December 21, 2021 • 52 mins
The most dramatic Kobe Bryant story of his teenage years is the 1995-1996 season of the Lower Merion Aces. It doesn’t have to do with the NBA or Jerry Stackhouse or Kobe’s appreciation for his time in Italy or any of those things. It's about the community in which he grew up, the pressure that a young athlete feels to perform, and the joy that accompanies the achievement of a goal you’ve been chasing for years.
Kobe said, "That's all I ever wanted. When I first came to high school, I knew I was a pretty good player, and I was going to work hard to accomplish all those individual goals. But, after going 4-20, I said, 'Hey man, I hate losing. There’s no way in hell I want to go through this again.' The next year, we improved. The year after, we improved. Throughout the whole time, I remember thinking, 'I want a state championship. I want to be known as the best--not only as the best player, but as the best player on the best team.' That meant so much to me. I just wanted to prove to everybody that I could carry us to a state championship."
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
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.
Thanks to Oren Rosenbaum, Susan Canavan, and Jeremy Treatman.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Diversion podcasts. This is all I ever want to uh.
When I first came to high school, I knew I
was a pretty good player. I'm just gonna work hard
trying to accomplish all the individuals. But I went forward
twenty say any man, I hate you. There's no way
(00:28):
how I want to go to this again, and then
you will benna fool. You're asking me and food. Throughout
the whole time, I could just remember saying that I
want to stay changed and I want to be knowing
at the best I only have the best player or
the guys guy will playing the best, and that meant
so much. I just wanted to do with everybody that
I can carry Temple State Championship m H. In the
(01:01):
weeks just before his final season of high school basketball began,
Kobe Bryant would wake up each morning before dawn. It
would still be dark and chilly outside when he'd hop
into his SUV and drive himself at two and a
quarter miles from his house to Lower Merion High School.
He got there before the principal, before the teachers, before
(01:21):
the other students. He'd parked in a prize spot near
the entrance to one of the school's gymnasiums. A janitor
would let him into the building and for an hour
before his first class of the day, Kobe would shoot
and work on his footwork and his handle and dunk
for an hour. Sometimes on his way to school, Kobe
(01:42):
would stop and pick up Robbie Schwartz, one of his teammates.
Robbie wasn't one of the Lower Marion Aces star players.
He was a year younger than Kobe, five ft seven,
a guy who was just happy to be on the
roster and along for the ride, and he was happy
as hell did join Kobe for a few of those
early more workouts. Robbie still lives in the Philly area.
(02:04):
He's not a short, stumpy kid anymore. He's a personal trainer.
Really got into Waitland and when it comes to this podcast.
In my book, the best part about Robbie was that
he remembered a ton of details about his time in
high school with Kobe, and he loved to talk about
I called him up one day to do just that.
Here's rob My role on the team was a practice player.
(02:31):
I was I was the last guy on the bench,
Like I had to fight to get on the team.
I had to fight to stay on the team, and
so I would do anything to be a part of it.
And I think in the back of my mind, I
always sort of knew he was something bigger than what
was going on just in high school, and I always
wanted to be around it. I mean, I can tell
(02:53):
you that honestly because it's the truth. You know. It's
It's like, dude, it's not a coincidence. I'm in all
of these pictures that are all over the place, Like
I think in my mind, I was like, I gotta
get in this picture. I asked Robbie what those early
mornings that lower marrying with Kobe were like, just the
two of them playing ball in the gym together. And
I remember a couple of things about those mornings. Number One,
(03:15):
I've never been so cold. I am not I don't
do well in the cold as is. It was so
cold in that gym. The janitor opened it up for us.
It took five minutes for lights to come on, about
a half hour for the heat to couple O. I
was like literally freezing, and I remember thinking, like, you know,
I wonder what we're gonna do. Like in my mind,
I had all of these thoughts of like we're gonna
(03:38):
develop this great chemistry and like, you know, somehow it
would lead to me playing more and we're playing at all.
And I just ended up rebounding for him for an hour.
And I never said anything because I was like, I
was like, you know, he's my teammate, he's a year
older than me. But like there was I I look,
I I was a very small person in high school,
(03:59):
and I was not going to speak out of turn.
And again, like I just wanted to be a part
of whatever his journey was. And so I was like, Okay,
I'll rebound for him for a couple of minutes, we'll
do some drills that it just was like an hour
of me or after he passed away, like people would
(04:25):
It was such a weird time where I was getting
all these phone calls from people I've talked to in
a long time. They would have done anything to been
in my position, just to rebud you know what I mean.
It's like you don't think like I. I didn't think
about it like that at the time, but now I
have such an I have such a high level of
appreciation for every single second that was spent with with
him and spent with the team like that was just
(04:45):
like the best year ever, like every moment the bus rides, pregame,
post game practices, just like you you know, I mean
being our age. I would kill to go back and
do any one of those activities. I don't think there's
(05:06):
a single member of that high school team who would
disagree with Robbie. They would all look back at that
time of their lives and see it with a kind
of golden hue, and I think Kobe would too. Of
all the subplots of his early life, there's one in
particular that when I talked to people about Kobe always
(05:26):
seem to get overlooked or ignored, and it shouldn't be.
It's not that the other aspects of Kobe's adolescens aren't fascinating.
As I've talked about on episode two, his time in
Italy shaped him, and those infamous pickup games with the
Sixers in the summer proved to him beyond any doubt
that he could and should turn pro right out of
(05:46):
high school. But to me, the most dramatic storyline of
that period doesn't have anything to do with the NBA
or Jerry Stackhouse or Kobe's appreciation for different cultures. Or
any of those things. It has to do with the
community in which he grew up, the pressure that a
young athlete feels to perform, and the joy that accompanies
(06:08):
the achievement of a goal. You've been chasing for years,
but seems you're superstar. Kobe Bryant aboard for the ninety
six season. The Lower Marine coaching staff knew that there
would be no team in the area that would attract
more attention than the asient. The pressure would be high
from the start, and so would the expectations. Alright, alright
(06:30):
to me, the most important Kobe Bryant's story of that
time is the story of the season of the Lower
Marian Aces. I'm Mike Sealsky and from Diversion Podcasts, this
(06:50):
is I am Kobe. The brat steps to create myself
said create Yoself. They nice, create Yoself. Got a letter
for any great minds getting time, Episode seven, The Mind
(07:15):
of a Champion. There wasn't a whole lot of drama
for most of Kobe's senior season at Lower Merion. After
that crushing loss and Myrtle Beach I told you about
in the last episode and Greg Downer's speech chewing out
(07:37):
the entire team. The Aces were so inspired and so
together that they started rolling and seemed like they couldn't
be stopped. They won their final sixteen regular season games,
and they won them by an average of more than
twenty points a game. Kobe's numbers were just nuts. Here
were his point totals in one five game stretcht thirty two, fifty,
(08:01):
thirty two and four. Then in the second game of
the district playoffs, Lower Marion faced Academy Park High School.
Academy Park didn't have the Aces overall talent, but it
was a tough team. It's players weren't going to be
intimidated by Kobe, but he was ready for them. He
talked to Jeremy Treatment about that game and his preparation
(08:22):
with that. Then next practice, I was taking a lot
of jump shots getting ready for the Academy Park game
because I knew that I'm gonna be a tough talent
for especially if we didn't come ready to play. I
came to school early at six o'clock, shooting consistently looking
on my jump shot, trying to find a groove. We
came up with Academy Pardcam. I just knew I just
(08:42):
had to take over early. It's in the message saying, hey,
we're ready to play, and if you're gonna be this,
you wanted to play a perfect game. I only doing it.
Didn't expected his seventh three pointers. I was in the
groove and I just kept running for the three point
line and I started handing him. I remember when I
was shooting a round, Oh oh, the academy party came
(09:02):
in and saying there is like by saying all this
other stuff, and I kind of listen to it real
way in my memory bank. When I came on the court,
I was ready to play. Ready would be an understatement.
(09:23):
He hit those seven three pointers and matched his career
high with fifty points lower Merriyan one. The aces next
game against Norristown was a different story. It was a
struggle for the Aces and for Kobe. Norristown was exactly
the kind of team that was built to give him trouble,
(09:43):
lots of tall, quick, athletic wing players who could harass him,
and they did. Kobe was whipsawed by two emotions after
the game, joy and annoyance. Joy because lower Merriyan one five,
which meant the Aces were heading to the Palesti for
the district semifinals. Kobe was so joyful, in fact, that
(10:05):
he couldn't contain his emotions. But after the game in
the locker room out crying because the road to the
Palestia seeing a little cloudy at the beginning of the year.
I had no clue what to expect at the beginning
of a year. Our chemistry wasn't there, said me and
Jermaine both was just like, I wish we had Evan,
I wish we had guys, but to see them come
(10:25):
through the way they did, just like one of the
best fingers in the world to know that we're going
to get back to the Palestia. But then there was
the annoyance or maybe something more than that, because he
had his worst game of the season. He scored only
twenty points, he missed nineteen of his twenty four shots,
(10:46):
and he pictured those Norris Town kids strutting around full
of themselves. Well, we may have lost, but at least
we played awesome defense and the great Kobe Bryant. Yeah,
he hated that thought, and it was kind of aggravating
because I didn't want Northtown to think that they held
me because they've been it was me and I was
(11:07):
just missing. I then want them to say that, yeah,
we shut down clude Ryan. When the state tournament started,
I wanted them to win and keep winning so we
could play him again. I can get him fifty sixty
or something like that, just to show him, hey, you
didn't do what I did. Yes, it had to be
that Kobe had a bad game, not that the Norristown
players were capable of guarding him well enough to shut
(11:27):
him down. In his mind, with his ego, there were
no high school players who were capable of shutting him down.
