Speaker 1: Diversion podcasts. What if they never get the exposure? Were
Speaker 1: all right, that will get the exposure, right, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get it, hopeful, little Marrion on the map and uh
Speaker 1: doesn't type of person I am. Somebody says I can't
Speaker 1: do something. I want to go out and do it
Speaker 1: all purpose and do it at an unbelievable rate. I
Speaker 1: don't want to clear I don't want to do get
Speaker 1: over the ostle. I want to totally clear it. It
Speaker 1: was a crisp late afternoon in the fall of and
Speaker 1: the men who had coached Kobe Bryant during his senior
Speaker 1: year at Lower Merion High School back in had come
Speaker 1: together for a little reunion of sorts. There was pizza,
Speaker 1: there was good beer, some juicy I p a s.
Speaker 1: And there were a lot of memories and there was
Speaker 1: a lot of reminiscent I would say that it was
Speaker 1: the most incredible coaching staff ever, only because we were young.
Speaker 1: We were relatively new at like high level stuff like this,
Speaker 1: and it was just five. There were four coaches in me.
Speaker 1: I had arranged this meeting so they could jog each
Speaker 1: other's memories and share some anecdotes about Kobe's high school career,
Speaker 1: especially his senior year. All of us were sitting around
Speaker 1: a table on Greg Downer's back of coach. Greg is
Speaker 1: still the head boys basketball coach at Lower Mery. He
Speaker 1: was hired in nineteen ninety and has been there ever since.
Speaker 1: When he was just thirty three years old, he created
Speaker 1: a staff of assistance really for the specific purpose of
Speaker 1: coaching Kobe Bryant. Downer knew what he had in Cope
Speaker 1: and he knew what kind of attention Kobe would draw
Speaker 1: from opponents, from the media, from everywhere. So he did
Speaker 1: a really smart, really innovative thing. He brought on four
Speaker 1: assistance and each coach would have his own specialized role.
Speaker 1: Mike Egan, who had been a college coach in Delaware,
Speaker 1: was already on board as Lower Marion's defensive coordinator. Downer's
Speaker 1: older brother, Drew, had a way of talking to people,
Speaker 1: even teenagers, that put them at ease, so he would
Speaker 1: be the team's amateur sports psychologist. Jimmy Kaiserman was twenty
Speaker 1: six at the time, had played Division one ball at
Speaker 1: Miami University and at Writer, and had played professionally in Israel.
Speaker 1: He was quick, he was tough, he could dump, and
Speaker 1: he saw a news report about Kobe one night and
Speaker 1: called up Greg down, volunteering to help in any way
Speaker 1: he could. He became Kobe's foil, guarding and harassing him
Speaker 1: every day at practice. Jeremy Treatment would be the team's
Speaker 1: media relations coordinating. He'd take care of all the interview requests,
Speaker 1: the reporters, the outside noise, and Greg would oversee the
Speaker 1: whole operation. All this basically because of one seventeen year
Speaker 1: old kid, because of Kobe. Now twenty five years later,
Speaker 1: they were back together again. Kaiserman couldn't make it to
Speaker 1: the reunion, but the other four could. Oh almost forgot
Speaker 1: there was one other person there too, bring down Greg's daughters,
Speaker 1: who was seven years old at the time. You know,
Speaker 1: I think I'd like to think I don't really have
Speaker 1: an ego, And I mean I used to await awake
Speaker 1: at night wondering if we were gonna score baskets, you know,
Speaker 1: literally when we first started, and you know, we were
Speaker 1: giving up too many points. And this pre rope is
Speaker 1: this with her without Kobe. Beforehand, I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: if you were laying awake at night wonder if you're
Speaker 1: gonna score when you coach, you had problem before he
Speaker 1: definitely has a problem. Before before Kobe, when you first
Speaker 1: got the job. Yeah, yeah, I want to call me,
Speaker 1: I'm Mike Sealskip and from Diversion podceads, this is I
Speaker 1: am Kobe. I love why see why create myself? Create yourself?
Speaker 1: Stay nice night, go on, create yourself. You gotta learn
Speaker 1: from the great mass. Do we gain line selling? That's
Speaker 1: getting time? Episode four, Phenom of Philly. Before Kobe, the
Speaker 1: Lower Marian Aces didn't have much of a basketball program.
Speaker 1: Before Kobe, their uniforms were often mismatched. A kid would
Speaker 1: be wearing a tank top number forty five on the back,
Speaker 1: but his short said number twenty one. Before Kobe, the
Speaker 1: Aces lost the game fifty four to thirteen, and because
Speaker 1: they had so few players to begin with, and so
Speaker 1: many of those players had fouled out, they finished the
Speaker 1: game with just four on the floor. They were a
Speaker 1: team that nobody paid much attention to, even in the
Speaker 1: halls of the high school itself. Lower Merion Township, generally speaking,
Speaker 1: is a pretty posh area, and the most popular sports
Speaker 1: at the school in the late nineteen eighties were the
Speaker 1: ones you'd expect to be popular at that kind of school.
