Hailey Van Lith resides baseball inside her tiny community — Cashmere, Wash., inhabitants 3,152 — and as the nation’s #1 guard and No. 2 total pro regarding the women’s basketball positioning web site customers country, the 18-year-old knows quite about celebrity and fame.

But finally summer time, as she waited in a Thailand airport after a group USA video game, she had beenn’t prepared for a message from basketball legend Kobe Bryant.

“The book was in one of Kobe’s primary men — we labeled as your ‘T,’ in which he merely fundamentally asserted that Kobe realized about myself, adored my personal game and really wished to get us to L.A. to do business with your and explore basketball,” Hailey mentioned in a cell phone interview Monday as she drove to rehearse at Cashmere high-school.

“i possibly couldn’t believe it, which he in fact know just single parents dating each other who I was and believe I was good member. Once I afterwards questioned your, ‘precisely why me personally?’ he fundamentally said how I perform, my work ethic and mentality in the courtroom, reminded him of himself, therefore required him to attain off to me.”

But Bryant, the daddy of four daughters and a strong promoter of women’s baseball, had more motives too, mentioned Hailey’s parent, Corey Van Lith, who’s served as their daughter’s coach since she was actually small.

“He desired to help Hailey, but the guy in addition planned to placed anyone facing their child she could associate with, because Hailey are a remarkably tough employee. Hailey have devoted their lives up to now to getting the number one individual and basketball member she will be able to possibly be, in which he wanted to reveal Gigi, ‘If you do this, you are able to attain the objectives you should attain’,” Van Lith mentioned, utilizing a nickname for Bryant’s child Gianna.

So there was also a third — “dad-to-dad” — aspect that interested Bryant, Corey said: their union with Hailey as their instructor.

“the guy planned to discover how I generated that really work,” the guy mentioned, “because he had been heading down that roadway together with girl Gigi.”

The guy mentioned Bryant achieved off to him two weeks in the past, inquiring your to deliver a number of the exercise sessions the guy does together with daughter.

“He was one of the best basketball people of them all . but he had been usually wanting to read,” Corey stated. “His pride had beenn’t too-big to ask somebody anything like me, who is no body from inside the basketball business, ‘hello, how did you find achievements in getting their daughter to in which she’s at?’ ”

Corey, co-owner of a custom home-building business together with spouse, Jessica, attended the institution of Puget sounds on a baseball scholarship, in which the guy additionally played baseball. He’s come knowledge their child since she was a student in basic college, he mentioned, when this lady athleticism and competitive drive turned into obvious.

They train collectively 2 to 3 many hours per night, before or after employees exercises, and this’s exactly what curious Bryant.

“whenever you spend that period of time with someone, affairs can’t see too monotonous or they won’t remain curious,” Corey said. “So I’m continuously creating new stuff.”

Hailey and her dad seen Bryant last August and she practiced with Gianna’s Mamba employees. She visited again in September, this time along with her mama, Jessica. Hailey stated Bryant provided this lady advice for both off and on the courtroom.

“He informed me to examine the video game. ‘Make yourself a well-rounded user and simply learn the game,’ ” she said. The guy informed her to focus on the girl footwork over dribbling, in which he informed her just how he had pushed himself psychologically for through injuries and challenges.

Hailey shared a few of that pointers in a tribute to Bryant and Gianna before a game title Tuesday evening. “Thank your for teaching myself it is OK getting unapologetically fantastic,” she typed inside her declaration, hugging the girl teammates and fighting straight back tears since it was actually review on the audience in Cashmere.

Bryant furthermore told her to produce a list of participants she believe are much better than she ended up being following, one after another, discover a way to conquer all of them on court.

“He said I had to be a lot better than all of them in every single facet of the games, and every opportunity we satisfied all of them and bested them, I could test them off of the listing,” she stated. “So I did that. I made a listing of 20 babes, and thus far I’m seven lower. We have 13 going.”

Hailey also applied with Gianna and came to feel like a pal and mentor towards the young lady.

“She got an enjoyable, shy female, courteous and also set aside outside the game of basketball, but regarding judge, she got that killer impulse. She got a competitor, fearless in the court. I starred their one-on-one, and she wasn’t scared of myself. She performedn’t proper care that I found myself said to be a lot better than the girl, taller and old. She just used everything she got, which got something cool to see.”

She and Gianna typically texted both about their games, Hailey said. Gianna is “super enthusiastic” about starting senior school basketball for the trip, she said, and already got hopes for attending the University of Connecticut and playing in the WNBA.