It was like he couldn't conceive of such a thing.
It also sounded like Kobe was looking ahead a little
bit there, anticipating a rematch in the state tournament with
Norristown before he and the Aces had actually finished the
district tournament. So much for the cliche take him one
(11:50):
game at a time, but actually there was no way
Kobe was going to look past either of the teams
that Lower Marion ended up playing in the district final four.
These were the sorts of games that Kobe always loved,
whether he was playing for the Lower Marion Aces or
the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA. They were the
games against the league's best teams and best players Tim
(12:13):
Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs, Alan Iverson and the Sixers,
Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and the Celtics, and
the district semifinal game against Coatesville marked Kobe's third game
against one of his earliest NBA rivals, Hambleton Final semence
(12:34):
handed his face two quarters. Just shut it up. There
they get it to Hamilton's. He get it to clean
looking Cary. If it weren't for Kobe Richard Rip, Hamilton's
would have been considered the best player in the Philadelphia
area in He was thin as a blade, quick as hell,
(12:56):
able to shoot off the dribble or get to the
basket against any He was heading off to play for
Hall of Fame coach Jim Calhoun at the University of Connecticut,
where he lead the Huskies to victory in the National
Championship game. Here's a clip of him hitting a buzzer
beater during that n c A tournament. Brother was going
prell mead ten seconds remaining. Yeah. During his junior season,
(13:39):
Kobe had played against Rip and Coatesville twice and had
beaten them twice, once on a buzzer beater in a
great game at Coatesville won in the district semis. Now
was the rematch, and Kobe knew the game would define
their rival. I was excited because it was a personal,
personal dual type thing we're to have with People would
(14:00):
say how he can compete with me and he can
give me some word. When people say that, I just
kind of laugh and smile, but think, in the back
of my mind, now I can kill it this guy.
If you had a big game, that he would possibly lose.
But I also knew that I could have a big game.
(14:28):
Eight years later, in two thousand four, Rip would finally
get the better of Kobe when his Detroit Pistons wiped
out the Lakers in five games in the NBA Finals.
Rip even out played Kobe for most of that series,
but not this night, back, not at the palestri Kobe
scored twenty nine points and let a fourth quarter come back,
(14:49):
and the Aces won seventy sixty five. The two of
them talked after the game, and the vibe you get
from Kobe is obvious. He likes Rip, He's friends with Rip.
He wishes the best for Rick, but he also wants
to kick rips it to say that one of us
always have to lose, like, yeah, I go yeah, and
(15:11):
uh he said, Uh, how come any time I played
always he would love. I kind of laughed, Well, I
have no clue. I guess I'm more competitive. I guess
I don't. I don't know. I just do whatever it
takes to win. Personally, Yeah, that kind of wished he
was another bracket so he could he could play and
(15:32):
I get to the Bische Championship. I know that's what
he wanted the most, but A should have been another bracket.
I mean, we're in another bracket. We're gonna be in
the championship anyway. Somebody has to take it, and it
might as well be me. The winnever coachs Fill and
Rip Hamilton's set up another rematch for the Aces, this
time for the district championship, and one more time against
their nemesis, the Chester Clippers. The defending Chaps, the team
(15:57):
that had destroyed Lower Merian by twenty seven point to
the year before. That loss remained a bitter memory and
had become a motivating factor for Kobe and the entire
Lower Marian program. For Kobe, for all of Lower Marian's
coaches and players, for anyone who paid attention to high
school basketball, Beating Chester would mean that the Aces matter,
(16:19):
that they had earned their championship by knocking off the
district juggernaut. Greg Downer even had warm up shirts made
up with the number twenty seven on them to remind
everyone on the team that they had lost by twenty
seven points the last time they played Chester. This time, though,
Kobe's teammates entered the game with just as much confidence
(16:39):
as he had. Here's Emery Dabney, who is the Aces
starting point guard. So we haven't building up this big
rivalry for years. And it's funny because it lasted his
day with Chester. So they were kind of like, you know,
Chester kids, kind of intimidating, and um, it was kind
of like, uh, we're sick. We don't care who they
(17:00):
where they're from. We don't care. And at that time
when I got in there, they were just sticking up
when we didn't care how where they were from. We
didn't care the Chester talk. Whatever that meant. That meant
nothing to us, It made a lot to everyone else. Then,
Kobe spent the days before the game reading through the
(17:21):
local newspapers searching for motivation, and he found some In
a quote from Chester's head coach Fred Pickett, I knew
that everybody was pumping it up at the end. The
daily was it the daily news at Kobe where his
goods that I was fighting? I mean, but there was
a total inspect to my team because they didn't even
mentioned them, And I can't. I can't take that to heart.
(17:44):
I know my teammates did. But the whole week was great.
A lot of people come up to me saying, do
you think you're ready for Chester? You think you guys
can be dumb? I think they're better than you want.
A lot of trash on them been going on, especially
from them, from them in the paper. But I really
didn't expect that was would come out and say what
he said. I mean, he actually when people say what
you gonna do about Kobe Bryant will say, well, I
(18:05):
won't try to contain him, and you know, things like that.
But hey, but the picket just came out and said
we're gonna shut him down. Period. When did you see that, David?
I said, uh, I saw the day came out. I'm
not swing that when it came out, but I think
it was a couple of days before the game. I
just kind of looked at it. I was like, a shot,
(18:25):
Why would you give me something like that too? It's
a look forward to, you know. For the first half
of the game, it looked like Pickett was right. The
Clippers led by eight points at the bridge, just like
they had the year before when they blew Lower Marian
out of the building. But Greg Downer made a couple
of coaching adjustments at halftime and Kobe got going offensively.
He sparked a fourteen to one run that put the
(18:46):
Aces in front, and even as a youngster, the Mamba
wasn't above taunting his opponents in a big game. But
the one guy, I think he's twenty one, I think
some las kid. He came in the game and he
I think his coach put on put him on me,
just to provoke me or something. As soon a detecting
the game, ran right to me and started talking to
all this trash. Yeah, col Yeah, you're a pomp, You're
(19:08):
a punk. I will shut you down saying all this stuff.
I'm just looking at my just smile said, man, I'm
a hundred and temper unguardable. That was so funny because
he just looked at me like yeah right, you ain't,
you ain't shoot and all this other stuff before Yeah,
I started killing him. Man. I drew like three pounds
(19:28):
on him and uh like the next second you just
heard he was going out of the game. Hey, come
back and the rest of the game. That was funny.
Lower Marian won the game and the district championship comfortable
with three and Kobe stat line was just insane thirty
four points, eleven rebounds, six assists, and nine block shots.
(19:52):
It was great because nobody expected us to win. Were
the underdogs. I wasn't gonna get a championship, and the
championship with just vote really really good. Who anybody going
the way? That's one of the best films ever. Somebody
says you can't do something, didn't do it. I'm not
(20:12):
sure it's right to say that no one expected lower
Marian to win. I mean, the Aces were seated third
in the district and they had the best player in
the freaking country. But there was a caveat to that championship,
a reason for Kobe and the Aces to be a
little reserved in how much they celebrated it. Lower Marian
still had the state tournament to play. It wasn't enough
(20:34):
for Kobe and his teammates just to win a district championship.
Remember what he said in the tape I played at
the beginning of this episode. Throughout the whole time, I
could umer stand now on the state champie, and I
want to be known that the best I only had
the best player the best I want to be known
as the best player on the best team. He and
(20:57):
the rest of the Aces wanted a state title. Two.
They needed a state title, and it was still possible,
maybe even likely, that they would have to play Chester
again and have to beat Chester again to win that
state title. And if they couldn't do that, if they
lost their final game that season, if Kobe lost the
final game of his high school career, he would consider
(21:20):
himself a failure. Hey, this is Mike Selsky, host and
writer of I Am Kobe. This podcast project came out
(21:41):
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 that we don't cover at all. Kobe's upbringing,
his family, his identity, his effect on his friends and teammates,
(22:05):
his journey into the n b A, 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 of your favorite retailers. That's the
Rise of Kobe Book dot Com. Thanks so now. The
(22:49):
Aces are in the state tournament. They coasted through their
first three games, which were so one sided that they
were worth In fact, the most interesting thing about them
was the hoop blow that surrounded Kobe. People around the
country knew who he was. They'd heard about it, read
about it, and wanted to see him. They packed every
gym he was in. Here's a good example of how
(23:11):
crazy he's got. In the second round, Lower Marian played
Scranton High School. Scranton was happy just to be in
the second round of the tournament. They'd beat in the
higher seeded team in the first round, but even they
didn't expect themselves to hang with the likes of Lower
Marian or Chester. During one of his interviews with Jeremy Treaty.
Kobe talked about how he approached such an a poem
(23:31):
right down the bus. I kind of thought that this
team might be easily in tim and simply because they
came over a big upset and I knew that they
were gonna be very excited about that and come in
visiting team like us. I knew that they could be
in SIMD. Plus they're very young, and when I loved
at Exam and it's around their way amy a nice
little partible and I had to start playing talking about
(23:54):
how he dreamed about the day that he could call
me and come out and play against me and things
like that, and they said, just a dream come true.
And he said, well, I really looked up to him.
I know I can't spout a little thing like that.
And I said, oh my god, I got you. I said,
I said, man like a shot. When he smells blood
the war, he's gonna he's gonna laughing. We're gonna attack it.