Speaker 1: Soccer lacrosse foot Then in Greg Downer Kid, and the
Speaker 1: basketball team got a little better. Then Kobe Bryant came in,
Speaker 1: and by the start of his senior year, his coaches
Speaker 1: knew they had the best high school basketball player in
Speaker 1: America on their team. They just had to figure out
Speaker 1: how to make the most offense. The Kaiserman thing was cool.
Speaker 1: I remember when Greg called me, He's like, I got
Speaker 1: this guy and the coach with us he played at Miami.
Speaker 1: I was like, how did you get that guy? I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's ingenious. It really is, because we knew there's
Speaker 1: no one on our team that can cover Kobe. The
Speaker 1: ball is gonna be in Kobe's hands. We're not gonna
Speaker 1: overthink it. We're not gonna put in the Princeton offense. Right,
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to deal with this kid all night.
Speaker 1: The ball is gonna be his hand. We're gonna set
Speaker 1: up our defense, pressure and like, and we're not gonna
Speaker 1: overthink it. We're gonna let him play. We may not
Speaker 1: have real ashes at the time, but you know, we
Speaker 1: did get along and maybe the role definition was good.
Speaker 1: But I think there was maybe a part of us
Speaker 1: who was thinking, like, uh, this is like a one
Speaker 1: shot deal. Let's not screw it up, you know, let's
Speaker 1: not screw it up with like Fickeren or you know,
Speaker 1: like you're you're gonna get one crack at Kobe Bryant.
Speaker 1: I don't think any of us expected another player quite
Speaker 1: like him. Once the Bryant family moved back to the
Speaker 1: United States, it didn't take long for Greg Downer to
Speaker 1: hear the rumors about this amazing eighth grade basketball player
Speaker 1: at balotkin Wood Middle School. But Downer also knew that
Speaker 1: Dr George Smith, Kobe's coach at Ballot ran a tight
Speaker 1: ship and didn't let any of his players, no matter
Speaker 1: how good they were, show off their individual talents. So
Speaker 1: Downer went to a Ballot practice to check out Kobe
Speaker 1: for himself to get a sense of how good this
Speaker 1: kid really was. What he saw blew him away. Well,
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe that somebody at the tender age of
Speaker 1: thirteen was was that advance with their skills. Um invited
Speaker 1: him to a practice with my current varsity and you know,
Speaker 1: he was more than point in his own and at
Speaker 1: six ft two hundred fourth pals, I knew that he
Speaker 1: was gonna get dumb but bigger. But his foundation at
Speaker 1: such a young age was was really solid. Good shooter
Speaker 1: could pass her good intellect, and my mind started racing
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. Asked to uh, what do you give me
Speaker 1: down the road? And my initial depression was certainly that
Speaker 1: I very have something very special and and your need
Speaker 1: on my hands. If Kobe had been a high school
Speaker 1: phenom these days, he probably would have transferred to a
Speaker 1: well known basketball school like Mont Verde Academy or i
Speaker 1: AMG Academy in Florida, a place that produces top notch athletes,
Speaker 1: like a factory producers sports cars. Back in the early
Speaker 1: nine nineties, though, things were a little different. Downer was
Speaker 1: more worried that a private school in the Philadelphia area
Speaker 1: might recruit Code, and a few of them did, so
Speaker 1: he took a big step toward making sure Kobe wanted
Speaker 1: to stay at Lower Merryan Downer knew that Joe Bryant
Speaker 1: was coaching girls basketball at a Cuba Hebrew academy, and
Speaker 1: the two of them had hit it off when they met,
Speaker 1: so Downer hired Joe to be Lower Marian's junior varsity
Speaker 1: boys coach. It was a pretty smart idea. Joe was
Speaker 1: a former NBA player and he had some coaching experience,
Speaker 1: and really was Kobe going to transfer away from the
Speaker 1: school where his dad coached. I think there was the
Speaker 1: salesmanship to keep him at Lower Marian, to convince the
Speaker 1: parents that that I was the right guy with a
Speaker 1: job and that that public educ issue could could accomplish
Speaker 1: what Kobe needed. Um you know, there there definitely was
Speaker 1: a paranoia that he would drift off to one of
Speaker 1: the Catholic schools where somebody would swerve Ben and try
Speaker 1: to take him. The funny part is Downer never really
Speaker 1: had to worry about that. Kobe took kind of an
Speaker 1: old school approach to his early career. He stayed and
Speaker 1: played for his local hometown high school. His parents could
Speaker 1: see him play, his friends could see him play, his
Speaker 1: community could see him play and rally around him and
Speaker 1: the team. I always like that aspect of him and
Speaker 1: his career. It showed loyalty. Here he is talking to
Speaker 1: Jeremy treatment about it. I knew that a man was
Speaker 1: the right properly grade. I really know Clue dying that
Speaker 1: road right. Simber fact that he accepted me a great
Speaker 1: coming to a school to practice with his team and
Speaker 1: allowed me to stay after Batty and welcome my game.
