Speaker 1: On this episode of Sports Illustrator Weekly, SI staff writer
Speaker 1: Connor Or explains how the evolution of the quarterback position
Speaker 1: has led to an NFL revolution. Then Philadelphia Inquired columnist
Speaker 1: Mike Sealski joins us to discuss his new book and
Speaker 1: tell the entertaining story behind the college that almost landed
Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant before he jumped straight to the NBA. But
Speaker 1: first we begin with the tragic tale of former NBA
Speaker 1: big man Shawn Bradley and how his life has been
Speaker 1: radically altered after a bicycle crash left him paralyzed. It's January.
Speaker 1: I'm your host John Gonzalez from Sports Illustrated and an
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. This is Sports Illustrator Weekly. With the
Speaker 1: second pick in the NBA Draft, the Philadelphia seventies sixers
Speaker 1: select Sean Bradley from Brigham Young University. This is how
Speaker 1: Sean Bradley, all seven ft six of him, entered the NBA,
Speaker 1: one picked behind Chris Webber, one ahead of Penny Hardaway.
Speaker 1: Sean Bradley lasted two years in Philly, then a couple
Speaker 1: with the Nets, before John Calipari shipped him off to
Speaker 1: the Mavericks. He had finished his career in Dallas, playing
Speaker 1: nine seasons there. He retired in two thousand five and
Speaker 1: moved to St. George, Utah. Beautiful little town in southwest Utah,
Speaker 1: a couple hours north of Vegas. It's a two hour
Speaker 1: drive through the desert, really pretty drive. It's near a
Speaker 1: couple of national parks or sins of canyons. There's biking,
Speaker 1: there's hiking. This is Brian Burn said. He spent time
Speaker 1: with Shawn Bradley, his wife, Carry and their family to
Speaker 1: write a recent profile in Sports illustrated this typical weather
Speaker 1: for here. This is quite nice without humidity. Where he
Speaker 1: had remarried to a woman named Carrie. And night after
Speaker 1: we met, he pulled up to my house, leaned out
Speaker 1: the back window the kids and then drives like what
Speaker 1: do I say if you could drive? If you let
Speaker 1: me drive? Okay, all night, let's go right. Carrie has
Speaker 1: three kids. Sean adopted them all, and really he had
Speaker 1: created this kind of new family unit. They had a happy,
Speaker 1: quiet life in St. George. He to stay in shape.
Speaker 1: He was on his bicycle quite a bit. The bike
Speaker 1: he found as a refuge for his mental health as
Speaker 1: well as his physical health. So really kind of an
Speaker 1: idyllic sort of retired life in his late forties with this,
Speaker 1: with this loving family and and a beautiful home in
Speaker 1: a beautiful setting. On January one, Sean was taking one
Speaker 1: of his typical rides on a two lane residential street.
Speaker 1: There's a wide emergency lane off to the right. Sean
Speaker 1: was coming through a roundabout, and so I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta be careful with the round about signaled slowed down,
Speaker 1: signal to turn. Went through the roundabout, and I was
Speaker 1: just literally as long as white line right here. I
Speaker 1: thought I saw someone in this parked car, So I
Speaker 1: need to be sure that I go around it far
Speaker 1: enough if they don't see me. If they opened it,
Speaker 1: he was worried. Okay, I want to give this car space.
Speaker 1: If they open their door, that could cause a dangerous collision.
Speaker 1: He signals, does everything you're supposed to. The driver behind him,
Speaker 1: apparently distracted or in a hurry, hit him. His front
Speaker 1: wheel turns, the bike stops cold. That's three plus pounds
Speaker 1: going airborne. Land's head first hits the car, hits the concrete,
Speaker 1: and it is it is painfully close to his home.
Speaker 1: He was almost almost home. The driver continued on. It
Speaker 1: was a young mother, and she continued on on their
Speaker 1: way to pick up her kid from school. Later came
Speaker 1: back talked with the police. They ultimately opted not to
Speaker 1: charge her despite the evidence, and she knew that she
Speaker 1: hit somebody right. She said that she saw him tumbling
Speaker 1: through the air in her rear view mirror, but maintained
Speaker 1: that she had given him enough room and never really
Speaker 1: copped to bumping into him, even though his GPS data
Speaker 1: showed he'd accelerated from twelve to seventeen miles an hour instantaneously.
Speaker 1: What you're not going to do on a cool down
Speaker 1: ride going uphill. So he had been bumped, the data suggested,
Speaker 1: but they didn't charge her. The Bradley's, for their part,
Speaker 1: did not to sue. So, Sean's hit by this car,
Speaker 1: He's painfully close to home. Who finds him? What happens?
Speaker 1: So there was a woman in the parked car, uh
Speaker 1: and she got out and immediately tended to him. I
Speaker 1: believe she's the one who called ambulance, got there pretty quick.
Speaker 1: Does he wake up on his own? Does he call someone?