I knew that he was looked up to me like that.
(24:17):
I knew he was open. I just went a half
so that of my whole time team because they knew
and they won't that's an understanding the Aces scored the
first twenty two points of the game. Kobe threw down
a few dunks and blocked a few shots. It was
complete domination. The final score was seventy nine thirty nine.
But that wasn't the strange part. This was the strange part.
(24:40):
After the game, every single Scranton player lined up on
the court and asked Kobe for his autograph. It's pretty
cool so that the course he's compete all you were
up the court. His life at the basketball, you know.
But it was good. I kind of weird at first.
My god, he just blowing you out out. I'm saying
nothing to be upset at this smile. And it's not exactly,
(25:03):
but Julia, does that sound like a high school basketball
player to you? To me, it sounds like a polished
performer who's already accustomed to dealing with the public, an actor,
a talk show host, a professional athlete. It sounds like
Kobe at seven or thirty seven. It doesn't sound like
a seventeen year old kid, which is what Kobe was.
(25:27):
Just like they expected. Kobe and his teammates got their
rematch with Chester in the state semifinals at the Palestra
the day before that game. They were having a lousy,
sluggish practice. Greg Downer was ticked, so was Kobe. He
figured if anybody could light a fire under the team.
But he's just kind of going through the motions, right shots,
(25:49):
not conscience rating, not running these greens hard, and not
satting a man. You can tell you that course down
it was getting little agivated, and I was getting agivated too.
I tried to this team, um, getting this team going,
I'm start getting going out of me a while, and uh,
we're going to drill. I've been the bar up against Leo.
The Leo Kobe was referring to. There was Leo Stacey,
(26:12):
one of the shortest kids on the team, one of
the last kids on the bench. I try to pull
back and cross over, and he reached them and his
head came in with his head and buttons here, bumping
right on my nose. And uh, at first I thought
it was in the groove. Now you get bumping your
nose and to y'all, I started ordering, Oh well, I thought,
my nose, get up, start playing some more. I bought
(26:35):
my nose. I go to my end up just blast,
I'm coming out. I'm like, oh my god, he going
on and had I never broke my nose before. Are
the blood he started gusting. I just laid on the
floor and I just changed to myself. God, man, I
hope I can play this game. Let's take a moment
(27:10):
and understand what happened here. The day before the biggest
game of his team season, the biggest game of his
life to this point, Kobe Bryant collided with a teammate
and broke his notes. Consider the panic that must have
run through every coach and every player on the team,
And consider the pressure that those coaches and players already
(27:34):
felt before Kobe got hurt. Greg Down or the team's
head coach, was definitely feeling. You know, I don't know
what people's exterior expectations were, but you know, I knew
that we wanted to go out with the gold medal,
and you know, I knew that's what the kids wanted,
that's what Kobe wanted. Um. And there's two pressures there.
(27:57):
There's a pressure of trying to figure out, which I
spent my whole career doing, how to get through very
difficult Chester teams, and um, you know, the pressure of
kind of leading Kobe Bryant. So it was kind of
like a mix of those two pressures. And I mean,
I think I think I handled it okay. And you know,
(28:20):
in retrospect, I'm probably glad there wasn't the craziness of
the internet and social media that would have just put
another magnifying layer on this, probably similar to the to
the career that that you saw Lemron James have. That
(28:43):
practice was the only one that Mike Egan missed over
the two years that he coached Kobe at Lower Merian.
He was in Dallas on a business trip. He called
down Her for an update, and Downer told him about
Kobe's injury ago. It was supposed to be a fairly light,
easy on our workout, almost a you know, a step
a bubble walk through to get ready for Chester. And
(29:06):
he told me they Leo Stacy broke Kobe's nose. And
I I just said what? Three times? I think I
said what. Leo Stacy was the smallest guy on the
team to broke his nose. They want to hear it
broke his nose. I feel like they got in a
fight or something. But if Egan thought Kobe's injury might
(29:35):
ruin the Aces season, he also missed the sign that
should have told everyone in the lower Marian program that
they had nothing to worry about. Kobe was still standing
at mid court, and the trainer told him that he
had to leave practice to get checked out. Jeremy Treaton
was standing there next to Kobe, and what happened next
is a story that still gets told among Kobe's coaches
(29:57):
and teammates. It's almost like a myth, except it's true.
Kobe was holding a towel to his face with his
right hand. He said, ball. Someone bounced past a basketball team.
He caught it and held it with his left hand.
Then he turned to treat I remember I got up.
(30:17):
I say that I bet you I can leave this shot.
I left hand. Truth, I had a town, a town.
My right hand. I hold no blood coming down on
my nose, I told her, Jeremy John, I bet you
fought out shot. My left hand shot it one handed,
(30:38):
left handed from half court with a broken nose. Kobe
swished the shot was still. I never doubted, you said,
I never clacked your own. It's cool. It's cool. It's cool.
I knew it was. But I want to get out
there back some more. Uh ohays my cups. I haven't father,
(31:02):
I want to get out there and working my game
a little bit, but I don't want to let me coach.
You want to let me. I was kind of set
the whole night. I could work in my game, but
I didn't get a mad Man's kids, right, Bob, nothing
raise about a hundred and nothing parents. Uh. But he
(31:24):
has tremendous heart, but he's just like the little skit
on the team. And him to break my nose, it's
not so funny when people see me in school. Oh
cool rapp who woke nose? I see Leo got laughing
by right. The shot was amazing, but it didn't change
the fact that Kobe's nose was still broken. The thinking
was that he would have to wear a mask during
(31:46):
the game against Chester to protect his face, but Mike
Egan told me that presented its own set of potential problems.
By wearing a mask, Kobe would be telegraphing he was
hurt and he wasn't a UM. And then we talked about,
you know how dangerous that could be against um. You know,
(32:08):
a team like like Chester because they smell blood in
the water that you know they were coming after you.
Not that they would be dirty about it, but it's just,
you know, psychologically, it would make us look weak. So
Kobe had a solution to that conundrum. In the locker
room before the game. He took off the mask and
chucked it against the wall. He would play without. I
(32:28):
think he didn't want to give up any edge. He
was such an advanced kid psychologically, but you didn't wear it.
They never know about Chester. The polesto was passed. Nearly
nine thousand people were to see the best high school
(32:50):
basketball player in Pennsylvania against what most people believe was
the best high school basketball program in Pennsylvania, and the
game lived up to its billing as the most anticipated
of the year, type most of the way. Chester up
by two at halftime, lower Marian taking a late leave,
Chester coming back to tie it at the end of regulation,
(33:12):
Back and forth, back and forth. It was as good
as basketball gets at any level. The game went to
overtime and Kobe went to another level. He finished with
thirty nine points, scoring twenty of them in the fourth
quarter and the extra five minutes of play. With lower
Marian up by seven. In the closing seconds, he dribbled
(33:34):
from one end of the court to the other, through
all five Chester players and hammered down a tomahawk dunk
as he was found. Greg Downer called it the defining
moment of Kobe's high school career and in the entire
history of Lower Marian's program. Robbie Schwartz watched it from
the bench and marveled at his friend and teammate. When
(33:55):
he went coast to coast and Dunctin got fouled. It
was like in a rumption. I mean, like the sound,
like those sounds, I can I can close my eyes
and I can heal the the energy in the Palestia.
Twenty five years and Robbie still hangs onto that memory.
(34:17):
He can still see it crystal clear in his mind.
That was the effect that Kobe had on his teammates.
(34:40):
Kobe and the ace Is now viewed a state championship
as their destiny. They thought they were unstoppable, and they
said so. The game would be held in Hershey, the
same small city, the same arena, even where Wilt Chamberlain
(35:02):
had once cemented his basketball legend by scoring one points
in a game for the Philadelphia Warriors. Kobe stood up
at a pep rally and all but guaranteed that the
Aces would come home with a Trophy. The task wasn't
going to be quite that simple, though. Lower Marian had
to play Erie Cathedral Prep from the northwest side of Pennsylvania.
(35:24):
Erie Prepp was a strong, sound team with a good tradition,
and it was unlike any team Kobe and the Aces
had faced that season. Here's Mike Egan, he played Erie
Cathedral UM. That was the first team we played that
had like an old school type of basketball program where
(35:44):
they played great defense, they moved the ball on offense,
they didn't do what we wanted them to do offensively.
Big part of our system at Law Marian was trying
to speed up. We had an athletic team with with
a great shop blocker and Kobe you know under the basket.
We wanted to speed teams up, force him to a side,
(36:06):
make them do something more quickly than they wanted to.
