December 7, 2021 • 37 mins
When Kobe Bryant was making his rise through the high school basketball ranks, it would have been a miracle for Philadelphia's La Salle University to win an NCAA championship. It didn’t take long for people around La Salle to start thinking that maybe Kobe was going to choose to go to La Salle and become their savior. Kobe played a ton of pickup games in La Salle’s little sweatbox of a practice gym. Kobe could come to La Salle, stay for a year or two, and dominate. The school had won a national championship in 1954 and had been great in the late 1960s. If La Salle basketball was going to have any kind of renaissance, it needed Kobe bad, and everyone knew it. As for Kobe, he was keeping most of these plans to himself, and even though his dad was in a tough spot, being an assistant coach at La Salle, he and Kobe were kind of stringing La Salle men's basketball coach Speedy Morris along. La Salle might have a chance to get Kobe. Their school might be the one that Dick Vitale was screaming and shouting about on ESPN. Their school would be in the spotlight for a change.
Pre-order Mike Sielski's related book: “The Rise: Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality" (1/11/22): TheRiseOfKobeBook.com
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Our theme music is “Create Yourself” by Grover Braam feat. Justin Starling: Listen to Create Yourself on Spotify
But Kobe was at the vanguard of a new generation of players, young men who knew how much power they had and knew that they could wield it. Kobe could choose any path he wanted: college, the NBA, whatever. He could do what was best for him; he just had to be bold enough to follow through on it. Kobe’s future wasn’t dependent on Speedy Morris. If anything, it was the other way around. And Speedy Morris’ future wasn’t exactly a high priority for Kobe. It got to the point that Kobe started mocking the idea that he’d choose La Salle.
Cover photo © Eileen Blass – USA TODAY NETWORK
“I Am Kobe” is a production of Diversion Podcasts in association with iHeartRadio. This season is written and hosted by Mike Sielski. Produced by Jacob Bronstein and directed by Mark Francis. Story editing by Jacob Bronstein with editorial direction from Scott Waxman. Editing, mixing, and sound design by Mark Francis. Production Assistant: Stephen Tompkins. Music Supervisor: Scott Velasquez for Frisson Sync. Executive Producers: Mark Francis and Scott Waxman.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Diversion podcasts. I know that the media I probably nobody.
Now I'm gonna make my own because I want to
go to the sound board in the sound I want
to go to hine. What I was on was no
question that I'm making my own. To sty know, it
(00:26):
a right good job to print something. It's just good job.
Probo believe that they print, happy to do what they
happen to do. On a hot Monday afternoon last August,
(00:56):
I went back to a place that is very special
to me. In fact act, it's the place where I
first heard the name Kobe Bryant. So I've just parked
here at my alma mater, LSU University, and I'm heading
to the Connelly Library so I can find the very
first article I ever wrote about Kobe Bryant. I graduated
(01:21):
from Lasal. It's a private Catholic university in Philadelphia, a
mid size university with about four thousand undergraduates. And I
was kind of meant to go there anything. After all,
my father went to Lasal and his brother went to Lasal,
and my mom's brother went to Lasal, and my younger
sister went to Lasal. And while I was there, I
(01:42):
spent a lot of my time in a tiny, cramped
office in the basement of the student union building, the
headquarters of the university student newspaper, The Collegiate. I don't
know how many times I've come through this door left
the store late at night, back when I was writing
for and editing the student paper. Just feel so weird,
(02:04):
like all this happened yesterday, or it all happened a
quarter century ago, A kind of violing back and forth
between those two feelings. Plus, it's always a little strange
to come back here. In some ways, it feels like
I haven't graduated. Everything kind of comes rushing back. The
campus doesn't look that different from when I was here
(02:25):
in the early to mid nineties, and some of the
buildings and rooms even smell the same. My freshman year
at LaSalle began in the fall of another person's tenure
at the school began that year too, Joe Bryant's Kobe's dad,
Speedy Morris, La Salle's men's basketball coach, had hired Joe
(02:45):
as an assistant, and one of the intended by products
of that move was the belief that Kobe would decide
to play college ball there. Actually, for those of us
who were connected to Lasal. It wasn't really belief. It
was hope. Who was this kid playing at Lower Marian?
Was he that good? Was he as good as his
dad had been when Joe played for LaSalle? Was even better?
(03:06):
So yes, I remember the first time I wrote about Kobe.
I just don't remember what I wrote. I'm not really
looking forward to seeing this article. If there's one thing
that I think all writers hate, it's going back and
looking at their pieces or stories or whatever they wrote
when they were young. I know for me, I was
trying so hard to find my voice that what I
(03:28):
wrote was really stilted and kind of old fashioned in
a way. So I'm not looking forward at all to
seeing what I actually wrote about him. I didn't know
much about Kobe then, his background, his personality. I just
knew he was this tremendous high school basketball player who
might end up being a tremendous college basketball player at
my college. To find the article, I got in touch
(03:51):
with Carol Brigham, whose official title at LaSalle is Associate
Dean of Operations and Collections Management, which means he's in
charge of a lot of the archival material at the
Connelly Library, which means she's in charge of all the
back copies of the Collegiate. She was waiting for me
when I got to the library and went through the
front turnstyle. I'm sorry you, Mike, I am, and then
(04:16):
I'll say hi, I'm caring car with the you can't
tell Vernice to see you. Thanks for doing this problem. Yeah,
so I'm here to check out the Collegian. You know
what it is to your hair is very much Were
you here when I was a student here? Oh yeah,
okay back in the nice yes, yes, yes, I should
(04:36):
have warned you. That's okay. Am. I allowed to ask him?
Why sure? Um? So an in January? That vie um
and that also, which is why A here today right
come out later this year, and as part of it,
one of the episodes delving into the possibility to Coobe
(05:00):
would have come here and the fact that I was
a student in right third with Collegian at the time,
so I wanted to take up I know this is
the first article. Yeah, so in front of me, I
have about eighteen issues of the Collegian from my junior year,
(05:25):
and I've got to find the article that I wrote
about Toby. So let's see the saying it and here
it is. I found it Wednesday, December and guess what
(05:54):
it is? Every bit as bad as I feared it
would be. I'm Mike Sealskip and from Diversion Podcasts, this
is I am cooked the White wat Stein, Create myself,
(06:17):
exact signs, Create yourself, say nice, go on, create yourself.
You gotta learn of friendly great minds that we gained
line selling that's getting signed. Episode five. We need a hero.
(06:44):
Growing up just outside Philadelphia, I got turned onto Big
Five Basketball at an early age. The Big Five is
an informal association of college teams from Philly, some of
the oldest and most successful men's basketball programs in the country.
Villanova won the national championship just before I turned ten.
I can remember watching that incredible upset of Patrick Ewing
(07:06):
and the Georgetown Hoyas at home with my mom while
my dad was out of town for work. Penn was
the Ivy League school that held its own and then some. St.