Speaker 1: I knew there was no other places my two sisters
Speaker 1: with him, So there was never in the truth to
Speaker 1: that to those works went around, never uh got knew
Speaker 1: the truth father and my family and coaching the truth
Speaker 1: where I was going to Gray Contact and a lot
Speaker 1: by ole Bright schools. But I just wanted to go
Speaker 1: to home Man because my sisters with him type family.
Speaker 1: But even in the years after that eleven grade Roman
Speaker 1: was calling in uh Piscopal Germantown Academy. They because of
Speaker 1: my father, and I said, I want your sunny coming
Speaker 1: to school and be great for him, and saying all
Speaker 1: this stuff. My father was listening, but at the same
Speaker 1: time he was always happy at the Man, and you
Speaker 1: know I wouldn't want to leave. Koby didn't quite have
Speaker 1: to resurrect the basketball program when he got to Lower Merry.
Speaker 1: The ass had made the district playoffs the year before
Speaker 1: under Downers coaching. It looked like they were getting better
Speaker 1: and it didn't take for them to see how much
Speaker 1: talent the new freshman had and how much he liked
Speaker 1: the flat it. Here's Kobe's teammate from Lower Marrian Guy Stewart,
Speaker 1: this freshman year. I mean when he came in, you
Speaker 1: could just you can kind of see he was different.
Speaker 1: It wasn't your typical freshman that came in. I mean
Speaker 1: he was you know, six three at this time and
Speaker 1: probably waited, you know, and five pounds. But you could
Speaker 1: just see the way he moved on the court and
Speaker 1: he understood the game that he was going to be different. Now,
Speaker 1: at that time, it was just he was going to
Speaker 1: be a different type of player. You know, he could
Speaker 1: have just been a great high school player and went
Speaker 1: on and play college and then that was it. Right.
Speaker 1: But like you think of you know, his dad being
Speaker 1: in the NBA, and you know, him being tall and
Speaker 1: his sisters were tall. You know, you were like, okay this,
Speaker 1: you know, he could he could be something. He shot
Speaker 1: a lot. It was freshman year, um, but you know
Speaker 1: that was to be expected because we you know, we
Speaker 1: weren't as good as we we should have been. Oh
Speaker 1: they weren't good. Period. The Aces went four and twenty
Speaker 1: in Kobe's freshman season. It seems impossible to go four
Speaker 1: and twenty when you have Kobe Bryant on your roster.
Speaker 1: But as Stewart said, Kobe shot a lot in fact,
Speaker 1: he shot too much and his teammates resented him for it.
Speaker 1: There were also a bunch of injuries to key players,
Speaker 1: including to Kobe. He fractured his kneecap and missed the
Speaker 1: season's final few weeks. But everything brightened up for him
Speaker 1: his sophomore year when Jermaine Griffin, who had grown up
Speaker 1: in Queens, New York, transferred into Lower Marian and joined
Speaker 1: the basketball team. The two of them were among the
Speaker 1: relatively few black students in the school, and they connected
Speaker 1: immediately over their love of basketball and rap music. Better yet,
Speaker 1: for the Aces, Griffin was the perfect compliment to Kobe
Speaker 1: you on the court. He was smart, tough, played tenacious defense,
Speaker 1: and didn't need to shoot the ball off to help
Speaker 1: the team win games. Lower Marian went sixteen and six
Speaker 1: in Kobe's sophomore year and reached the second round of
Speaker 1: the district playoffs, and there was no doubt any longer
Speaker 1: that Kobe was there to stay. It was like Jamaine
Speaker 1: with the Savior, because the hen will come to Lower
Speaker 1: Marian at the right time, right man, which guy Coba
Speaker 1: he came into the right time, right round. It's just
Speaker 1: a great seven because it's someone that I can be
Speaker 1: saying the basketball so what I'm comfortable with? All right?
Speaker 1: He came I really wrongly going every day. Hey, this
Speaker 1: is Mike Sealsky, host and writer of I Am Kobe.