And they were the first team that didn't do what
we wanted them to do, which is a really well coached,
good team. And I think UM just that slowness kind
of the game, not UM. It's like a boxing match
where one guy wants to dictate the pace and the
other boxer won't let them. They wouldn't let us dictate
(36:29):
the pace and we weren't used to that. Cathedral Prep
meets Laura Marian in the State Quad A Final. The
Ramblers are making their third appearance in Hershey in the
past four years. Laura Marian beach her six six senior
Kobe Bryant, considered by many to be in the nation's
top high school player. It's eat versus wet. One team
will leave Chocolate Collin with the title. And you'll see
(36:49):
here he Prepp got out to a seven nothing lead
in the game, and Kobe and the Aces had a
bigger problem than the game's pace. The basketball was incredibly
slipper over code. He had trouble gripping it, dribbling it,
shooting it. He didn't score a single point in the
first The bow is so so slimply, man, I mean
(37:10):
it really was. Be thick at the bulls is a
little bit slippery. Uh plays to deal with it. Lay
start that we played live when we did myself, Oh,
we had a little bow like going between our legs,
coming around our back and doing little things like got
crossing over, pulling up in the dome. It was like
(37:31):
a hard pool, that little slippery ball like that. Guys poundball,
counterball pass pound pound pass able. They sucking point shots,
the scoop the bus don't want to be a factor
for us, and slipping everywhere now very very pissed off,
very good which was a very bigger game. And I
totally referee. He do stick, he said, I wipe it
(37:54):
off the tip resolute phillis slip tell us stick. I
can't do it. So Kobe got creative. Lower Marian's trainer
had a can of adhesive spray that she would apply
to a player's ankle before taping him up. Kobe took
(38:16):
the can and sprayed the stuff on his hands. He
was like Spiderman. Now he could catch the ball without
even closing his hands. First time he touched the ball
in the second quarter, Bang, he had a turnaround jumper
on the baseline. Check Out this clip from W I
T F in Harris Ball. Emory Dappy has the basketball
(38:38):
dapple halt that's black springs from the baseline by girl
family and filling it right over top of you and
look it in your face. Bryant practices, as we said,
with the Sixers, and they said when he practiced the Sixers,
there wasn't a noticeable difference the way he played compared
to the pro still lower Marin trailed Eerie Prep by six.
(38:59):
At halftime. The Aces confidence was shaking a bit, so
Greg Downer pulled out all the stops to try to
inspire his players. Let's listen to Kobe describe what happened
in the locker a half time. Anybody's day down because
the style, the start that they were playing with very
questions because we're pressure and we're up in the time
doing everything right, but the pressure wasn't getting to you.
(39:22):
And I remember, man, they're gonna crack. There's no way ahead.
Everything understand our question for the whole time. Game he's
got and I knew that the main new list of
the players understood that the coach got it. Came to
the locker room game, Uh, took off his shoes and
put the sleepers. I said, we're going to war. I did,
(39:43):
you got better be ready? I said, I when the
big game, I was run out on the court and
I'm gonna jump around there like a man man with
my das And he did, and he did, and that
he did. But that kind of kind of sad that
the message, so hey, man, are we in a championship games.
How could we play like this? I gotta stepping up
another back. We knew that every big game you stepping
(40:06):
up in the quarter. It came out that the requarter right,
and that was all right. So I knew that you
got a full point. We're not going to turn back
the time. It wasn't really all, she wrote. Erie Prepp
(40:27):
actually came back to take a two point lead in
the fourth quarter and Kobe had to sink too late
foul shots to tie the game. If he missed one
or both, Lower Marion would probably have lost the game.
Here's another clip from w I t F of him
taking and making those shots. Well be Bryant six foot
(40:47):
six senior right out of the one ball team took
bought us the rest of the way. The shot around
and drops him up about a shooter's wall. You get
that facts been on good action as you look at
the other side, the best break downer. He has a
note of concern at this point, but believes brothers sitting
to his level. There the growth the hydration earlier, and
(41:09):
he is bad back from the hospital, did say Bryan
Swish at forty womagap. In the end, Kobe helped quench
the victory for the Aces. But what was ironic was
he didn't do it by score. Instead, he grabbed an
important defensive rebound and through a long pass up court
to his teammate Omar Hatcher for a layer. Lex Drives
(41:31):
at thirty seconds left left the chart rebound battle for
still on the deck, backing away by comby Bryant right
out of the open floor. It off all my all,
that made Felix profession game. But here comes Beast seconds
to go. He carried it over. That was it. They
had done it. It had been a tough game, an
(41:52):
ugly game, a low scoring game, Lower Marrying forty ere
hee Prept. Three, but it was a win. Just the
scene there. Twenty six in a row, Kobe Bryant and
the Lower Marian Aces were state champions. Here's a clip
of the game's immediate aftermath from w I t A
what a tremendous game at Urshey Park and ran up
(42:14):
the Lower Marian bands of already under the banner that
says Lower Marian eight six state champs and that ends
a fifty three year grout for Lower Marion. Their last
state basketball title game in nineteen forty three. But the
grout is over as Kobe Bryant and the Lower Marion
Aces defeat every cathedral breath forty eight, forty three when
(42:34):
the FADA state title, Jenn Garrett just saw Great Blind
and Mama Father Jelly being Joel Bryant son Koby embracing
on the side pleasant the game was over. I couldn't
believe it. I turned around, running up in the air
and number one over the age crazy. I'm like, oh
(42:57):
my god. When the State I remember going around my
dad came out of nowhere. I was up but they
had only ride there. I couldn't get up there my family.
I turned around this thing. I know my dad was
down there. I was like, oh man, I gave m
a night lub and was like, man, I probably didn't.
(43:17):
He knew that I wanted to do. Mike Egan watched
Kobe and Joe share that hug, and he told me
it seemed to last a full minute with it, that
it seemed like they'd never let each other go where
um where they had such an incredible bond and they've
been through so much together. The other time they spent Italy.
The whole journey here helping Kobe get to this level
(43:41):
and to win a state championship, which is the you know,
the ultimate for a high school basketball player. Um, it
was just a great, great moment there. I remember Kobe
giving me a hug and embracing me and saying, you know,
he's kept saying thank you. He was such an amazing
guy in the sense that he he allies like you
can get individual greatness on your own, but it's not
(44:05):
nearly as fun or rewarding, and it's impossible to get
team greatness without contributions from a lot of different people.
So his graciousness and his thankfulness to me and I'm
sure all the other teammates and coaches was really something
something cool from him. Kobe Bryant's four years at Lower
(44:40):
Merion High School marked the start of a new era
for the school's basketball program. The sport had been an
afterthought at the school before he got there. It has
been a point of pride ever since. In the twenty
years since Kobe left, the Aces had just two losing seasons,
and they've won two more state championships. Greg Danner likes
(45:02):
to say that Kobe taught them all how to win,
that he established a standard that every coach and player
has been trying to match ever since. The one thing
that the Aces hadn't done since Kobe graduated, though, was
win another district championship, not until this year, one year
after his death, twenty five years after Kobe had years.
(45:27):
And there were some neat things about it, you know,
the due to COVID. The district final was in our gym,
which is very unusual. Um, but it it was good.
And I think, um, you know, coming off of Kobe's passing,
you know, for us to get ourselves together and play
good basketball and have that connection with his ball club
(45:50):
is good. And I said to the kids, like, you
look around this gym like it's it's it must be
very difficult, daunting to say to yourself, like how do
how do you get up onto this wall? Like as
a player, like, you know, do you have to score
thousand points? You have to be a state champion, you
have to be a district champion. And we told the
kids like, if you win that district championship, like you're
(46:11):
you're going up onto the wall. And that's kind of
becoming a very special thing to to get yourself up
onto that wall, which is just you know, flooded with
amazing players. And iconic memories. Kobe Bryant was that wall's
(46:40):
first brick. That's true as a metaphor, and that's true
in reality. He helped fund its construction. It's called Kobe
Bryant Gymnasium. His name will be on it forever and
connected to Lower Merion forever. That's his basketball legacy at
his high school. That was the public side of Kobe
as a young maid. He was starting to become a celebrity,
(47:03):
and he was starting to learn how to handle the
fame that would only grow as his career progressed. In
the next episode, I'll explore that side of Kobe Bryant,
the young man thrust into extremely rarefied circumstances, the kind
that can change a person forever for the better and
sometimes for the worst. A side of Kobe that only
(47:25):
so many people got to see. And all the classmates
who are they're bad mouth and the whole thing get
in there and like, oh, can we have a picture
with you? You know, can we get caught? And we
talked to you? And I'm like, you know, bottom of face,
I don't, I don't know. That's next week on I
(47:49):
Am Kobe. I Am Kobe is a production of the
(48:17):
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
(48:38):
our production assistant. Our theme music is Create Yourself by
Grover Brown featuring Justin Starling Find create Yourself wherever you
stream of music. Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Fresan Sinc.
Executive producers are Mark Francis and Scott Waxman. Join the
conversation about I Am Kobe on social media on Twitter
(49:01):
and Instagram. It's at diversion Pots thanks to Rain Rosenbaum,
Susan Canavan and Jeremy Treatment. I Love I Rise 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 persefit,
stay killing and let it keep the horses. And then
(49:23):
if they don't believe in themselves gave revert to find
that the Tampa's heads. So I'm telling them, ask my am,
this the reason why my work so damn different to
the negatives. I can't listen see me at the time.
You can't listen where I'm a vote to play like
cash is see I pay my dudes because taxes gotta work.
I thinking grind ahead of his time. So I'm saying
(49:45):
that they made you. Don't tell them you create yourself,
Finn watch us, but it's bad that so you gotta
stay clock then break black break we create ourselves. Watch
me question right sweeping right to create myself? Exac client
signs up, create yourself? Say nice, ain't no hard create yourself.
(50:12):
You gotta learn from the great minds though we ain't lying.
Tell them next game time. This time wasn't giving. It
was made the future. Any time I could change better,
tell them that I made it back home. As I
walked through the hearts of the fame, I can't from
the valley of the shadow with death waiting for us.
Some spoons don't hold your breath, sat Town, sat Train.
But I did it with less. I know one that
(50:33):
to be so there's nothing to guess yeah, there's nothing
to guess. It's our times. Something we up next. We
don't got any regrets. I did it with my soon
hands and we never forgets my a. This the reason
why my I'm working so damn different to the negatives.