Joe's always had this kind of underdog status, fit for
its motto the Hawks Will Never Die. Temple had its
wild eyed genius coach John Cheney. He had his team's
played this weird matchup zone defense that nobody could figure out.
(07:32):
But of course my team was LaSalle. My family had
all those connections to the school, and I'd watched the
Explorers games with my dad, including a few with the Pialester,
which we talked about previously in this series. Plus LaSalle
I thought was the best team in the Big Five
to watch. The school had won a national championship in
nineteen fifty four and had been great in the late
(07:52):
nineteen sixties when my dad was a student there. It
would traditionally recruit and get one or more of the
best players in the city, if not the best, and
in the late nineteen eighties, the Explorers coach Speedy Morris
continued that tradition. Speedy is still around, but he's experienced
some health problems in the last few years, including Parkinson's disease.
(08:14):
So I spoke to his oldest son, Keith, who played
for him at LaSalle and became a high school coach himself.
When you think of the Big Five, what comes to
mind tremendous history, worse didn't matter if you were University
of Penn having a tough season. We'll say having a
(08:35):
tough season, anybody could beat anybody. Any given night, sadness
a little bit, and then it's not what it was.
TV money, conference money obviously ended those palestrial doubleheaders, and
you know, you get it. There's nothing like it in
the country. We all know that. And some great teams,
great players, great coaches, and just it's silly Philly. I
(08:56):
missed the old days with it, to be honest. Speedy
is a Philadelphia institution himself. Grew up in the city,
got his first coaching job in a C Y O league,
was a great high school coach here for years. One
writer in town said that Speedy was as much a
(09:17):
part of the fabric of Philadelphia as Chiefe steaks, dripping
adjecta and soft pretzels flavored with bus exhaust. What a
great line. During games and practices, he had a volcanic temper.
He'd scream at his players, ball up his sport code
and chucking in the stands, roll up a game program
into a baton and smack a kid in the back
of the head room. He could be tough to play for.
(09:40):
I'll give you an idea of what I mean. Andrew
Trella grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and was a year
behind me. At LA South. His dad went there too,
just like mine. Andrew was six ft four, a really
good basketball player, used to destroy me and my team
and intermurals. These days, he lives and works just outside
Philly and coaches bass the ball at his local high school.
(10:01):
His sophomore year at LASAL, he tried to make the
team as a non scholarship player, a walk on, which
meant he got an up close look at Speedy's approach.
Here's Andrew. The one thing that really stuck out to me,
and it actually has affected me a little bit. I
think in the way I coach my kids at high school.
At the high school level, is he I don't want
(10:24):
a bad mouthing, but boy, he would curse up a storm.
He would just dress kids down and just you know,
I couldn't believe his mouth. I was like, wow, he's
really ripping guys a new one here. So he didn't
take any nonsense, and I respect that, but I certainly
have a more kind of gentler approach and maybe less
(10:48):
profane approach to coaching than he did. But it was
like a mile a minute he was he was slaying
into people and it wasn't you know, PG rated for
him It was just kind of a constant riding and ride,
and I was like, this is kind of uncomfortable. Not
(11:16):
everybody loved the way Speedy went about things, but man
could he coach offense. When he took over Asal's men's
program in the n c a A had just added
the three point shot to college basketball. It didn't take
him long to fall in love with it, and he
got guys who could shoot. Tim Legler dug over to
Randy Woods and the best of the bunch, the l Train.
(11:38):
Lionel Simmons, during the sideline report from Philly broadcaster Mark
zoom Off, explains exactly how LaSalle's offense could easily score
inside or kick it out to a three point sniper
like Tim Legler and destroy you from left marks. Team
failed to win a single Big Five game last year,
(11:58):
as Big Five Player of the Year had posted decided
that weight hy dramatic dial Lionel let Let's dottle a
perfect record so far. Clearly the Explorers are back if
that's the state. But those days were fading away when
Kobe was making his rise through the high school ranks.
It would have been a miracle for LaSalle to win
a national championship or even sniff one. The school didn't
(12:21):
spend much money on its basketball program, didn't even have
an on campus arena. The team played all its home
games at the Palestra or the Philadelphia Civic Center, twenty
minutes away from campus. But somehow the Explorers were contender
to win their conference every year, make the n c
A tournament, and earned some city bragging rights. Here's Keith
Morris again explaining how his dad tried to keep Lasale competitive.
(12:47):
Get those solid Philly players one or two a year
if you can, and build around it. Was his philosophy,
get them here, and I think one of his greatest
attributes was making it known and making guys feel like
I'm here for you off the court as well as
on the court. There was a family atmosphere for sure.
My mother, Mom Morris, as many of them call her,
(13:07):
cook many a spaghetti, lasagna, meatball dinner for a lot
of these guys. So the family atmosphere, and that I
think enabled him to coach them hard. The kids knew
he had their back off of the court, that he
was more than just their coach, he was a father figure. Hey,
(13:35):
this is Mike Sealsky, host and writer of I Am Kobe.
This podcast project came out of my work on a
related book called The Rise Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit
of Immortality. If you want to explore other parts of
Kobe's story, check out The Rise. It's not just a
book version of the podcast. I dive deeper into some
of the topics covered in this series, and even some
(13:57):
that we don't cover at all. Kobe's upbringing, his family,
his identity, his effect on his friends and teammates, his
journey into the NBA, and his earliest days with the Lakers.
The Rise Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality is
out now. Just head over to the Rise of Kobe
book dot com and you can buy it from any
(14:18):
of your favorite retailers. That's The Rise of Kobe Book
dot Com. Thanks. The first look that Speedy and Keith
Morris got at Kobe was during a Summer League game,
right around the same time that Speedy hired Joe Bryant
as an assistant coach. Keith was impressed with the kid.
(14:42):
Kobe was raw in that game as a freshman, but
you could tell very very talented, and what nobody realized
was that kids. Work ethic was just off the charts,
and each and every year after he's getting better and better,
to the point where my dad's LaSalle can't in the summer.
(15:03):
You know, there are ages eight through seventeen, so you know,
when I attended that camp, there were actually juniors heading
into their senior year in high school that attended it.
There were some decent players that came. Kobe I think
stopped coming after maybe tenth grade, because he just started
he culminated the camp. He was just he became that good.
(15:34):
It didn't take long for people, especially people around LaSalle,
to start to think that maybe, just maybe Kobe would
turn out to be good enough to play for his
dad in college someday. Kobe played a ton of pickup
games in Lasal's little sweat box of a practice gym.
Andrew Trella got to go up against him a few times,
and he could see how much better Kobe was than
(15:56):
anybody else in that gym. He had moves. I would
go back to the dorm after plane and see that.