Speaker 1: This podcast project came out of my work on a
Speaker 1: related book called The Rise Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit
Speaker 1: of Immortality. If you want to explore other parts of
Speaker 1: Kobe's story, check out The Rise. It's not just a
Speaker 1: book version of the podcast. I dive deeper into some
Speaker 1: of the topics covered in this series, and even some
Speaker 1: that we don't cover at all. Kobe's upbringing, his family,
Speaker 1: his identity, his effect on his friends and teammates, his
Speaker 1: journey into the n b A, and his earliest days
Speaker 1: with the Lakers. The Rise Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit
Speaker 1: of Immortality is out now. Just head over to the
Speaker 1: Rise of Kobe book dot com and you can buy
Speaker 1: it from any of your favorite retailers. That's The Rise
Speaker 1: of Kobe Book dot Com. Thanks So. Kobe was entrenched
Speaker 1: at Lower Merio, but Joe spent just one year as
Speaker 1: the j V coach before he got a better opportunity
Speaker 1: at a familiar place, his alma mater LaSalle University. The
Speaker 1: head coach there, Speedy Morris, needed to fill an opening
Speaker 1: for an assistant, and one of his friends recommended Joe
Speaker 1: for the job. The Higher maid Sense LSAL was a
Speaker 1: small college in the North Philadelphia neighborhood of Only, but
Speaker 1: it had a strong basketball program for years under Morris.
Speaker 1: The LaSalle Explorers had made the n c A Tournament
Speaker 1: four times in the previous six years. One season they
Speaker 1: went thirty and two and nearly reached the Sweet six
Speaker 1: team and LaSalle had a tradition of recruiting and getting
Speaker 1: the best high school player in or around Philadelphia. Peck
Speaker 1: Joe had been that player at Bartram High School in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. But now the program needed a little boost,
Speaker 1: and maybe Joe could provide. I know all about the
Speaker 1: boost that the program needed there. The year that Joe
Speaker 1: came back to LASA was the same year I started
Speaker 1: at LaSalle myself as a freshman. Eventually I started covering
Speaker 1: the team for the student newspaper. I got to know
Speaker 1: Speedy Morris well, and I met Joe Bryant too, But
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about Kobe During his first couple
Speaker 1: of years at Lower Merion, nobody really did, which is
Speaker 1: kind of weird when you think about it. I mean,
Speaker 1: you think it would be a big story, right. It
Speaker 1: had all the elements. A once great basketball player was
Speaker 1: now coaching at his old school in his hometown and
Speaker 1: his son was a rising star at a local high school.
Speaker 1: Except it wasn't a big story because at the time,
Speaker 1: there was really only one person in the entire media
Speaker 1: market who recognized that it was a story at all.
Speaker 1: Jeremy Treatment. Here he is talking about a six teen
Speaker 1: year old Kobe Bryant for a segment on the Inquiry
Speaker 1: High School Sports show. Kobe Bryant has a maturity not
Speaker 1: seen in most sixteen year old superstars. He credits that
Speaker 1: to the strength of his family, especially his relationship with
Speaker 1: his father, former La Salan seventy six star Joe Bryant
Speaker 1: Joe Jelly being Bryant, the popular hometown hero, was a
Speaker 1: two time At this point, Jeremy was still coaching at
Speaker 1: a key behabor where he and Joe had met and
Speaker 1: become friends, but he was also working as a freelance
Speaker 1: reporter for the biggest newspaper in Pennsylvania and the biggest
Speaker 1: media outlet in the entire Delaware Valley. The paper I
Speaker 1: worked for now the Philadelphia Inquiry. As a reporter, Jeremy
Speaker 1: covered a bunch of Lower Marian's games during Kobe's freshman
Speaker 1: and sophomore years, and he wrote a bunch of stories
Speaker 1: about those games, talking to Kobe and Greg down or
Speaker 1: after everyone getting to be friends with both of them.
Speaker 1: But he couldn't persuade his editors at the Inquirer to
Speaker 1: let him do what he wanted to do, a big
Speaker 1: blowout feature all about this rising local basketball phenomenon, Kobe Bryant.
Speaker 1: Jeremy says they were more interested in focusing on players
Speaker 1: from the city's public and Catholic leagues, and he couldn't
Speaker 1: understand why they were missing this obvious story that was
Speaker 1: staring them in the face. There's two levels of the
Speaker 1: frustration there. One was among my friends in general public
Speaker 1: and believe me when I was telling a dot co.
Speaker 1: But the second level of frustration was worse. My editor
Speaker 1: at the time wouldn't give me the opportunity to write
Speaker 1: about him, and I pitched him in ninth grade, tenth grade,
Speaker 1: eleventh grade, and by the end of eleventh grade he
Speaker 1: had come around. But he ended up giving it to
Speaker 1: another writer, Christma Cadis, and his exact word was, it's
Speaker 1: Christmas be He's our he's our high school basketball writer.