I can't listen to see me at the time. You
can't listen for where, rebuild, reshape, give me your you
(50:57):
got to risk take do it now. When I'm saying
why braves, I'm gonna saying that they mayn't. You don't
tell them you create yourself around the best you finn
or watch us by. It's by that time you've gotta
snake clack, then break black, break we create yourself, watch
me question, watch the create myself sack click cline, signs
(51:20):
up and create yourself. May nice and ain't go on
create yourself. Gotta line for the great minds, so we
ain't lying. Tell them next anytime. Diversion Podcasts
Diversion podcasts. This is all I ever want to uh.
When I first came to high school, I knew I
was a pretty good player. I'm just gonna work hard
trying to accomplish all the individuals. But I went forward
twenty say any man, I hate you. There's no way
(00:28):
how I want to go to this again, and then
you will benna fool. You're asking me and food. Throughout
the whole time, I could just remember saying that I
want to stay changed and I want to be knowing
at the best I only have the best player or
the guys guy will playing the best, and that meant
so much. I just wanted to do with everybody that
I can carry Temple State Championship m H. In the
(01:01):
weeks just before his final season of high school basketball began,
Kobe Bryant would wake up each morning before dawn. It
would still be dark and chilly outside when he'd hop
into his SUV and drive himself at two and a
quarter miles from his house to Lower Merion High School.
He got there before the principal, before the teachers, before
(01:21):
the other students. He'd parked in a prize spot near
the entrance to one of the school's gymnasiums. A janitor
would let him into the building and for an hour
before his first class of the day, Kobe would shoot
and work on his footwork and his handle and dunk
for an hour. Sometimes on his way to school, Kobe
(01:42):
would stop and pick up Robbie Schwartz, one of his teammates.
Robbie wasn't one of the Lower Marion Aces star players.
He was a year younger than Kobe, five ft seven,
a guy who was just happy to be on the
roster and along for the ride, and he was happy
as hell did join Kobe for a few of those
early more workouts. Robbie still lives in the Philly area.
(02:04):
He's not a short, stumpy kid anymore. He's a personal trainer.
Really got into Waitland and when it comes to this podcast.
In my book, the best part about Robbie was that
he remembered a ton of details about his time in
high school with Kobe, and he loved to talk about
I called him up one day to do just that.
Here's rob My role on the team was a practice player.
(02:31):
I was I was the last guy on the bench,
Like I had to fight to get on the team.
I had to fight to stay on the team, and
so I would do anything to be a part of it.
And I think in the back of my mind, I
always sort of knew he was something bigger than what
was going on just in high school, and I always
wanted to be around it. I mean, I can tell
(02:53):
you that honestly because it's the truth. You know. It's
It's like, dude, it's not a coincidence. I'm in all
of these pictures that are all over the place, Like
I think in my mind, I was like, I gotta
get in this picture. I asked Robbie what those early
mornings that lower marrying with Kobe were like, just the
two of them playing ball in the gym together. And
I remember a couple of things about those mornings. Number One,
(03:15):
I've never been so cold. I am not I don't
do well in the cold as is. It was so
cold in that gym. The janitor opened it up for us.
It took five minutes for lights to come on, about
a half hour for the heat to couple O. I
was like literally freezing, and I remember thinking, like, you know,
I wonder what we're gonna do. Like in my mind,
I had all of these thoughts of like we're gonna
(03:38):
develop this great chemistry and like, you know, somehow it
would lead to me playing more and we're playing at all.
And I just ended up rebounding for him for an hour.
And I never said anything because I was like, I
was like, you know, he's my teammate, he's a year
older than me. But like there was I I look,
I I was a very small person in high school,
(03:59):
and I was not going to speak out of turn.
And again, like I just wanted to be a part
of whatever his journey was. And so I was like, Okay,
I'll rebound for him for a couple of minutes, we'll
do some drills that it just was like an hour
of me or after he passed away, like people would
(04:25):
It was such a weird time where I was getting
all these phone calls from people I've talked to in
a long time. They would have done anything to been
in my position, just to rebud you know what I mean.
It's like you don't think like I. I didn't think
about it like that at the time, but now I
have such an I have such a high level of
appreciation for every single second that was spent with with
him and spent with the team like that was just
(04:45):
like the best year ever, like every moment the bus rides, pregame,
post game practices, just like you you know, I mean
being our age. I would kill to go back and
do any one of those activities. I don't think there's
(05:06):
a single member of that high school team who would
disagree with Robbie. They would all look back at that
time of their lives and see it with a kind
of golden hue, and I think Kobe would too. Of
all the subplots of his early life, there's one in
particular that when I talked to people about Kobe always
(05:26):
seem to get overlooked or ignored, and it shouldn't be.
It's not that the other aspects of Kobe's adolescens aren't fascinating.
As I've talked about on episode two, his time in
Italy shaped him, and those infamous pickup games with the
Sixers in the summer proved to him beyond any doubt
that he could and should turn pro right out of
(05:46):
high school. But to me, the most dramatic storyline of
that period doesn't have anything to do with the NBA
or Jerry Stackhouse or Kobe's appreciation for different cultures. Or
any of those things. It has to do with the
community in which he grew up, the pressure that a
young athlete feels to perform, and the joy that accompanies
(06:08):
the achievement of a goal. You've been chasing for years,
but seems you're superstar. Kobe Bryant aboard for the ninety
six season. The Lower Marine coaching staff knew that there
would be no team in the area that would attract
more attention than the asient. The pressure would be high
from the start, and so would the expectations. Alright, alright
(06:30):
to me, the most important Kobe Bryant's story of that
time is the story of the season of the Lower
Marian Aces. I'm Mike Sealsky and from Diversion Podcasts, this
(06:50):
is I am Kobe. The brat steps to create myself
said create Yoself. They nice, create Yoself. Got a letter
for any great minds getting time, Episode seven, The Mind
(07:15):
of a Champion. There wasn't a whole lot of drama
for most of Kobe's senior season at Lower Merion. After
that crushing loss and Myrtle Beach I told you about
in the last episode and Greg Downer's speech chewing out
(07:37):
the entire team. The Aces were so inspired and so
together that they started rolling and seemed like they couldn't
be stopped. They won their final sixteen regular season games,
and they won them by an average of more than
twenty points a game. Kobe's numbers were just nuts. Here
were his point totals in one five game stretcht thirty two, fifty,
(08:01):
thirty two and four. Then in the second game of
the district playoffs, Lower Marion faced Academy Park High School.
Academy Park didn't have the Aces overall talent, but it
was a tough team. It's players weren't going to be
intimidated by Kobe, but he was ready for them. He
talked to Jeremy Treatment about that game and his preparation
(08:22):
with that. Then next practice, I was taking a lot
of jump shots getting ready for the Academy Park game
because I knew that I'm gonna be a tough talent
for especially if we didn't come ready to play. I
came to school early at six o'clock, shooting consistently looking
on my jump shot, trying to find a groove. We
came up with Academy Pardcam. I just knew I just
(08:42):
had to take over early. It's in the message saying, hey,
we're ready to play, and if you're gonna be this,
you wanted to play a perfect game. I only doing it.
Didn't expected his seventh three pointers. I was in the
groove and I just kept running for the three point
line and I started handing him. I remember when I
was shooting a round, Oh oh, the academy party came
(09:02):
in and saying there is like by saying all this
other stuff, and I kind of listen to it real
way in my memory bank. When I came on the court,
I was ready to play. Ready would be an understatement.
(09:23):
He hit those seven three pointers and matched his career
high with fifty points lower Merriyan one. The aces next
game against Norristown was a different story. It was a
struggle for the Aces and for Kobe. Norristown was exactly
the kind of team that was built to give him trouble,
(09:43):
lots of tall, quick, athletic wing players who could harass him,
and they did. Kobe was whipsawed by two emotions after
the game, joy and annoyance. Joy because lower Merriyan one five,
which meant the Aces were heading to the Palesti for
the district semifinals. Kobe was so joyful, in fact, that
(10:05):
he couldn't contain his emotions. But after the game in
the locker room out crying because the road to the
Palestia seeing a little cloudy at the beginning of the year.
I had no clue what to expect at the beginning
of a year. Our chemistry wasn't there, said me and
Jermaine both was just like, I wish we had Evan,
I wish we had guys, but to see them come
(10:25):
through the way they did, just like one of the
best fingers in the world to know that we're going
to get back to the Palestia. But then there was
the annoyance or maybe something more than that, because he
had his worst game of the season. He scored only
twenty points, he missed nineteen of his twenty four shots,
(10:46):
and he pictured those Norris Town kids strutting around full
of themselves. Well, we may have lost, but at least
we played awesome defense and the great Kobe Bryant. Yeah,
he hated that thought, and it was kind of aggravating
because I didn't want Northtown to think that they held
me because they've been it was me and I was
(11:07):
just missing. I then want them to say that, yeah,
we shut down clude Ryan. When the state tournament started,
I wanted them to win and keep winning so we
could play him again. I can get him fifty sixty
or something like that, just to show him, hey, you
didn't do what I did. Yes, it had to be
that Kobe had a bad game, not that the Norristown
players were capable of guarding him well enough to shut
(11:27):
him down. In his mind, with his ego, there were
no high school players who were capable of shutting him down.
It was like he couldn't conceive of such a thing.
It also sounded like Kobe was looking ahead a little
bit there, anticipating a rematch in the state tournament with
Norristown before he and the Aces had actually finished the
district tournament. So much for the cliche take him one
(11:50):
game at a time, but actually there was no way
Kobe was going to look past either of the teams
that Lower Marion ended up playing in the district final four.
