S1E7: The Mind of a Champion

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 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 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 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. 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. 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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

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 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 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.

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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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

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, 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, 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 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.

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, 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 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

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 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, 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 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 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 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.

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 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, 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 himself a failure. Hey, this is Mike Selsky, 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 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 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 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 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

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 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. 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.

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, 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. 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, 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, 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

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 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 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. 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, 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 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 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 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 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. 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, 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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,

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 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 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.

He can still see it crystal clear in his mind. That was the effect that Kobe had on his teammates. 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 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. 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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. 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. 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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, 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 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 Am Kobe. I Am Kobe is a 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

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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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