Speaker 1: And I remember it was in a meeting in front
Speaker 1: of many many people. I said, I've been pitching this
Speaker 1: for three years. He said, Chris's speed. That was this
Speaker 1: guy where Jeremy was crushed. This was going to be
Speaker 1: the first big story ever about a kid. Jeremy knew
Speaker 1: was going to be huge. In his mind, he was
Speaker 1: the logical choice to cover Kobe. Nobody on the staff
Speaker 1: knew him, or Joe or Greg down or better. But
Speaker 1: Jeremy did catch a break. The editor told him that
Speaker 1: The Inquirer was starting a TV show devoted entirely to
Speaker 1: high school sports. And I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I've been waiting for this all my life. I'm twenty
Speaker 1: years old. This is it, and this is like TV
Speaker 1: on air. Yeah, it's gonna be on Fox or Challenge
Speaker 1: seventeen or whatever it was on. And they said, well, okay,
Speaker 1: well you're the guys us to know high schools. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you have to pitch one story to us, This guy,
Speaker 1: Sean Docker, he said, do you have to pitch one
Speaker 1: story for us, what would it be. I said, well,
Speaker 1: there's this guy with the three point five with a
Speaker 1: good because I think school in the country, speaks Italian
Speaker 1: and Sapanish. His dad playing the NBA, and I believe
Speaker 1: he's the best player in the country. And he think.
Speaker 1: The first thing he said was when do we meet him?
Speaker 1: And I was like, I found my place. How long
Speaker 1: is which anything? Grade? Uh? Coach down on myself. We're
Speaker 1: watching the room day and after game, he just said
Speaker 1: to me, goes, does anybody realize that the next uncle
Speaker 1: Jordan is in r GM. Uh. He was in the
Speaker 1: gym and school out in the morning as the high
Speaker 1: school kid. Uh. He was the last one to leave.
Speaker 1: He stayed extra to shoot like five hunter jump shots. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was very focus. We had a couple of practices
Speaker 1: that were canceled. He was boy king out. He was
Speaker 1: so angry that the practices were canceled. Now Jeremy had
Speaker 1: an outlet to tell the world what he knew they
Speaker 1: needed to know. The one big thing that he felt
Speaker 1: had become his mantle to carry. Kobe Bryant was going
Speaker 1: to be one of the best basketball players the world
Speaker 1: had ever seen. And in his junior year at lower Merion.
Speaker 1: Kobe started to show everyone just that because he spent
Speaker 1: the entire summer of doing pretty much nothing but playing basketball.
Speaker 1: He came back to school a little bigger, a little stronger,
Speaker 1: a little smarter, his skills more refined. The Aces lost
Speaker 1: their first game, then won games in a row. Kobe
Speaker 1: ended up averaging more than thirty one points a game.
Speaker 1: He had forty points in one game, forty two in another.
Speaker 1: An opposing coach said, if you hold Kobe to fifteen points,
Speaker 1: you'll win by thirty. Kobe read that comment and took
Speaker 1: it as a slight against his teammates. So when it
Speaker 1: came time to play that school, he spent all night
Speaker 1: passing the ball to those teammates. He ended up with
Speaker 1: fifteen points and seventeen assists, and lower Merryan one. By
Speaker 1: twenty two, Mike Egan was in his first season as
Speaker 1: one of Greg Downer's assistants, and he couldn't believe what
Speaker 1: he was seeing from Kobe. I knew he was good,
Speaker 1: but you know he's a I guess he's a sixteen
Speaker 1: year old kid. At that day, he just earned sixteen
Speaker 1: UM and then every day he would do something in
Speaker 1: practice and I would look at the other coaches that
Speaker 1: would say, can you believe that? I mean, it could
Speaker 1: be something as simple as, you know, a move he
Speaker 1: made on the baseline. He had a really strange habit
Speaker 1: of his junior year. He kept working on this move
Speaker 1: on the baseline and he kept stepping out of bounds
Speaker 1: and you know, we blow the whistle. You're out of bounds.
Speaker 1: What are you doing? And then he started getting closer
Speaker 1: and closer. It was just kind of a weird story
Speaker 1: about him just trying to you know, he knew that
Speaker 1: the highest level of basketball is about inches and margins
Speaker 1: and just how close can I get to that edge
Speaker 1: without going over it? Guys. Stewart was a senior on
Speaker 1: that team, one of its leaders, but he wasn't the leader,
Speaker 1: and he kind of knew it. Kobe was the real
Speaker 1: leader of that team. He was very demanding. He was
Speaker 1: very furious on the court. He wanted you to play
Speaker 1: your role and do it great. He pushed you um
Speaker 1: every practice. He he never took off a practice. He
Speaker 1: was always challenging his teammates. You know, we would play
Speaker 1: these games where you know, we would have to guard
Speaker 1: him and he would he would The way he played
Speaker 1: like He didn't care who you were. He didn't care
Speaker 1: if you were his teammate and practice or not. He
Speaker 1: was going to go at you because in his mind,
Speaker 1: he's like, if I can challenge you and and and
Speaker 1: into guarding me better, you can guard anybody, you know.