These were the sorts of games that Kobe always loved,
whether he was playing for the Lower Marion Aces or
the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA. They were the
games against the league's best teams and best players Tim
(12:13):
Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs, Alan Iverson and the Sixers,
Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and the Celtics, and
the district semifinal game against Coatesville marked Kobe's third game
against one of his earliest NBA rivals, Hambleton Final semence
(12:34):
handed his face two quarters. Just shut it up. There
they get it to Hamilton's. He get it to clean
looking Cary. If it weren't for Kobe Richard Rip, Hamilton's
would have been considered the best player in the Philadelphia
area in He was thin as a blade, quick as hell,
(12:56):
able to shoot off the dribble or get to the
basket against any He was heading off to play for
Hall of Fame coach Jim Calhoun at the University of Connecticut,
where he lead the Huskies to victory in the National
Championship game. Here's a clip of him hitting a buzzer
beater during that n c A tournament. Brother was going
prell mead ten seconds remaining. Yeah. During his junior season,
(13:39):
Kobe had played against Rip and Coatesville twice and had
beaten them twice, once on a buzzer beater in a
great game at Coatesville won in the district semis. Now
was the rematch, and Kobe knew the game would define
their rival. I was excited because it was a personal,
personal dual type thing we're to have with People would
(14:00):
say how he can compete with me and he can
give me some word. When people say that, I just
kind of laugh and smile, but think, in the back
of my mind, now I can kill it this guy.
If you had a big game, that he would possibly lose.
But I also knew that I could have a big game.
(14:28):
Eight years later, in two thousand four, Rip would finally
get the better of Kobe when his Detroit Pistons wiped
out the Lakers in five games in the NBA Finals.
Rip even out played Kobe for most of that series,
but not this night, back, not at the palestri Kobe
scored twenty nine points and let a fourth quarter come back,
(14:49):
and the Aces won seventy sixty five. The two of
them talked after the game, and the vibe you get
from Kobe is obvious. He likes Rip, He's friends with Rip.
He wishes the best for Rick, but he also wants
to kick rips it to say that one of us
always have to lose, like, yeah, I go yeah, and
(15:11):
uh he said, Uh, how come any time I played
always he would love. I kind of laughed, Well, I
have no clue. I guess I'm more competitive. I guess
I don't. I don't know. I just do whatever it
takes to win. Personally, Yeah, that kind of wished he
was another bracket so he could he could play and
(15:32):
I get to the Bische Championship. I know that's what
he wanted the most, but A should have been another bracket.
I mean, we're in another bracket. We're gonna be in
the championship anyway. Somebody has to take it, and it
might as well be me. The winnever coachs Fill and
Rip Hamilton's set up another rematch for the Aces, this
time for the district championship, and one more time against
their nemesis, the Chester Clippers. The defending Chaps, the team
(15:57):
that had destroyed Lower Merian by twenty seven point to
the year before. That loss remained a bitter memory and
had become a motivating factor for Kobe and the entire
Lower Marian program. For Kobe, for all of Lower Marian's
coaches and players, for anyone who paid attention to high
school basketball, Beating Chester would mean that the Aces matter,
(16:19):
that they had earned their championship by knocking off the
district juggernaut. Greg Downer even had warm up shirts made
up with the number twenty seven on them to remind
everyone on the team that they had lost by twenty
seven points the last time they played Chester. This time, though,
Kobe's teammates entered the game with just as much confidence
(16:39):
as he had. Here's Emery Dabney, who is the Aces
starting point guard. So we haven't building up this big
rivalry for years. And it's funny because it lasted his
day with Chester. So they were kind of like, you know,
Chester kids, kind of intimidating, and um, it was kind
of like, uh, we're sick. We don't care who they
(17:00):
where they're from. We don't care. And at that time
when I got in there, they were just sticking up
when we didn't care how where they were from. We
didn't care the Chester talk. Whatever that meant. That meant
nothing to us, It made a lot to everyone else. Then,
Kobe spent the days before the game reading through the
(17:21):
local newspapers searching for motivation, and he found some In
a quote from Chester's head coach Fred Pickett, I knew
that everybody was pumping it up at the end. The
daily was it the daily news at Kobe where his
goods that I was fighting? I mean, but there was
a total inspect to my team because they didn't even
mentioned them, And I can't. I can't take that to heart.
(17:44):
I know my teammates did. But the whole week was great.
A lot of people come up to me saying, do
you think you're ready for Chester? You think you guys
can be dumb? I think they're better than you want.
A lot of trash on them been going on, especially
from them, from them in the paper. But I really
didn't expect that was would come out and say what
he said. I mean, he actually when people say what
you gonna do about Kobe Bryant will say, well, I
(18:05):
won't try to contain him, and you know, things like that.
But hey, but the picket just came out and said
we're gonna shut him down. Period. When did you see that, David?
I said, uh, I saw the day came out. I'm
not swing that when it came out, but I think
it was a couple of days before the game. I
just kind of looked at it. I was like, a shot,
(18:25):
Why would you give me something like that too? It's
a look forward to, you know. For the first half
of the game, it looked like Pickett was right. The
Clippers led by eight points at the bridge, just like
they had the year before when they blew Lower Marian
out of the building. But Greg Downer made a couple
of coaching adjustments at halftime and Kobe got going offensively.
He sparked a fourteen to one run that put the
(18:46):
Aces in front, and even as a youngster, the Mamba
wasn't above taunting his opponents in a big game. But
the one guy, I think he's twenty one, I think
some las kid. He came in the game and he
I think his coach put on put him on me,
just to provoke me or something. As soon a detecting
the game, ran right to me and started talking to
all this trash. Yeah, col Yeah, you're a pomp, You're
(19:08):
a punk. I will shut you down saying all this stuff.
I'm just looking at my just smile said, man, I'm
a hundred and temper unguardable. That was so funny because
he just looked at me like yeah right, you ain't,
you ain't shoot and all this other stuff before Yeah,
I started killing him. Man. I drew like three pounds
(19:28):
on him and uh like the next second you just
heard he was going out of the game. Hey, come
back and the rest of the game. That was funny.
Lower Marian won the game and the district championship comfortable
with three and Kobe stat line was just insane thirty
four points, eleven rebounds, six assists, and nine block shots.
(19:52):
It was great because nobody expected us to win. Were
the underdogs. I wasn't gonna get a championship, and the
championship with just vote really really good. Who anybody going
the way? That's one of the best films ever. Somebody
says you can't do something, didn't do it. I'm not
(20:12):
sure it's right to say that no one expected lower
Marian to win. I mean, the Aces were seated third
in the district and they had the best player in
the freaking country. But there was a caveat to that championship,
a reason for Kobe and the Aces to be a
little reserved in how much they celebrated it. Lower Marian
still had the state tournament to play. It wasn't enough
(20:34):
for Kobe and his teammates just to win a district championship.
Remember what he said in the tape I played at
the beginning of this episode. Throughout the whole time, I
could umer stand now on the state champie, and I
want to be known that the best I only had
the best player the best I want to be known
as the best player on the best team. He and
(20:57):
the rest of the Aces wanted a state title. Two.
They needed a state title, and it was still possible,
maybe even likely, that they would have to play Chester
again and have to beat Chester again to win that
state title. And if they couldn't do that, if they
lost their final game that season, if Kobe lost the
final game of his high school career, he would consider
(21:20):
himself a failure. Hey, this is Mike Selsky, host and
writer of I Am Kobe. This podcast project came out
(21:41):
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 that we don't cover at all. Kobe's upbringing,
his family, his identity, his effect on his friends and teammates,
(22:05):
his journey into the n b A, 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 of your favorite retailers. That's the
Rise of Kobe Book dot Com. Thanks so now. The
(22:49):
Aces are in the state tournament. They coasted through their
first three games, which were so one sided that they
were worth In fact, the most interesting thing about them
was the hoop blow that surrounded Kobe. People around the
country knew who he was. They'd heard about it, read
about it, and wanted to see him. They packed every
gym he was in. Here's a good example of how
(23:11):
crazy he's got. In the second round, Lower Marian played
Scranton High School. Scranton was happy just to be in
the second round of the tournament. They'd beat in the
higher seeded team in the first round, but even they
didn't expect themselves to hang with the likes of Lower
Marian or Chester. During one of his interviews with Jeremy Treaty.
Kobe talked about how he approached such an a poem
(23:31):
right down the bus. I kind of thought that this
team might be easily in tim and simply because they
came over a big upset and I knew that they
were gonna be very excited about that and come in
visiting team like us. I knew that they could be
in SIMD. Plus they're very young, and when I loved
at Exam and it's around their way amy a nice
little partible and I had to start playing talking about
(23:54):
how he dreamed about the day that he could call
me and come out and play against me and things
like that, and they said, just a dream come true.
And he said, well, I really looked up to him.
I know I can't spout a little thing like that.
And I said, oh my god, I got you. I said,
I said, man like a shot. When he smells blood
the war, he's gonna he's gonna laughing. We're gonna attack it.
I knew that he was looked up to me like that.
(24:17):
I knew he was open. I just went a half
so that of my whole time team because they knew
and they won't that's an understanding the Aces scored the
first twenty two points of the game. Kobe threw down
a few dunks and blocked a few shots. It was
complete domination. The final score was seventy nine thirty nine.
But that wasn't the strange part. This was the strange part.
(24:40):
After the game, every single Scranton player lined up on
the court and asked Kobe for his autograph. It's pretty
cool so that the course he's compete all you were
up the court. His life at the basketball, you know.
