The Last Mamba

Kobe Bryant changed her life. Now Amalia Holguin is honoring his legacy.

Amalia Holguin is a 17-year-old point guard from West Covina, Calif. She has Greek roots, a big-time game and a preference for playing with her thick blondish hair in a bun. Sometimes the bun is in the back of her head. More often it’s piled on top. What never changes is her mentality, which began being shaped when she was 10 years old and was invited to join Kobe Bryant’s Mamba Academy team.

“I don’t think I’d be the player I am today, or have the mindset that I do, if I hadn’t (been coached by Kobe Bryant),” Amalia (ah-mah-LEE-a) told me. “I can still hear him saying, ‘Amalia, make sure you are working harder than everybody else. If you take time off, always remember that somebody else is working.’”

Entering her senior year at Sage Hill School in Newport Beach, the 5-foot, 9-inch Holguin is a top Div. I recruit, a stature she reinforced earlier this month in Las Vegas, where she helped her team get to the finals of the Nike EYBL tournament. She was two years younger than all the other Mamba players when she joined the academy. Now she is the last Mamba still in high school, as determined as the teammates who preceded her to embrace the legacy of her late coach. Her Instagram account is @jrmamba10.

“For Amalia, Kobe wasn’t just a basketball legend; he became a mentor, a source of inspiration who ignited a passion for the game and taught her invaluable lessons about perseverance, resilience and confidence,” said Flora Holguin, Amalia’s mother. “Every time Amalia steps onto the court whether it’s for practice or a game, she plays with one clear purpose, to honor the memory of her coach and teammates. The spirit of the Mambas lives on in her heart, and each dribble, every shot, is a tribute to those we’ve lost.”

Amalia (front row, left) and her Mamba teammates in 2019

It has been 5 ½ years since the helicopter crash that claimed the lives of Bryant, his daughter, Gianna, six other members of the Mamba family and the pilot. It happened on a fog-shrouded Sunday morning in the steep, rugged hills of Calabasas, California, en route to a game at academy headquarters in Thousand Oaks. Bryant co-founded the venture not long after the end of his iconic 20-year career with the Lakers, seeking to guide the growth of 13-year-old Gianna, a prodigy in her own right, and to promote women’s basketball in general. The word ‘Mamba’ has since been removed from the academy’s name out of respect for Bryant, but the competitive DNA of the program has helped launch collegiate careers at schools from Princeton to Northwestern to the University of Chicago.

Soon it will Holguin’s turn. She averaged 15 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists in leading Sage Hill to the 2025 California Div. 1 state championship game, where she had 21 points, 5 rebounds, 4 steals and 3 assists, hitting two late three-pointers to help erase an eight-point deficit. Sage Hill was one rebound away from victory, before losing by three to Carondelet.

“We’re the ones holding her back from scoring 25 a game,” Sage Hill coach Kerwin Walters said with a small laugh. “She’s a pretty phenomenal scorer. You have to pretty much pick her up from half court on.” Walters talked about Holguin’s superb court vision and her eagerness to get all of her teammates involved, and her insistence on guarding the opponent’s top scorer.

“Amalia is what we call the proverbial gamer,” Walters said. “When the lights get brighter, she can raise her level. I think she has a very high ceiling.”

Brenan Ghassemieh, Bryant’s former trainer, has worked with Holguin for seven years. From the beginning, he was impressed with her maturity and the depth of her commitment to get better, and the way she takes full ownership of her game. He wasn’t surprised that she was in the gym the morning after the state final. It’s another lesson she says she learned from Kobe Bryant.

“He’d tell us, ‘After every win or loss, there’s a lesson to be learned,’” Holguin said. “’You need to always look in the mirror and never sulk but look to the future.’”

Said Ghassemieh, “(Amalia) has the type of switch that few athletes have, even at the pro level. It’s not just with the scoring. It’s the ability to (find another level) athletically and competitively when she needs it.”

Holguin’s favorite WNBA players include Napheesa Collier, Kelsey Plum and Chelsea Gray. She understands making it to the best league in the world is a good distance away. There are important goals to achieve in the meantime. Sage Hill has five returning starters and the mission is to secure the school’s second state title in four years next spring. Beyond that, Holguin’s long-held dream is to play for the Greek national team. Her mother is from Paros, an idyllic island in the heart of the Aegean Sea, about 90 miles from Athens. The family visits every summer; Flora still has relatives there.

“It would be awesome (to represent Greece),” said Amalia, who expects to get her Greek citizenship this summer.

As she enters her senior year, Holguin expects to take official visits to various programs around the country – Louisville, Illinois and Arizona State among them - looking for the best fit. She will keep in close touch with her fellow Mambas, as she has ever since the morning of Jan. 26, 2020. She thought she’d be playing a basketball game that day. Instead, she and her teammates, and all the Mamba families, were pitched into shock and grief that may never fully go away. They lost not just Kobe Bryant and their teammate, Gianna, who everybody knew as Gigi. Also gone were assistant coach Christina Mauser and teammates Alyssa Altobelli and Payton Chester, Alyssa’s parents, John and Keri Altobelli, and Payton’s mother, Sarah Chester. Ara Zobayan, Bryant’s longtime helicopter pilot, died in the crash, too.

When the girls were all still in high school, they would observe the anniversary by gathering on a jetty at Newport Beach, standing on the rocks as they tossed flowers into the Pacific Ocean to honor the memory of those who perished. Now the Mambas are all over the country, but their fallen teammates and coaches and parents stay with them, empower them. They have a collective hashtag: #4the8. Every day they push themselves to get better, they keep the Mamba mentality alive. Amalia Holguin figures that is the best possible tribute to the coach who changed her life.