Speaker 1: If if if I'm pushing everybody to be better, we're
Speaker 1: all going to be better as a team. And and
Speaker 1: and that was kind of like his mindset, right, He's
Speaker 1: gonna push everybody. He's going to push himself because the
Speaker 1: ultimate goal is to win a championship and to win games.
Speaker 1: The Aces won a lot of games in Kobe's junior season.
Speaker 1: They went twenty six and five, They won the Central
Speaker 1: League title. They made it all the way to the
Speaker 1: district championship game. Lower Merion hadn't won a district championship
Speaker 1: in years, and now here were Kobe and his teammates
Speaker 1: about to play at DuPont Pavilion on the campus of
Speaker 1: Villanova University, and the arena was packed and loud, and
Speaker 1: everybody had forgotten that the team had gone four and
Speaker 1: twenty just a couple of years early. It was an
Speaker 1: amazing turnaround. There was just one problem. Lower Marian was
Speaker 1: about to play the Chester High School Clippers, and Chester
Speaker 1: had the best high school basketball program in Pennsylvania. Just
Speaker 1: the year before, the Clippers had won the state championship,
Speaker 1: the third in the school's history. They've won five more since.
Speaker 1: Terry Twoey has covered Chester basketball for forty years for
Speaker 1: the Delaware County Daily Times. Basketball is everything in the
Speaker 1: city of Chester. It's it's their protein, that's their six Flyers,
Speaker 1: Eagles or whatever. Not that they're not Sixers flyers or
Speaker 1: Eagles fans, but yeah, they live and die with the
Speaker 1: Clippers on the basketball For the city of Chester itself
Speaker 1: could not have been more Unlike Lower Merion Township, of
Speaker 1: the forty people who lived there were black. It had
Speaker 1: a history of redlining, blockbusting, and political corruption. Drug markets
Speaker 1: cropped up in the main teen eighties. By the mid
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, Chester had seen a huge drop in population
Speaker 1: and prosperity. Searches on to find whoever shot and killed
Speaker 1: a thirteen year old boy and injured two adults in
Speaker 1: Chester and two subspects meets Donna under Earl rust right
Speaker 1: Now and a deadly shooting that was called camera in Chester.
Speaker 1: Take all the polize in Chester or searching for a
Speaker 1: gunman after one man is killed and another is hurt
Speaker 1: in a shooting. Gun fired up to just after six
Speaker 1: last night, it was the poorest city in Pennsylvania and
Speaker 1: the second most dangerous city in America. According to my newspaper,
Speaker 1: The Philadelphia Inquirer. Between the years two thousand and two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, Chester average fifty three homicides per one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people, the highest rate of any city in the country.
Speaker 1: Basketball was the one unifying institution there. It was the
Speaker 1: one thing that made everyone in Chester proud. It's kind
Speaker 1: two diametrically different areas, and obviously, you know, Chester is
Speaker 1: a you know, for lack of a better term, you know,
Speaker 1: the press city Economically, Lower Marian is an affluent suburban
Speaker 1: community that has a little more you know, finances behind
Speaker 1: it than Chester. I think the two biggest sports in
Speaker 1: Chester for a lot of years were basketball and baseball.