But it was good. I kind of weird at first.
My god, he just blowing you out out. I'm saying
nothing to be upset at this smile. And it's not exactly,
(25:03):
but Julia, does that sound like a high school basketball
player to you? To me, it sounds like a polished
performer who's already accustomed to dealing with the public, an actor,
a talk show host, a professional athlete. It sounds like
Kobe at seven or thirty seven. It doesn't sound like
a seventeen year old kid, which is what Kobe was.
(25:27):
Just like they expected. Kobe and his teammates got their
rematch with Chester in the state semifinals at the Palestra
the day before that game. They were having a lousy,
sluggish practice. Greg Downer was ticked, so was Kobe. He
figured if anybody could light a fire under the team.
But he's just kind of going through the motions, right shots,
(25:49):
not conscience rating, not running these greens hard, and not
satting a man. You can tell you that course down
it was getting little agivated, and I was getting agivated too.
I tried to this team, um, getting this team going,
I'm start getting going out of me a while, and uh,
we're going to drill. I've been the bar up against Leo.
The Leo Kobe was referring to. There was Leo Stacey,
(26:12):
one of the shortest kids on the team, one of
the last kids on the bench. I try to pull
back and cross over, and he reached them and his
head came in with his head and buttons here, bumping
right on my nose. And uh, at first I thought
it was in the groove. Now you get bumping your
nose and to y'all, I started ordering, Oh well, I thought,
my nose, get up, start playing some more. I bought
(26:35):
my nose. I go to my end up just blast,
I'm coming out. I'm like, oh my god, he going
on and had I never broke my nose before. Are
the blood he started gusting. I just laid on the
floor and I just changed to myself. God, man, I
hope I can play this game. Let's take a moment
(27:10):
and understand what happened here. The day before the biggest
game of his team season, the biggest game of his
life to this point, Kobe Bryant collided with a teammate
and broke his notes. Consider the panic that must have
run through every coach and every player on the team,
And consider the pressure that those coaches and players already
(27:34):
felt before Kobe got hurt. Greg Down or the team's
head coach, was definitely feeling. You know, I don't know
what people's exterior expectations were, but you know, I knew
that we wanted to go out with the gold medal,
and you know, I knew that's what the kids wanted,
that's what Kobe wanted. Um. And there's two pressures there.
(27:57):
There's a pressure of trying to figure out, which I
spent my whole career doing, how to get through very
difficult Chester teams, and um, you know, the pressure of
kind of leading Kobe Bryant. So it was kind of
like a mix of those two pressures. And I mean,
I think I think I handled it okay. And you know,
(28:20):
in retrospect, I'm probably glad there wasn't the craziness of
the internet and social media that would have just put
another magnifying layer on this, probably similar to the to
the career that that you saw Lemron James have. That
(28:43):
practice was the only one that Mike Egan missed over
the two years that he coached Kobe at Lower Merian.
He was in Dallas on a business trip. He called
down Her for an update, and Downer told him about
Kobe's injury ago. It was supposed to be a fairly light,
easy on our workout, almost a you know, a step
a bubble walk through to get ready for Chester. And
(29:06):
he told me they Leo Stacy broke Kobe's nose. And
I I just said what? Three times? I think I
said what. Leo Stacy was the smallest guy on the
team to broke his nose. They want to hear it
broke his nose. I feel like they got in a
fight or something. But if Egan thought Kobe's injury might
(29:35):
ruin the Aces season, he also missed the sign that
should have told everyone in the lower Marian program that
they had nothing to worry about. Kobe was still standing
at mid court, and the trainer told him that he
had to leave practice to get checked out. Jeremy Treaton
was standing there next to Kobe, and what happened next
is a story that still gets told among Kobe's coaches
(29:57):
and teammates. It's almost like a myth, except it's true.
Kobe was holding a towel to his face with his
right hand. He said, ball. Someone bounced past a basketball team.
He caught it and held it with his left hand.
Then he turned to treat I remember I got up.
(30:17):
I say that I bet you I can leave this shot.
I left hand. Truth, I had a town, a town.
My right hand. I hold no blood coming down on
my nose, I told her, Jeremy John, I bet you
fought out shot. My left hand shot it one handed,
(30:38):
left handed from half court with a broken nose. Kobe
swished the shot was still. I never doubted, you said,
I never clacked your own. It's cool. It's cool. It's cool.
I knew it was. But I want to get out
there back some more. Uh ohays my cups. I haven't father,
(31:02):
I want to get out there and working my game
a little bit, but I don't want to let me coach.
You want to let me. I was kind of set
the whole night. I could work in my game, but
I didn't get a mad Man's kids, right, Bob, nothing
raise about a hundred and nothing parents. Uh. But he
(31:24):
has tremendous heart, but he's just like the little skit
on the team. And him to break my nose, it's
not so funny when people see me in school. Oh
cool rapp who woke nose? I see Leo got laughing
by right. The shot was amazing, but it didn't change
the fact that Kobe's nose was still broken. The thinking
was that he would have to wear a mask during
(31:46):
the game against Chester to protect his face, but Mike
Egan told me that presented its own set of potential problems.
By wearing a mask, Kobe would be telegraphing he was
hurt and he wasn't a UM. And then we talked about,
you know how dangerous that could be against um. You know,
(32:08):
a team like like Chester because they smell blood in
the water that you know they were coming after you.
Not that they would be dirty about it, but it's just,
you know, psychologically, it would make us look weak. So
Kobe had a solution to that conundrum. In the locker
room before the game. He took off the mask and
chucked it against the wall. He would play without. I
(32:28):
think he didn't want to give up any edge. He
was such an advanced kid psychologically, but you didn't wear it.
They never know about Chester. The polesto was passed. Nearly
nine thousand people were to see the best high school
(32:50):
basketball player in Pennsylvania against what most people believe was
the best high school basketball program in Pennsylvania, and the
game lived up to its billing as the most anticipated
of the year, type most of the way. Chester up
by two at halftime, lower Marian taking a late leave,
Chester coming back to tie it at the end of regulation,
(33:12):
Back and forth, back and forth. It was as good
as basketball gets at any level. The game went to
overtime and Kobe went to another level. He finished with
thirty nine points, scoring twenty of them in the fourth
quarter and the extra five minutes of play. With lower
Marian up by seven. In the closing seconds, he dribbled
(33:34):
from one end of the court to the other, through
all five Chester players and hammered down a tomahawk dunk
as he was found. Greg Downer called it the defining
moment of Kobe's high school career and in the entire
history of Lower Marian's program. Robbie Schwartz watched it from
the bench and marveled at his friend and teammate. When
(33:55):
he went coast to coast and Dunctin got fouled. It
was like in a rumption. I mean, like the sound,
like those sounds, I can I can close my eyes
and I can heal the the energy in the Palestia.
Twenty five years and Robbie still hangs onto that memory.
(34:17):
He can still see it crystal clear in his mind.
That was the effect that Kobe had on his teammates.
(34:40):
Kobe and the ace Is now viewed a state championship
as their destiny. They thought they were unstoppable, and they
said so. The game would be held in Hershey, the
same small city, the same arena, even where Wilt Chamberlain
(35:02):
had once cemented his basketball legend by scoring one points
in a game for the Philadelphia Warriors. Kobe stood up
at a pep rally and all but guaranteed that the
Aces would come home with a Trophy. The task wasn't
going to be quite that simple, though. Lower Marian had
to play Erie Cathedral Prep from the northwest side of Pennsylvania.
(35:24):
Erie Prepp was a strong, sound team with a good tradition,
and it was unlike any team Kobe and the Aces
had faced that season. Here's Mike Egan, he played Erie
Cathedral UM. That was the first team we played that
had like an old school type of basketball program where
(35:44):
they played great defense, they moved the ball on offense,
they didn't do what we wanted them to do offensively.
Big part of our system at Law Marian was trying
to speed up. We had an athletic team with with
a great shop blocker and Kobe you know under the basket.
We wanted to speed teams up, force him to a side,
(36:06):
make them do something more quickly than they wanted to.
And they were the first team that didn't do what
we wanted them to do, which is a really well coached,
good team. And I think UM just that slowness kind
of the game, not UM. It's like a boxing match
where one guy wants to dictate the pace and the
other boxer won't let them. They wouldn't let us dictate
(36:29):
the pace and we weren't used to that. Cathedral Prep
meets Laura Marian in the State Quad A Final. The
Ramblers are making their third appearance in Hershey in the
past four years. Laura Marian beach her six six senior
Kobe Bryant, considered by many to be in the nation's
top high school player. It's eat versus wet. One team
will leave Chocolate Collin with the title. And you'll see
(36:49):
here he Prepp got out to a seven nothing lead
in the game, and Kobe and the Aces had a
bigger problem than the game's pace. The basketball was incredibly
slipper over code. He had trouble gripping it, dribbling it,
shooting it. He didn't score a single point in the
first The bow is so so slimply, man, I mean
(37:10):
it really was. Be thick at the bulls is a
little bit slippery. Uh plays to deal with it. Lay
start that we played live when we did myself, Oh,
we had a little bow like going between our legs,
coming around our back and doing little things like got
crossing over, pulling up in the dome. It was like
(37:31):
a hard pool, that little slippery ball like that. Guys poundball,
counterball pass pound pound pass able. They sucking point shots,
the scoop the bus don't want to be a factor
for us, and slipping everywhere now very very pissed off,
very good which was a very bigger game. And I
totally referee. He do stick, he said, I wipe it
(37:54):
off the tip resolute phillis slip tell us stick. I
can't do it. So Kobe got creative. Lower Marian's trainer
had a can of adhesive spray that she would apply
to a player's ankle before taping him up. Kobe took
(38:16):
the can and sprayed the stuff on his hands. He
was like Spiderman. Now he could catch the ball without
even closing his hands. First time he touched the ball
in the second quarter, Bang, he had a turnaround jumper
on the baseline. Check Out this clip from W I
T F in Harris Ball. Emory Dappy has the basketball
(38:38):
dapple halt that's black springs from the baseline by girl
family and filling it right over top of you and
look it in your face. Bryant practices, as we said,
with the Sixers, and they said when he practiced the Sixers,
there wasn't a noticeable difference the way he played compared
to the pro still lower Marin trailed Eerie Prep by six.