My body's like, I don't know how he gets around
the court so quickly. I don't know if he's traveling,
but he kind of had a game that I was like,
it seemed like it was already NBA ready, and maybe
he was traveling. Maybe he just had that good footwork
that I didn't know how to get in front of him.
(16:17):
But he was really adept at getting around the floor,
maximizing the two steps that you get college basketball. I guess,
super competitive kid. The way he got around the floor,
that's what I really remember. It's kind of it was
very effortless, how he could get around the floor. You
think he might come to a sale if if Oh, yeah, no,
(16:40):
I definitely did so. And this was a running in
conversation I had with my buddies who I lived with,
was his dad's here he could be this second coming
of line one really turned the program around. You know,
there was a lot of talk at that time. I
believe it was Duke was mentioned pretty heavily. I remember
getting a lot about Duke um and then obviously he
(17:02):
heard the whispers about the NBA. But I guess I
just had never been around with someone who made that
kind of jump to the n B A And you know,
he was still what at six six six seven, he
wasn't physically he hadn't failed out completely, So it seemed
to me, like, you know, he would be an awesome
college player for a couple of years, and the fact
(17:24):
that his dad was on campus and helping out with coach,
and I was like, yeah, this seems like a great fit.
I certainly hoped and thought that, you know, he would
be kind of the next guy to turn the program around.
So because he could have walked in and the ball
was his, Andrew was onto something back then. Early in
(17:44):
his high school career, Kobe was actually open to the
idea of going to a sound He was genuinely considering
it because he knew he would be a superstar if
he went there. But I thought that was fund probably
be a nice right, not a couple of years, and
(18:06):
right sounded great to us. Kobe could come to Lassal,
stay for a year or two and dominate. We'd have
been cool with that. Heck, we needed him to do that.
Thanks to the programs athletic director Bob Mullen, LaSalle had
just changed conferences, moving to the Midwestern Collegiate Conference, which
included schools like Detroit Mercy and Illinois Chicago. It was
(18:29):
supposed to be an upgrade, better competition, more money, but
it was a ridiculous decision. No one from the Philadelphia
area wanted to watch basketball games against those schools, And
you could be darn sure no Philly area players wanted
(18:49):
to go to Lasal to play against those schools. I
mean it, I was there. Nobody showed up sitting courtside
at the Civic Center for a Lasau game. It was
like being at the bottom of the Grand Can. One night,
I was sitting courtside on press row and the Civic
Center was practically empty, and a sportswriter leaned over to
me and said, you know, if you put everybody in
(19:10):
this building on the court, no one would get called
for three seconds. It was a great line. It's stung,
but he was right. Competitive ball game, turning it inside
out as always be winning. That clip of a loss
(19:30):
from a matchup between LaSalle and Temple was just one
of many examples of the Explorers getting trounced in that era.
If Lasal basketball was going to have any kind of renaissance,
it needed Kobe bad and everyone knew it. So Bob Mallen,
the a D pulled out all the stops. He gave
(19:51):
Joe a raise, and he arranged for Kobe's older sister, Shia,
who played volleyball at Lower Merion to get a full
athletic scholarship to less out, even though the women's volleyball
coach never even met her, let alone recruited her. Through
all that, though, Kobe was pretty ambivalent about the idea
(20:11):
of becoming an explorer. For example, one of his pickup
partners at LaSalle was Larry Kentner, a six ft ten
stud at Roman Catholic High School, a Philly basketball powerhouse.
Kenner was a year ahead of Kobe in school, and
he was thinking about going to Losal himself. Kobe told
his friend Jeremy Treatment that Kentner basically gave him an ultimatum,
(20:33):
if you go Ala each other. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Kobe,
I'll commit to that. I have no clue what I'm doing. U. Yeah.
(20:59):
It was fun about goal there to play there. I
thought I could play there. I never really were out
there like it didn't man, that's all. Larry said, I'm
there tomorrow. And Larry Kenner wasn't the only big time
recruit who was considering the Sound just because of Kobe.
I got another one for you, Corey Benjamin. Corey Benjamin
(21:21):
was a six ft six shooting guard from Compton, California.
Kobe met him on the AUTH circuit. He'd go on
to be a first round draft pick and play three
plus seasons in the NBA. He said, going to I'm
going to because you know, you can't cout happen a
good time of hanging out. It started that he played
(21:41):
in comin with each other very well, going to the South.
I'm going all the way out there and I'm going
that's for you. I mean, what players standpoint. Then they're
saying if you college, If you do go to college,
(22:04):
I'm coming rich girl, I'm saying, but they know. I mean,
if they were my things, she may be taking man
and it would be a nice plot. But at the
same time, you might want to go to college and
having become a good time. So you never know what
to happen. So even in retrospect, it sounds too good
to be true. Kobe Bryant, Larry Kentner, Corey Benjamin All
(22:27):
a little old lassal well, guess what it was too
good to be true? Kentner picked you Mass. Benjamin ended
up going to Oregon State. As for Kobe, he was
keeping most of these plans to himself and even though
his dad was in a tough spot being an assistant
coach and everything. He and Kobe were kind of stringing
Speedy Morris along. Here's the other thing. Jeremy Treatment was
(22:52):
the radio play by play guy for the Explorers at
the time, and he was tight with Joe Bryant. I mean,
I saw your dads being Marson's jumping out the sound. Well.
I think at good time, I thought I'd be going
to the South. IM be a nice back my father.
(23:12):
Those of us who weren't really in the know, thought
that bond between Joe and Kobe might be enough to
pull the kid to the South. Our school might have
a chance to get him. Our school might be the
one that Dick Vitale was screaming and shouting about on ESPN.
Our school would be in the spotlight for a change
(24:02):
that chance. However, Slim made a certain high school basketball
game in December of a huge event in Philadelphia, and
particularly to everyone who followed was sal Who's The game
was between Lower Marian and Roman Catholic. Larry Kentner had graduated,
so Romans best player was a guard named Donnie Carr.
(24:24):
He and Kobe were friends. They played summer ball against
each other for years, and Donnie was Speedy Morris's top
recruiting target. He was just six ft three but strong,
could shoot from the outside and had a great handle,
the perfect Lasal player. The game was at Drexel University,
and Donnie and Kobe went toe to toe. That was
(24:45):
the game that inspired me to write my first article
about Cope. There had been so much build up to
it and so much reaction after it, and Kobe and
Donnie had played so well that I felt I had
to weigh in. I had a regular column for The
Collegian back then, and here's a snippet of the one
I wrote after the lower Marian versus Roman Catholic game.
Prepare yourself for some awful probes. Last Monday night, the
(25:12):
prospective saviors of the LaSalle basketball program stood out in
the center of Drexel's Physical Education Center, drew their cult
forty five, and blasted away at one another. Neither blinked.