Speaker 1: I'm actink at one time the city of Chester had
Speaker 1: produced Major League Baseball players than any other city. But
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's something that you know, in the playgrounds,
Speaker 1: it's it's huge. You know, you go down to Memorial
Speaker 1: Park in Chester and you used to be you know,
Speaker 1: leads down there in the summertime and pick up games
Speaker 1: that were just lacious. Chester has been a state power
Speaker 1: and at the high school level since the early nineteen
Speaker 1: early to mid nineteen fifties, and it's just you know, basketball,
Speaker 1: it's a city game and Chester, you know, being a
Speaker 1: being a city at one time, a thriving city that
Speaker 1: had you know, factories and things like that, that just
Speaker 1: kind of manifested into the sport of choice. The Clippers
Speaker 1: had at least eight guys maybe more who could start
Speaker 1: on any high school team in the state. Lower Marian
Speaker 1: had Well, Lower Marian had Kobe, and Lower Marian didn't
Speaker 1: have a chance. The final score was Chester seventy seven,
Speaker 1: Lower Marian fifty. Here's Aces coach Greg Downer again. What
Speaker 1: I make of it is we're not ready. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: we've got to grow some more. We've got much more
Speaker 1: work to do. And I think it was some growing
Speaker 1: pains for us when the Central League compete for the
Speaker 1: district title, make some noise and states and twenty seven
Speaker 1: point loss in the district final and maybe that's not
Speaker 1: even competing for the for the district title, and we
Speaker 1: got balanced a little bit early versus Hazelton in the
Speaker 1: in the state quarters, and you know it, it was
Speaker 1: a progression, And you know, I didn't have the sense
Speaker 1: that that we could win the whole thing Kobe's junior year,
Speaker 1: because I really was just in awe as to how
Speaker 1: good Chester was. That lost to Chester stun but not
Speaker 1: as much as the one that ended Lower Merrion season
Speaker 1: a few days later to Hazelton in the second round
Speaker 1: of the state playoffs. The game was tied late in regulation.
Speaker 1: Let's let defensive coordinator Mike Egan set the scene. We
Speaker 1: had the ball with the tie game under ten seconds
Speaker 1: left in Kobe. You know, we had what we wanted.
Speaker 1: We had the ball in Kobe's hand the middle of
Speaker 1: the court. Um, he went to the basket and coach
Speaker 1: his sons dripped Kobe and went down and um, I
Speaker 1: don't know if he didn't get the shot off, but
Speaker 1: he didn't make the shot, could have lost the game
Speaker 1: right there. Instead, they lost in overtime. No district championship,
Speaker 1: no state championship. It was the final high school game
Speaker 1: for the team's seniors. The locker room afterward was sad
Speaker 1: and asylum as a church. Kobe was the last guy
Speaker 1: to speak there um, and he started to say something
Speaker 1: and then he just started to cry and started just
Speaker 1: kept saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, crying,
Speaker 1: and it was just fascinating look at him because he, um,
Speaker 1: you know, he sometimes come off as as being an
Speaker 1: arrogant guy or a cocky guy or um, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of easy what he was and he was
Speaker 1: just a great, great team and he felt, um, you know,
Speaker 1: as a leader of the team, as the best player
Speaker 1: in the team, he should have found a way for
Speaker 1: us to win that night. No one I was felt
Speaker 1: that way, obviously. But during that round table with Greg
Speaker 1: Downer's house last fall, I asked him what the hardest
Speaker 1: part about coaching Kobe was. We often don't think about
Speaker 1: star athletes in those terms. We assume that it must
Speaker 1: be easy to coach them because they're so talented and
Speaker 1: because everything comes so naturally to them. But that's not
Speaker 1: always true. In fact, it's rarely true. Expectations start to increase,
Speaker 1: people start to pay more attention to you and your team,
Speaker 1: everything starts to become more important. Greg, his brother, Drew,
Speaker 1: and Mike Egan batted the question around for a while.
Speaker 1: What's the limelight to be an internalized pressure distractions, and
Speaker 1: you know, I said, like, we're we're one Kobe sprang
Speaker 1: back away from not winning the Central League, you know,
Speaker 1: And I think the expectation that sounds like you the
Speaker 1: the expectation as time went on coming off the ninety
Speaker 1: five was kind of stay title or bus. But I
Speaker 1: think we're worried about whether he could handle all the exposure.
Speaker 1: He always worried about whether he would get caught up
Speaker 1: in that. Yeah, we could lose his focus or he
Speaker 1: never did, but he always worried. I would say, Greg,
Speaker 1: you really there was a lot of pressure on you,
Speaker 1: right Gregy, young guys, young coach. He's got this prodigy
Speaker 1: who's now you know, top five, top three, top player
Speaker 1: in the country, and you know that that was hard
Speaker 1: and it was only going to get harder over the
Speaker 1: following year. For Kobe, for his family, for Greg Downer,
Speaker 1: for everyone affiliated with the Lower Merian boys basketball program.
Speaker 1: Think about, here's Kobe Bryant, just as his junior season
Speaker 1: is ending. He's emerging as one of the best high
Speaker 1: school basketball players in the country, maybe the best. His
Speaker 1: father is coaching at a local Division one college that
Speaker 1: is desperate to recruit a player of Kobe's caliber to
Speaker 1: return it's basketball program to glory. Meanwhile, next year, Kobe's
Speaker 1: high school team is going to be considered one of
Speaker 1: the favorites to win a district championship and or a
Speaker 1: state championship, which means young Kobe Bryant is caught in
Speaker 1: the middle of a whole mess of expectations and forces
Speaker 1: and agendas and opinions. If lower Marian doesn't win a
Speaker 1: state championship, people will say that Kobe is overrated, that
Speaker 1: he's just a selfish gunner who isn't really that good.
