw on the basketball court and that translated."

MORE: Kobe Bryant helicopter crash: What we know now

While covering the NBA, Cox saw how Kobe Bryant carried himself on and off the court and recalled the great moments they had during shootarounds and after games.

"I think to everything that he did every part of his life he had a charisma, a sparkle, you know, a smile that was unparalleled," she said, "and every time you looked at Kobe you thought he knew something you didn't because he was having way more fun than everybody else."

Bryant's passion and skill for the game elevated him to be an elite athlete and one of the all-time great NBA stars, Cox explained.

“I've never seen anybody with as much of a competitive spirit and when we've been around amazing athletes that obviously are at that level, not only because they're gifted athletes, but because of their mental focus," she said. "Kobe was next level and his ability to focus his determination, his, his will to win was unlike anything I've ever seen what sticks out to you, what will you remember him for."

Off the court and after his retirement from the league, Bryant showed how much of a family man he was, embracing the role of being a father to his four children. These two acts of his life - becoming an all-time great NBA player and focusing on his family in retirement - will be the legacies that Kobe Bryant will leave behind after his tragic death.

"I will remember him and his immense love for his daughters. First and foremost, I mean, only, and he loved those girls. I think you know my heart breaks for Vanessa and their daughters," she recalled while holding back tears, "and I always think of how proud he was with his girls, and the love that he showed talking about them, or just having them around him and seeing him light up with his daughters and seeing them, the way he's supported their dreams and how he tried to instill the knowledge that he'd learned in his career into them, as a person and as an athlete, that is, I think what he, he will be remembered so much on the basketball court, but people should also remember him, and the love that he had for his girls and his family, and how important that was to him and how important carrying on his legacy was to them in terms of learning to be a good person, and love what you do and to live your life to the fullest and I think that's really what he was trying to pass on those girls.”

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