At first, head coach Todd Whitting could not believe it.
“For a split second,” he said in a Monday afternoon news conference, “I was like, ‘No way Alto was on that helicopter.’”
It was not until hours later, what felt like a lifetime, that Whitting’s fear became true and the helicopter crash that left legendary NBA superstar Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna among nine dead hit home.
John Altobelli, a 56-year-old former captain and UH assistant coach in the 1980s and longtime friend of Whitting, died along with his wife Keri and daughter Alyssa after the helicopter he was riding in with the five-time NBA champion and others slammed into a hillside 30 miles outside Los Angeles.