Speaker 1: But there are still plenty of people out there who
Speaker 1: don't believe lower Marian is all that good even with Kobe.
Speaker 1: There are still plenty of people out there doubting Kobe Bryant,
Speaker 1: And make no mistake, he hears every single one of them.
Speaker 1: Remember against the argument when of the teaching in the school,
Speaker 1: now in the teacher like the Southern teacher gam Mr Collin, Right,
Speaker 1: this is when I would a junior. We're like to
Speaker 1: start the playoffs, and he's come up to me. He's
Speaker 1: talking to artist trash and you have to be just
Speaker 1: a lot of testing you, y'all never win a state championship?
Speaker 1: Do you honestly win state championship? Right? Yes? Right here
Speaker 1: are you will never win a state championship? Simple fact.
Speaker 1: Too many people playing out there, many streight teams. I
Speaker 1: think will never have been right, he said, I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: come to that. I'm gonna tell you flies. Just watch.
Speaker 1: That's next week on I Am Kobe. I Am Kobe
Speaker 1: is a production of the Version podcasts in association with
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. This season is written and hosted by
Speaker 1: me Mike Sealsky. It's produced by Jacob Bronstein and directed
Speaker 1: by Mark Francis, Story editing by Jacob Bronstein, with editorial
Speaker 1: direction from Scott Waxman, editing, mixing and sound design by
Speaker 1: Mark Francis. Stephen Tompkins is our production assistant. Our theme
Speaker 1: music is Create Yourself by Grover Brown featuring Justin Starling
Speaker 1: find Create Yourself wherever you stream music. Music supervisor is
Speaker 1: Scott Velasquez for Freesan Sinc. Executive producers are Mark Francis
Speaker 1: and Scott Waxman. Join the conversation about I Am Kobe
Speaker 1: on social media on Twitter and Instagram. It's at diversion
Speaker 1: pots thanks to rain Rosenbaum, Susan Canavan and Jeremy Treatment.
Speaker 1: I love our brides before the sun. They don't understand
Speaker 1: when I said to grind is fun. Never clock you
Speaker 1: out even when my work is done. If they're trying
Speaker 1: to block me, I might hurt someone through the blood
Speaker 1: sweat and says, we persevered, stay tilling in, let it
Speaker 1: keep the horses, and then if they don't believe in themselves,
Speaker 1: gave revert to find now the Tampa's head. So I'm
Speaker 1: telling them that's my a. This the reason why I
Speaker 1: mnna work so damn different to the negatives. I can't
Speaker 1: listen to see me at the time. You can't listen
Speaker 1: for I'm ana mote to play like cash see I
Speaker 1: pay my dudes because taxes gotta work. I think and
Speaker 1: grind ahead of his time. So i'mone saying that they
Speaker 1: made you. Don't tell them you create yourself the best
Speaker 1: Finn watch us, but by that time you gotta sneak
Speaker 1: clock then break clock break. We create ourselves, watch speak,
Speaker 1: clock watch Steve, create my self, shot climb, signs up
Speaker 1: and create yourself. They nice ain't so hard to create yourself.
Speaker 1: You gotta learn from the great minds. But we ain't
Speaker 1: lying to tell them next. Any time this talent wasn't given,
Speaker 1: it was made the future. Any time I could change,
Speaker 1: you better tell them that I made it back home.
Speaker 1: As I walked through the hearts of the fame, I
Speaker 1: came from the valley of the Shadow with death waiting
Speaker 1: for a silver spoons. Don't hold your breath, same town,
Speaker 1: sat drains. But I did it with less. I know
Speaker 1: one at the beach, so there's nothing to guess. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's nothing to guess. It's our times. Tell them we
Speaker 1: up next. We don't got any regrets. I did it
Speaker 1: with my soul hands, and we never forget as my an.
Speaker 1: This the reason why my work so damn different to
Speaker 1: the negatives. I can't listen see me at the time.
Speaker 1: You can't listen for where rebuild, re shape, give me
Speaker 1: your eye. You got to risk take do it now.
Speaker 1: When I'm saying while waves, I was saying that they
Speaker 1: made you. Tell them you create yourself on the best
Speaker 1: you finn l watch us by. It's by that time.
Speaker 1: You've got to sneak click, then break clack, break we
Speaker 1: create yourself, Watch me, quatch me, watch Steve, watch to
Speaker 1: create myself exact client signs up and create yourself. Say
Speaker 1: nice and ain't go on create yourself. You gotta line
Speaker 1: from the great minds, No we ain't lying. Tell them
Speaker 1: next anytime. Diversion Podcasts