Kobe Bryant, Lower Marian's sleek and supple guard, scored thirty points,
(25:32):
flying and floating through the heavy gymnasium air. Roman Catholics
Donny Carr scored thirty four points. The game was a
victory for Roman, the gunfighting duel a draw the future
for Explorer basketball should these young snipers choose to come
here blinding Yikes, that's some overwrought college paper garbage. But
(26:00):
I was just one of several writers who read way
too much into that game, who didn't really know what
Kobe was thinking. And as I would learn much later,
what he was thinking was I don't want to play
for La Salle, and I especially don't want to play
for a coach who screamed so much. Right as the
season when I really I really begin to dislike me
(26:23):
more because the way he's coaching. A couple of things
you did, I mean didn't like. I said, Man, yeah,
you know, it's not you. I really just don't like
like I did. Decided to college, and I would not
be side. I really want to thinking, you don't realer
(26:45):
what you're doing. I remember, but I know my mother
dart where Kobe was pretty emphatic there, and you have
to put his thinking in the right context, the context
of that time and the context of him Back then,
(27:16):
it was a pretty natural thing for a great high
school basketball player to go play for a coach like
Bobby Knight or John Chaine or Speedy Morris, a coach
who would scream and yell and push his players to
the breaking point. But Kobe was at the vanguard of
a new generation of players, young men who knew how
much power they had and knew that they could wield him.
(27:39):
Kobe could choose any path he wanted, college, the NBA, whatever,
he could do what was best for him. He just
had to be bold enough to follow through on it.
Kobe's future wasn't dependent on Speedy Morris. If anything, it
was the other way around, and Speedy Morris's future wasn't
exactly a high priority for Kobe. It got to the
(28:00):
point that he started mocking the idea that he choose
lasal Remember the volleyball scholarship that Shaya got. Well, Kobe's
other sister, Shariah, already was a Division one player at Temple,
another Big five Phillies school, And as Kobe told Jeremy Treatment,
he had a lot more fun watching Sharia's matches than
he did. Shays, Oh yeah, yeah, there's a lot of
(28:23):
fund game the South, like Temple bar on the south
of the really stinks. Saying those the teams stinks. You
attended the day volley board teams stinks. So Jeremy asked
(28:45):
Kobe the logical question, if you weren't going to Asal,
where were you going? What are you going to check out? There?
What I'm thinking about checking out? Mr? Game? You're gonna
go to all these places? I definitely check out what's
ks trying to percentage cheese? You might change the funds
(29:10):
a little defender, but you never know what happened. I
never never right right out there at the best time
in your life. Enjoined the coach choo where you wait
for you. There's a couple of schools that I like,
like North Carolina, but I'm gonna pick them. You don't
(29:34):
pick them because of affects. Michael Jordy not able to
have your own identity right now? You do. There are
a couple of really interesting insights into Kobe just from
that clip. One, even though he admired Michael Jordan's and
(29:56):
patterned his game after Michael Jordan's, he didn't want to
go to North Carolina because that's where Michael Jordan's had
gone to school. He wouldn't be his own man, he
wouldn't have his own identity there. Two, he would have
gone to Duke. That admission confirms what a lot of
people were saying at the time and have said in
the years since, that if Kobe went to college, he
(30:18):
was going to play for Mike Chaszewski. But here's what
very few people knew at that time. All the lip
service that Kobe was paying to the idea of going
to college would turn out to be just that lip service.
There was no chance he was going to Duke or
North Carolina or Michigan or Arizona or LaSalle. Looking back,
(30:42):
all of us who are around back then can see
that possibility of Kobe going to LaSalle for what it was,
a flight of fancy for a prodigy with bigger dreams,
a one in a million shot at glory for a
struggling college program, A notion that captured our imaginations. But
that turned out to be a pipe dream. But man,
(31:03):
it was fun to dream. Even Carol Brigham, tucked away
in the Connelly Library about as far from the world
of basketball as you could get, hoped Kobe would end
up at the site. I remember it all. I remember
being so disappointed when I decided, yeah, yeah he uh
(31:28):
he thought about it, thought yeah, yeah, you met him, Yes,
I met him a number of times, but once Kobe
reached a certain point in his development as a player,
he was never ever going to do it. He had
(31:49):
made himself stronger and smarter. He was adding muscle to
his skinny frame. He had more experience. He knew better
how to CounterPunch against just about any defense, how to
up and safe for any deficiencies in his game. On
a particular night, if his jumper wasn't falling, he'd drive.
If an opponent played his own, he'd bomb away from
the outside. Heading into the summer between his junior and
(32:13):
senior years of high school, the Summer of Kobe had
a plan, and it did not involve saving the basketball
program at my alma mater. It didn't involve college basketball
at all. The plan was so wild and so forward thinking,
in fact, that even Jeremy Treatment couldn't see its full
scope at the time. The summer of nine was going
(32:35):
to be Kobe's springboard to the NBA. In the next episode,
I'll tell you the story of that summer, The summer
when Kobe Bryant truly became a superstar. At one point,
Stack House started found him high. They almost got into it,
and you know, stack house grabbing him and we had
to kind of break them from those two up. He
was relentless because, like I said, for a guy in
(32:57):
high school, it was not even its going out the
number one over pay. What's kind of crazy? That's next
week on I Am Kobe. I Am Kobe is a
(33:27):
production of the Version podcasts in association with I Heart Radio.
This season is written and hosted by me Mike Sealsky.
It's produced by Jacob Bronstein and directed by Mark Francis.
Story editing by Jacob Bronstein with editorial direction from Scott Waxman, Editing,
mixing and sound design by Mark Francis. Stephen Tompkins is
(33:48):
our production assistant. Our theme music is Create Yourself by
Grover Brown featuring Justin Starling. Find Create Yourself wherever you
stream music. Music supervisor is Scott Velaska's for Free Sons Sinking.
Executive producers are Mark Francis and Scott Waxman. Join the
conversation about I Am Kobe on social media on Twitter
(34:12):
and Instagram. It's at Diversion Pods thanks to Rain Rosenbaum,
Susan Cannavan and Jeremy Treatment The Eyebries before the Sun.
They don't understand when I said the grind is fun.
Never clock you out. Even when my work is done.
If they're trying to block me, I might hurt someone
through the blood sweat and says, we perseveit, stay tending in,
(34:32):
let it, keep the hurses and then if they don't
believe in themselves, gave a vert, defend that at Tampa says,
So I'm telling no, pass my a. This the reason
why I'm gonna work so damn different. So the negatives.
I can't listen to see me at the time. You
can't listen where I'm a mute to play like cashes
see I pay my dudes because Texas gotta work. I
(34:53):
thinking grind ahead of his time. It's someone saying that
they made you. Don't tell them you create yourself the
best you ben or watch us, but by that time
you gotta snake clock, then break clock, break we create yourself.
Watch creet question, watch to create myself, sat climb, signs
(35:15):
up and create yourself. They nice, ain't so hard to
create yourself. You gotta learn from the great minds. No,
we ain't lying to tell them that this is any time.
