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