(38:59):
At halftime. The Aces confidence was shaking a bit, so
Greg Downer pulled out all the stops to try to
inspire his players. Let's listen to Kobe describe what happened
in the locker a half time. Anybody's day down because
the style, the start that they were playing with very
questions because we're pressure and we're up in the time
doing everything right, but the pressure wasn't getting to you.
(39:22):
And I remember, man, they're gonna crack. There's no way ahead.
Everything understand our question for the whole time. Game he's
got and I knew that the main new list of
the players understood that the coach got it. Came to
the locker room game, Uh, took off his shoes and
put the sleepers. I said, we're going to war. I did,
(39:43):
you got better be ready? I said, I when the
big game, I was run out on the court and
I'm gonna jump around there like a man man with
my das And he did, and he did, and that
he did. But that kind of kind of sad that
the message, so hey, man, are we in a championship games.
How could we play like this? I gotta stepping up
another back. We knew that every big game you stepping
(40:06):
up in the quarter. It came out that the requarter right,
and that was all right. So I knew that you
got a full point. We're not going to turn back
the time. It wasn't really all, she wrote. Erie Prepp
(40:27):
actually came back to take a two point lead in
the fourth quarter and Kobe had to sink too late
foul shots to tie the game. If he missed one
or both, Lower Marion would probably have lost the game.
Here's another clip from w I t F of him
taking and making those shots. Well be Bryant six foot
(40:47):
six senior right out of the one ball team took
bought us the rest of the way. The shot around
and drops him up about a shooter's wall. You get
that facts been on good action as you look at
the other side, the best break downer. He has a
note of concern at this point, but believes brothers sitting
to his level. There the growth the hydration earlier, and
(41:09):
he is bad back from the hospital, did say Bryan
Swish at forty womagap. In the end, Kobe helped quench
the victory for the Aces. But what was ironic was
he didn't do it by score. Instead, he grabbed an
important defensive rebound and through a long pass up court
to his teammate Omar Hatcher for a layer. Lex Drives
(41:31):
at thirty seconds left left the chart rebound battle for
still on the deck, backing away by comby Bryant right
out of the open floor. It off all my all,
that made Felix profession game. But here comes Beast seconds
to go. He carried it over. That was it. They
had done it. It had been a tough game, an
(41:52):
ugly game, a low scoring game, Lower Marrying forty ere
hee Prept. Three, but it was a win. Just the
scene there. Twenty six in a row, Kobe Bryant and
the Lower Marian Aces were state champions. Here's a clip
of the game's immediate aftermath from w I t A
what a tremendous game at Urshey Park and ran up
(42:14):
the Lower Marian bands of already under the banner that
says Lower Marian eight six state champs and that ends
a fifty three year grout for Lower Marion. Their last
state basketball title game in nineteen forty three. But the
grout is over as Kobe Bryant and the Lower Marion
Aces defeat every cathedral breath forty eight, forty three when
(42:34):
the FADA state title, Jenn Garrett just saw Great Blind
and Mama Father Jelly being Joel Bryant son Koby embracing
on the side pleasant the game was over. I couldn't
believe it. I turned around, running up in the air
and number one over the age crazy. I'm like, oh
(42:57):
my god. When the State I remember going around my
dad came out of nowhere. I was up but they
had only ride there. I couldn't get up there my family.
I turned around this thing. I know my dad was
down there. I was like, oh man, I gave m
a night lub and was like, man, I probably didn't.
(43:17):
He knew that I wanted to do. Mike Egan watched
Kobe and Joe share that hug, and he told me
it seemed to last a full minute with it, that
it seemed like they'd never let each other go where
um where they had such an incredible bond and they've
been through so much together. The other time they spent Italy.
The whole journey here helping Kobe get to this level
(43:41):
and to win a state championship, which is the you know,
the ultimate for a high school basketball player. Um, it
was just a great, great moment there. I remember Kobe
giving me a hug and embracing me and saying, you know,
he's kept saying thank you. He was such an amazing
guy in the sense that he he allies like you
can get individual greatness on your own, but it's not
(44:05):
nearly as fun or rewarding, and it's impossible to get
team greatness without contributions from a lot of different people.
So his graciousness and his thankfulness to me and I'm
sure all the other teammates and coaches was really something
something cool from him. Kobe Bryant's four years at Lower
(44:40):
Merion High School marked the start of a new era
for the school's basketball program. The sport had been an
afterthought at the school before he got there. It has
been a point of pride ever since. In the twenty
years since Kobe left, the Aces had just two losing seasons,
and they've won two more state championships. Greg Danner likes
(45:02):
to say that Kobe taught them all how to win,
that he established a standard that every coach and player
has been trying to match ever since. The one thing
that the Aces hadn't done since Kobe graduated, though, was
win another district championship, not until this year, one year
after his death, twenty five years after Kobe had years.
(45:27):
And there were some neat things about it, you know,
the due to COVID. The district final was in our gym,
which is very unusual. Um, but it it was good.
And I think, um, you know, coming off of Kobe's passing,
you know, for us to get ourselves together and play
good basketball and have that connection with his ball club
(45:50):
is good. And I said to the kids, like, you
look around this gym like it's it's it must be
very difficult, daunting to say to yourself, like how do
how do you get up onto this wall? Like as
a player, like, you know, do you have to score
thousand points? You have to be a state champion, you
have to be a district champion. And we told the
kids like, if you win that district championship, like you're
(46:11):
you're going up onto the wall. And that's kind of
becoming a very special thing to to get yourself up
onto that wall, which is just you know, flooded with
amazing players. And iconic memories. Kobe Bryant was that wall's
(46:40):
first brick. That's true as a metaphor, and that's true
in reality. He helped fund its construction. It's called Kobe
Bryant Gymnasium. His name will be on it forever and
connected to Lower Merion forever. That's his basketball legacy at
his high school. That was the public side of Kobe
as a young maid. He was starting to become a celebrity,
(47:03):
and he was starting to learn how to handle the
fame that would only grow as his career progressed. In
the next episode, I'll explore that side of Kobe Bryant,
the young man thrust into extremely rarefied circumstances, the kind
that can change a person forever for the better and
sometimes for the worst. A side of Kobe that only
(47:25):
so many people got to see. And all the classmates
who are they're bad mouth and the whole thing get
in there and like, oh, can we have a picture
with you? You know, can we get caught? And we
talked to you? And I'm like, you know, bottom of face,
I don't, I don't know. That's next week on I
(47:49):
Am Kobe. I Am Kobe is a production of the
(48:17):
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
(48:38):
our production assistant. Our theme music is Create Yourself by
Grover Brown featuring Justin Starling Find create Yourself wherever you
stream of music. Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Fresan Sinc.
Executive producers are Mark Francis and Scott Waxman. Join the
conversation about I Am Kobe on social media on Twitter
(49:01):
and Instagram. It's at diversion Pots thanks to Rain Rosenbaum,
Susan Canavan and Jeremy Treatment. I Love I Rise 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 persefit,
stay killing and let it keep the horses. And then
(49:23):
if they don't believe in themselves gave revert to find
that the Tampa's heads. So I'm telling them, ask my am,
this the reason why my work so damn different to
the negatives. I can't listen see me at the time.
You can't listen where I'm a vote to play like
cash is see I pay my dudes because taxes gotta work.
I thinking grind ahead of his time. So I'm saying
(49:45):
that they made you. Don't tell them you create yourself,
Finn watch us, but it's bad that so you gotta
stay clock then break black break we create ourselves. Watch
me question right sweeping right to create myself? Exac client
signs up, create yourself? Say nice, ain't no hard create yourself.
(50:12):
You gotta learn from the great minds though we ain't lying.
Tell them next game time. This time wasn't giving. It
was made the future. Any time I could change better,
tell them that I made it back home. As I
walked through the hearts of the fame, I can't from
the valley of the shadow with death waiting for us.
Some spoons don't hold your breath, sat Town, sat Train.
But I did it with less. I know one that
(50:33):
to be so there's nothing to guess yeah, there's nothing
to guess. It's our times. Something we up next. We
don't got any regrets. I did it with my soon
hands and we never forgets my a. This the reason
why my I'm working so damn different to the negatives.
I can't listen to see me at the time. You
can't listen for where, rebuild, reshape, give me your you
(50:57):
got to risk take do it now. When I'm saying
why braves, I'm gonna saying that they mayn't. You don't
tell them you create yourself around the best you finn
or watch us by. It's by that time you've gotta
snake clack, then break black, break we create yourself, watch
me question, watch the create myself sack click cline, signs
(51:20):
up and create yourself. May nice and ain't go on
create yourself. Gotta line for the great minds, so we
ain't lying. Tell them next anytime. Diversion Podcasts
Host
Mike Sielski
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