This talent wasn't given. It was made the future. Any
time I could change better, tell them that I've made
it back home. As I walked through the hearts of
(35:35):
the fame, I came from the Valley of the Shadow
with death waiting for us. Spoon, don't hold your breath,
same town, sat train. But I did it with less.
I know one that to be so there's nothing to guess. Yeah,
there's nothing. Yes, it's our times. Tell them we up next.
We don't got any regrets. I did it with my
soul hands and we never forget my an. This the
(35:55):
reason why my work so damn different to the negatives.
I can listen see me at the time. You can't
listen for where rebuild, reach shape, give me your eye.
You got to risk take do it now. When I'm
saying while braves, I was saying that they made you,
tell them you create yourself the best you finn l
(36:15):
watch us by. It's by that time. You gotta sneak
clock then break clock break we create yourself, watch me,
watch watch the create myself. Exac clia signs up and
create yourself. They're nice and ain't go on create yourself.
(36:37):
You gotta learn from the great minds. But we ain't
lying telling them that ain't time diversion podcasts,
Diversion podcasts. I know that the media I probably nobody.
Now I'm gonna make my own because I want to
go to the sound board in the sound I want
to go to hine. What I was on was no
question that I'm making my own. To sty know, it
(00:26):
a right good job to print something. It's just good job.
Probo believe that they print, happy to do what they
happen to do. On a hot Monday afternoon last August,
(00:56):
I went back to a place that is very special
to me. In fact act, it's the place where I
first heard the name Kobe Bryant. So I've just parked
here at my alma mater, LSU University, and I'm heading
to the Connelly Library so I can find the very
first article I ever wrote about Kobe Bryant. I graduated
(01:21):
from Lasal. It's a private Catholic university in Philadelphia, a
mid size university with about four thousand undergraduates. And I
was kind of meant to go there anything. After all,
my father went to Lasal and his brother went to Lasal,
and my mom's brother went to Lasal, and my younger
sister went to Lasal. And while I was there, I
(01:42):
spent a lot of my time in a tiny, cramped
office in the basement of the student union building, the
headquarters of the university student newspaper, The Collegiate. I don't
know how many times I've come through this door left
the store late at night, back when I was writing
for and editing the student paper. Just feel so weird,
(02:04):
like all this happened yesterday, or it all happened a
quarter century ago, A kind of violing back and forth
between those two feelings. Plus, it's always a little strange
to come back here. In some ways, it feels like
I haven't graduated. Everything kind of comes rushing back. The
campus doesn't look that different from when I was here
(02:25):
in the early to mid nineties, and some of the
buildings and rooms even smell the same. My freshman year
at LaSalle began in the fall of another person's tenure
at the school began that year too, Joe Bryant's Kobe's dad,
Speedy Morris, La Salle's men's basketball coach, had hired Joe
(02:45):
as an assistant, and one of the intended by products
of that move was the belief that Kobe would decide
to play college ball there. Actually, for those of us
who were connected to Lasal. It wasn't really belief. It
was hope. Who was this kid playing at Lower Marian?
Was he that good? Was he as good as his
dad had been when Joe played for LaSalle? Was even better?
(03:06):
So yes, I remember the first time I wrote about Kobe.
I just don't remember what I wrote. I'm not really
looking forward to seeing this article. If there's one thing
that I think all writers hate, it's going back and
looking at their pieces or stories or whatever they wrote
when they were young. I know for me, I was
trying so hard to find my voice that what I
(03:28):
wrote was really stilted and kind of old fashioned in
a way. So I'm not looking forward at all to
seeing what I actually wrote about him. I didn't know
much about Kobe then, his background, his personality. I just
knew he was this tremendous high school basketball player who
might end up being a tremendous college basketball player at
my college. To find the article, I got in touch
(03:51):
with Carol Brigham, whose official title at LaSalle is Associate
Dean of Operations and Collections Management, which means he's in
charge of a lot of the archival material at the
Connelly Library, which means she's in charge of all the
back copies of the Collegiate. She was waiting for me
when I got to the library and went through the
front turnstyle. I'm sorry you, Mike, I am, and then
(04:16):
I'll say hi, I'm caring car with the you can't
tell Vernice to see you. Thanks for doing this problem. Yeah,
so I'm here to check out the Collegian. You know
what it is to your hair is very much Were
you here when I was a student here? Oh yeah,
okay back in the nice yes, yes, yes, I should
(04:36):
have warned you. That's okay. Am. I allowed to ask him?
Why sure? Um? So an in January? That vie um
and that also, which is why A here today right
come out later this year, and as part of it,
one of the episodes delving into the possibility to Coobe
(05:00):
would have come here and the fact that I was
a student in right third with Collegian at the time,
so I wanted to take up I know this is
the first article. Yeah, so in front of me, I
have about eighteen issues of the Collegian from my junior year,
(05:25):
and I've got to find the article that I wrote
about Toby. So let's see the saying it and here
it is. I found it Wednesday, December and guess what
(05:54):
it is? Every bit as bad as I feared it
would be. I'm Mike Sealskip and from Diversion Podcasts, this
is I am cooked the White wat Stein, Create myself,
(06:17):
exact signs, Create yourself, say nice, go on, create yourself.
You gotta learn of friendly great minds that we gained
line selling that's getting signed. Episode five. We need a hero.
(06:44):
Growing up just outside Philadelphia, I got turned onto Big
Five Basketball at an early age. The Big Five is
an informal association of college teams from Philly, some of
the oldest and most successful men's basketball programs in the country.
Villanova won the national championship just before I turned ten.
I can remember watching that incredible upset of Patrick Ewing
(07:06):
and the Georgetown Hoyas at home with my mom while
my dad was out of town for work. Penn was
the Ivy League school that held its own and then some. St.
Joe's always had this kind of underdog status, fit for
its motto the Hawks Will Never Die. Temple had its
wild eyed genius coach John Cheney. He had his team's
played this weird matchup zone defense that nobody could figure out.
(07:32):
But of course my team was LaSalle. My family had
all those connections to the school, and I'd watched the
Explorers games with my dad, including a few with the Pialester,
which we talked about previously in this series. Plus LaSalle
I thought was the best team in the Big Five
to watch. The school had won a national championship in
nineteen fifty four and had been great in the late
(07:52):
nineteen sixties when my dad was a student there. It
would traditionally recruit and get one or more of the
best players in the city, if not the best, and
in the late nineteen eighties, the Explorers coach Speedy Morris
continued that tradition. Speedy is still around, but he's experienced
some health problems in the last few years, including Parkinson's disease.
(08:14):
So I spoke to his oldest son, Keith, who played
for him at LaSalle and became a high school coach himself.
When you think of the Big Five, what comes to
mind tremendous history, worse didn't matter if you were University
of Penn having a tough season. We'll say having a
(08:35):
tough season, anybody could beat anybody. Any given night, sadness
a little bit, and then it's not what it was.
TV money, conference money obviously ended those palestrial doubleheaders, and
you know, you get it. There's nothing like it in
the country. We all know that. And some great teams,
great players, great coaches, and just it's silly Philly. I
(08:56):
missed the old days with it, to be honest. Speedy
is a Philadelphia institution himself. Grew up in the city,
got his first coaching job in a C Y O league,
was a great high school coach here for years. One
writer in town said that Speedy was as much a
(09:17):
part of the fabric of Philadelphia as Chiefe steaks, dripping
adjecta and soft pretzels flavored with bus exhaust. What a
great line. During games and practices, he had a volcanic temper.
He'd scream at his players, ball up his sport code
and chucking in the stands, roll up a game program
into a baton and smack a kid in the back
of the head room. He could be tough to play for.
(09:40):
I'll give you an idea of what I mean. Andrew
Trella grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and was a year
behind me. At LA South. His dad went there too,
just like mine. Andrew was six ft four, a really
good basketball player, used to destroy me and my team
and intermurals. These days, he lives and works just outside
Philly and coaches bass the ball at his local high school.
(10:01):
His sophomore year at LASAL, he tried to make the
team as a non scholarship player, a walk on, which
meant he got an up close look at Speedy's approach.
Here's Andrew. The one thing that really stuck out to me,
and it actually has affected me a little bit. I
think in the way I coach my kids at high school.
At the high school level, is he I don't want
(10:24):
a bad mouthing, but boy, he would curse up a storm.
He would just dress kids down and just you know,
I couldn't believe his mouth. I was like, wow, he's
really ripping guys a new one here. So he didn't
take any nonsense, and I respect that, but I certainly
have a more kind of gentler approach and maybe less
(10:48):
profane approach to coaching than he did. But it was
like a mile a minute he was he was slaying
into people and it wasn't you know, PG rated for
him It was just kind of a constant riding and ride,
and I was like, this is kind of uncomfortable. Not
(11:16):
everybody loved the way Speedy went about things, but man
could he coach offense. When he took over Asal's men's
program in the n c a A had just added
the three point shot to college basketball. It didn't take
him long to fall in love with it, and he
got guys who could shoot. Tim Legler dug over to
Randy Woods and the best of the bunch, the l Train.
(11:38):
Lionel Simmons, during the sideline report from Philly broadcaster Mark
zoom Off, explains exactly how LaSalle's offense could easily score
inside or kick it out to a three point sniper
like Tim Legler and destroy you from left marks. Team
failed to win a single Big Five game last year,
(11:58):
as Big Five Player of the Year had posted decided
that weight hy dramatic dial Lionel let Let's dottle a
perfect record so far. Clearly the Explorers are back if
that's the state. But those days were fading away when
Kobe was making his rise through the high school ranks.
It would have been a miracle for LaSalle to win
a national championship or even sniff one. The school didn't
(12:21):
spend much money on its basketball program, didn't even have
an on campus arena. The team played all its home
games at the Palestra or the Philadelphia Civic Center, twenty
minutes away from campus. But somehow the Explorers were contender
to win their conference every year, make the n c
A tournament, and earned some city bragging rights. Here's Keith
Morris again explaining how his dad tried to keep Lasale competitive.
(12:47):
Get those solid Philly players one or two a year
if you can, and build around it. Was his philosophy,
get them here, and I think one of his greatest
attributes was making it known and making guys feel like
I'm here for you off the court as well as
on the court. There was a family atmosphere for sure.
My mother, Mom Morris, as many of them call her,
(13:07):
cook many a spaghetti, lasagna, meatball dinner for a lot
of these guys. So the family atmosphere, and that I
think enabled him to coach them hard. The kids knew
he had their back off of the court, that he
was more than just their coach, he was a father figure. Hey,
(13:35):
this is Mike Sealsky, host and writer of I Am Kobe.
This podcast project came out of my work on a
related book called The Rise Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit
of Immortality. If you want to explore other parts of
Kobe's story, check out The Rise. It's not just a
book version of the podcast. I dive deeper into some
of the topics covered in this series, and even some
(13:57):
that we don't cover at all. Kobe's upbringing, his family,
his identity, his effect on his friends and teammates, his
journey into the NBA, and his earliest days with the Lakers.
The Rise Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality is
out now. Just head over to the Rise of Kobe
book dot com and you can buy it from any
(14:18):
of your favorite retailers. That's The Rise of Kobe Book
dot Com. Thanks. The first look that Speedy and Keith
Morris got at Kobe was during a Summer League game,
right around the same time that Speedy hired Joe Bryant
as an assistant coach. Keith was impressed with the kid.
(14:42):
Kobe was raw in that game as a freshman, but
you could tell very very talented, and what nobody realized
was that kids. Work ethic was just off the charts,
and each and every year after he's getting better and better,
to the point where my dad's LaSalle can't in the summer.
(15:03):
You know, there are ages eight through seventeen, so you know,
when I attended that camp, there were actually juniors heading
into their senior year in high school that attended it.
There were some decent players that came. Kobe I think
stopped coming after maybe tenth grade, because he just started
he culminated the camp. He was just he became that good.
(15:34):
It didn't take long for people, especially people around LaSalle,
to start to think that maybe, just maybe Kobe would
turn out to be good enough to play for his
dad in college someday. Kobe played a ton of pickup
games in Lasal's little sweat box of a practice gym.
Andrew Trella got to go up against him a few times,
and he could see how much better Kobe was than
(15:56):
anybody else in that gym. He had moves. I would
go back to the dorm after plane and see that.
My body's like, I don't know how he gets around
the court so quickly. I don't know if he's traveling,
but he kind of had a game that I was like,
it seemed like it was already NBA ready, and maybe
he was traveling. Maybe he just had that good footwork
that I didn't know how to get in front of him.
(16:17):
But he was really adept at getting around the floor,
maximizing the two steps that you get college basketball. I guess,
super competitive kid. The way he got around the floor,
that's what I really remember. It's kind of it was
very effortless, how he could get around the floor. You
think he might come to a sale if if Oh, yeah, no,
(16:40):
I definitely did so. And this was a running in
conversation I had with my buddies who I lived with,
was his dad's here he could be this second coming
of line one really turned the program around. You know,
there was a lot of talk at that time. I
believe it was Duke was mentioned pretty heavily. I remember
getting a lot about Duke um and then obviously he
(17:02):
heard the whispers about the NBA. But I guess I
just had never been around with someone who made that
kind of jump to the n B A And you know,
he was still what at six six six seven, he
wasn't physically he hadn't failed out completely, So it seemed
to me, like, you know, he would be an awesome
college player for a couple of years, and the fact
(17:24):
that his dad was on campus and helping out with coach,
and I was like, yeah, this seems like a great fit.
I certainly hoped and thought that, you know, he would
be kind of the next guy to turn the program around.
So because he could have walked in and the ball
was his, Andrew was onto something back then. Early in
(17:44):
his high school career, Kobe was actually open to the
idea of going to a sound He was genuinely considering
it because he knew he would be a superstar if
he went there. But I thought that was fund probably
be a nice right, not a couple of years, and
(18:06):
right sounded great to us. Kobe could come to Lassal,
stay for a year or two and dominate. We'd have
been cool with that. Heck, we needed him to do that.
Thanks to the programs athletic director Bob Mullen, LaSalle had
just changed conferences, moving to the Midwestern Collegiate Conference, which
included schools like Detroit Mercy and Illinois Chicago. It was
(18:29):
supposed to be an upgrade, better competition, more money, but
it was a ridiculous decision. No one from the Philadelphia
area wanted to watch basketball games against those schools, And
you could be darn sure no Philly area players wanted
(18:49):
to go to Lasal to play against those schools. I
mean it, I was there. Nobody showed up sitting courtside
at the Civic Center for a Lasau game. It was
like being at the bottom of the Grand Can. One night,
I was sitting courtside on press row and the Civic
Center was practically empty, and a sportswriter leaned over to
me and said, you know, if you put everybody in
(19:10):
this building on the court, no one would get called
for three seconds. It was a great line. It's stung,
but he was right. Competitive ball game, turning it inside
out as always be winning. That clip of a loss
(19:30):
from a matchup between LaSalle and Temple was just one
of many examples of the Explorers getting trounced in that era.
If Lasal basketball was going to have any kind of renaissance,
it needed Kobe bad and everyone knew it. So Bob Mallen,
the a D pulled out all the stops. He gave
(19:51):
Joe a raise, and he arranged for Kobe's older sister, Shia,
who played volleyball at Lower Merion to get a full
athletic scholarship to less out, even though the women's volleyball
coach never even met her, let alone recruited her. Through
all that, though, Kobe was pretty ambivalent about the idea
(20:11):
of becoming an explorer. For example, one of his pickup
partners at LaSalle was Larry Kentner, a six ft ten
stud at Roman Catholic High School, a Philly basketball powerhouse.
Kenner was a year ahead of Kobe in school, and
he was thinking about going to Losal himself. Kobe told
his friend Jeremy Treatment that Kentner basically gave him an ultimatum,
(20:33):
if you go Ala each other. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Kobe,
I'll commit to that. I have no clue what I'm doing. U. Yeah.
(20:59):
It was fun about goal there to play there. I
thought I could play there. I never really were out
there like it didn't man, that's all. Larry said, I'm
there tomorrow. And Larry Kenner wasn't the only big time
recruit who was considering the Sound just because of Kobe.
I got another one for you, Corey Benjamin. Corey Benjamin
(21:21):
was a six ft six shooting guard from Compton, California.
Kobe met him on the AUTH circuit. He'd go on
to be a first round draft pick and play three
plus seasons in the NBA. He said, going to I'm
going to because you know, you can't cout happen a
good time of hanging out. It started that he played
(21:41):
in comin with each other very well, going to the South.
I'm going all the way out there and I'm going
that's for you. I mean, what players standpoint. Then they're
saying if you college, If you do go to college,
(22:04):
I'm coming rich girl, I'm saying, but they know. I mean,
if they were my things, she may be taking man
and it would be a nice plot. But at the
same time, you might want to go to college and
having become a good time. So you never know what
to happen. So even in retrospect, it sounds too good
to be true. Kobe Bryant, Larry Kentner, Corey Benjamin All
(22:27):
a little old lassal well, guess what it was too
good to be true? Kentner picked you Mass. Benjamin ended
up going to Oregon State. As for Kobe, he was
keeping most of these plans to himself and even though
his dad was in a tough spot being an assistant
coach and everything. He and Kobe were kind of stringing
Speedy Morris along. Here's the other thing. Jeremy Treatment was
(22:52):
the radio play by play guy for the Explorers at
the time, and he was tight with Joe Bryant. I mean,
I saw your dads being Marson's jumping out the sound. Well.
I think at good time, I thought I'd be going
to the South. IM be a nice back my father.
(23:12):
Those of us who weren't really in the know, thought
that bond between Joe and Kobe might be enough to
pull the kid to the South. Our school might have
a chance to get him. Our school might be the
one that Dick Vitale was screaming and shouting about on ESPN.
Our school would be in the spotlight for a change
(24:02):
that chance. However, Slim made a certain high school basketball
game in December of a huge event in Philadelphia, and
particularly to everyone who followed was sal Who's The game
was between Lower Marian and Roman Catholic. Larry Kentner had graduated,
so Romans best player was a guard named Donnie Carr.
(24:24):
He and Kobe were friends. They played summer ball against
each other for years, and Donnie was Speedy Morris's top
recruiting target. He was just six ft three but strong,
could shoot from the outside and had a great handle,
the perfect Lasal player. The game was at Drexel University,
and Donnie and Kobe went toe to toe. That was
(24:45):
the game that inspired me to write my first article
about Cope. There had been so much build up to
it and so much reaction after it, and Kobe and
Donnie had played so well that I felt I had
to weigh in. I had a regular column for The
Collegian back then, and here's a snippet of the one
I wrote after the lower Marian versus Roman Catholic game.
Prepare yourself for some awful probes. Last Monday night, the
(25:12):
prospective saviors of the LaSalle basketball program stood out in
the center of Drexel's Physical Education Center, drew their cult
forty five, and blasted away at one another. Neither blinked.
Kobe Bryant, Lower Marian's sleek and supple guard, scored thirty points,
(25:32):
flying and floating through the heavy gymnasium air. Roman Catholics
Donny Carr scored thirty four points. The game was a
victory for Roman, the gunfighting duel a draw the future
for Explorer basketball should these young snipers choose to come
here blinding Yikes, that's some overwrought college paper garbage. But
(26:00):
I was just one of several writers who read way
too much into that game, who didn't really know what
Kobe was thinking. And as I would learn much later,
what he was thinking was I don't want to play
for La Salle, and I especially don't want to play
for a coach who screamed so much. Right as the
season when I really I really begin to dislike me
(26:23):
more because the way he's coaching. A couple of things
you did, I mean didn't like. I said, Man, yeah,
you know, it's not you. I really just don't like
like I did. Decided to college, and I would not
be side. I really want to thinking, you don't realer
(26:45):
what you're doing. I remember, but I know my mother
dart where Kobe was pretty emphatic there, and you have
to put his thinking in the right context, the context
of that time and the context of him Back then,
(27:16):
it was a pretty natural thing for a great high
school basketball player to go play for a coach like
Bobby Knight or John Chaine or Speedy Morris, a coach
who would scream and yell and push his players to
the breaking point. But Kobe was at the vanguard of
a new generation of players, young men who knew how
much power they had and knew that they could wield him.
(27:39):
Kobe could choose any path he wanted, college, the NBA, whatever,
he could do what was best for him. He just
had to be bold enough to follow through on it.
Kobe's future wasn't dependent on Speedy Morris. If anything, it
was the other way around, and Speedy Morris's future wasn't
exactly a high priority for Kobe. It got to the
(28:00):
point that he started mocking the idea that he choose
lasal Remember the volleyball scholarship that Shaya got. Well, Kobe's
other sister, Shariah, already was a Division one player at Temple,
another Big five Phillies school, And as Kobe told Jeremy Treatment,
he had a lot more fun watching Sharia's matches than
he did. Shays, Oh yeah, yeah, there's a lot of
(28:23):
fund game the South, like Temple bar on the south
of the really stinks. Saying those the teams stinks. You
attended the day volley board teams stinks. So Jeremy asked
(28:45):
Kobe the logical question, if you weren't going to Asal,
where were you going? What are you going to check out? There?
What I'm thinking about checking out? Mr? Game? You're gonna
go to all these places? I definitely check out what's
ks trying to percentage cheese? You might change the funds
(29:10):
a little defender, but you never know what happened. I
never never right right out there at the best time
in your life. Enjoined the coach choo where you wait
for you. There's a couple of schools that I like,
like North Carolina, but I'm gonna pick them. You don't
(29:34):
pick them because of affects. Michael Jordy not able to
have your own identity right now? You do. There are
a couple of really interesting insights into Kobe just from
that clip. One, even though he admired Michael Jordan's and
(29:56):
patterned his game after Michael Jordan's, he didn't want to
go to North Carolina because that's where Michael Jordan's had
gone to school. He wouldn't be his own man, he
wouldn't have his own identity there. Two, he would have
gone to Duke. That admission confirms what a lot of
people were saying at the time and have said in
the years since, that if Kobe went to college, he
(30:18):
was going to play for Mike Chaszewski. But here's what
very few people knew at that time. All the lip
service that Kobe was paying to the idea of going
to college would turn out to be just that lip service.
There was no chance he was going to Duke or
North Carolina or Michigan or Arizona or LaSalle. Looking back,
(30:42):
all of us who are around back then can see
that possibility of Kobe going to LaSalle for what it was,
a flight of fancy for a prodigy with bigger dreams,
a one in a million shot at glory for a
struggling college program, A notion that captured our imaginations. But
that turned out to be a pipe dream. But man,
(31:03):
it was fun to dream. Even Carol Brigham, tucked away
in the Connelly Library about as far from the world
of basketball as you could get, hoped Kobe would end
up at the site. I remember it all. I remember
being so disappointed when I decided, yeah, yeah he uh
(31:28):
he thought about it, thought yeah, yeah, you met him, Yes,
I met him a number of times, but once Kobe
reached a certain point in his development as a player,
he was never ever going to do it. He had
(31:49):
made himself stronger and smarter. He was adding muscle to
his skinny frame. He had more experience. He knew better
how to CounterPunch against just about any defense, how to
up and safe for any deficiencies in his game. On
a particular night, if his jumper wasn't falling, he'd drive.
If an opponent played his own, he'd bomb away from
the outside. Heading into the summer between his junior and
(32:13):
senior years of high school, the Summer of Kobe had
a plan, and it did not involve saving the basketball
program at my alma mater. It didn't involve college basketball
at all. The plan was so wild and so forward thinking,
in fact, that even Jeremy Treatment couldn't see its full
scope at the time. The summer of nine was going
(32:35):
to be Kobe's springboard to the NBA. In the next episode,
I'll tell you the story of that summer, The summer
when Kobe Bryant truly became a superstar. At one point,
Stack House started found him high. They almost got into it,
and you know, stack house grabbing him and we had
to kind of break them from those two up. He
was relentless because, like I said, for a guy in
(32:57):
high school, it was not even its going out the
number one over pay. What's kind of crazy? That's next
week on I Am Kobe. I Am Kobe is a
(33:27):
production of the Version podcasts in association with I Heart Radio.
This season is written and hosted by me Mike Sealsky.
It's produced by Jacob Bronstein and directed by Mark Francis.
Story editing by Jacob Bronstein with editorial direction from Scott Waxman, Editing,
mixing and sound design by Mark Francis. Stephen Tompkins is
(33:48):
our production assistant. Our theme music is Create Yourself by
Grover Brown featuring Justin Starling. Find Create Yourself wherever you
stream music. Music supervisor is Scott Velaska's for Free Sons Sinking.
Executive producers are Mark Francis and Scott Waxman. Join the
conversation about I Am Kobe on social media on Twitter
(34:12):
and Instagram. It's at Diversion Pods thanks to Rain Rosenbaum,
Susan Cannavan and Jeremy Treatment The Eyebries before the Sun.
They don't understand when I said the grind is fun.
Never clock you out. Even when my work is done.
If they're trying to block me, I might hurt someone
through the blood sweat and says, we perseveit, stay tending in,
(34:32):
let it, keep the hurses and then if they don't
believe in themselves, gave a vert, defend that at Tampa says,
So I'm telling no, pass my a. This the reason
why I'm gonna work so damn different. So the negatives.
I can't listen to see me at the time. You
can't listen where I'm a mute to play like cashes
see I pay my dudes because Texas gotta work. I
(34:53):
thinking grind ahead of his time. It's someone saying that
they made you. Don't tell them you create yourself the
best you ben or watch us, but by that time
you gotta snake clock, then break clock, break we create yourself.
Watch creet question, watch to create myself, sat climb, signs
(35:15):
up and create yourself. They nice, ain't so hard to
create yourself. You gotta learn from the great minds. No,
we ain't lying to tell them that this is any time.
This talent wasn't given. It was made the future. Any
time I could change better, tell them that I've made
it back home. As I walked through the hearts of
(35:35):
the fame, I came from the Valley of the Shadow
with death waiting for us. Spoon, don't hold your breath,
same town, sat train. But I did it with less.
I know one that to be so there's nothing to guess. Yeah,
there's nothing. Yes, it's our times. Tell them we up next.
We don't got any regrets. I did it with my
soul hands and we never forget my an. This the
(35:55):
reason why my work so damn different to the negatives.
I can listen see me at the time. You can't
listen for where rebuild, reach shape, give me your eye.
You got to risk take do it now. When I'm
saying while braves, I was saying that they made you,
tell them you create yourself the best you finn l
(36:15):
watch us by. It's by that time. You gotta sneak
clock then break clock break we create yourself, watch me,
watch watch the create myself. Exac clia signs up and
create yourself. They're nice and ain't go on create yourself.
(36:37):
You gotta learn from the great minds. But we ain't
lying telling them that ain't time diversion podcasts,
Host
Mike Sielski
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