Speaker 1: What happens next? Sean, for his part, he woke up
Speaker 1: in a daze, initially thought he couldn't breathe with scared
Speaker 1: he'd suffocate to know if his diaphragm was working. He
Speaker 1: couldn't move anything, just his eyes initially at first. Eventually
Speaker 1: he's able to move his shoulders, just a slight shrug
Speaker 1: of his shoulders, and that was enough to let him know, Okay,
Speaker 1: I have some motion. Maybe I'll start to get some
Speaker 1: things back. But it's still just as you can see
Speaker 1: in the photos of accompanied the story, he's he was
Speaker 1: in agony. It was terrifying for him. Word traveled fast
Speaker 1: up the street. Carrie came out and saw the crash site,
Speaker 1: saw Sean on the ground. The E M T s
Speaker 1: on site were worried about stuffing him into the ambulance.
Speaker 1: Is he gonna fit? They almost couldn't shut the doors.
Speaker 1: They're eventually able to get them shut. Raced off to
Speaker 1: the hospital. That left carry there to collect the bike
Speaker 1: and scramble to get to the hospital to see what
Speaker 1: fate awaited her and her husband. When they get to
Speaker 1: the hospital, how soon before the doctors tell Sean exactly
Speaker 1: what's going on here. They'd seen that vertebrae had shifted,
Speaker 1: that his spinal cord had been pinched. They knew that
Speaker 1: there had been damaged somewhere around the C six vertebrae.
Speaker 1: That's what shifted, and they knew they had to get
Speaker 1: in and operate on him to fuse it, to lock
Speaker 1: the vertebrate back in place, to keep that stable. That's
Speaker 1: priority one. And then coming out of surgery, it's a
Speaker 1: waiting game. Breathing too, as bad as it can get.
Speaker 1: He's in the I c U for three weeks and
Speaker 1: they don't know what fate awaits him. They know generally speaking,
Speaker 1: someone with that sort of C six injury that that
Speaker 1: means limited motion in the arms, may regain some use
Speaker 1: of their hands, maybe some slight feeling in the torso
Speaker 1: again it varies, but more than likely no use of
Speaker 1: the legs, some limitations on breathing. So it's a it's
Speaker 1: a complex injury, but it was not. It was certainly
Speaker 1: not a rosy prognosis. That day when he's fully conscious again,
Speaker 1: what's his mindset, what's Carrie's mindset, what's their interaction, like,
Speaker 1: what are they going through in that moment? Once he
Speaker 1: gets out of the I c U. After those first weeks,
Speaker 1: it becomes okay, I have to confront this drastically different
Speaker 1: new life, you know, imagine you you are a former athlete.
Speaker 1: You have this perfect idyllic life. Your body has been
Speaker 1: the means through which you have an identity, through which
Speaker 1: you've made a fortune, through which you've kind of connected
Speaker 1: with the world, and now it's just suddenly gone. And
Speaker 1: you have this new family that knows you as this tall,
Speaker 1: stable figure and now you're you're something different. This isn't
Speaker 1: quite better for worse. Typically means it's probably my biggest
Speaker 1: challenge and all this I would be possible, right because
Speaker 1: I'm not that person anymore. I mean I am I'm Sean.
Speaker 1: I'm still you know why. I still have things offer.
Speaker 1: I saw my my wits about me, my thoughts and
Speaker 1: my attitudes. But it's changed. What is his day to
Speaker 1: day Like Carrie obviously cannot do it alone given his size,
Speaker 1: even if he was an avertised person. You need it
Speaker 1: definitely helps to have caretakers to help you get in
Speaker 1: out of bed. He has someone come in the morning,
Speaker 1: help him to make sure he has a bowel movement,
Speaker 1: clean up any messes he's had, get him dressed, and
Speaker 1: that process takes all of that takes about an hour,
Speaker 1: get him proper medication, move him using this. It's called
Speaker 1: a Hoyer lift. It looks like a small crane with
Speaker 1: a fabric sling on it. Move him from the bed
Speaker 1: into his massive custom electric wheelchair that weighs nearly five pounds,
Speaker 1: and then he can start his day. He's limited, he
Speaker 1: can't go upstairs and his beautiful home, can't go down
Speaker 1: to the basement. And then at night they reverse that process.
Speaker 1: The caretaker comes back and helps him get ready for bed,
Speaker 1: and gets him in bed and cleans him up, and
Speaker 1: and has to fix his legs and these slings that
Speaker 1: enable him to shift in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: He sets an alarm every three hours so we can
Speaker 1: shift his legs so he doesn't develop bedsore. So it's
Speaker 1: a constant logistical struggle, only made harder by his size.
Speaker 1: What if the doctors told him about long term? Is
Speaker 1: this permanent? Is there any chance that he might get
Speaker 1: some sensation back? Generally speaking, for an injury like this,
Speaker 1: the most improvement happens in the first six months, and
Speaker 1: he did have some improvement. He regained some function in
Speaker 1: his hands. He's able to feed himself now, um, so
Speaker 1: he's regained some measure of independence. With that. He uses
Speaker 1: his fingers to drive the electric wheelchair. But as far
Speaker 1: as long term prognosis, it really varies and the doctors
Speaker 1: don't know. And Sean says that some days he can
Speaker 1: feel a little bit more tingling in his torso, or
Speaker 1: his obliques might fire, or he might feel his abs fire,
Speaker 1: and so they'll try to do some exercises to activate
Speaker 1: those and see what response they can get, and then
Speaker 1: it goes away and it varies day to day. So
Speaker 1: whatever whatever new sensations he has, they try to do
Speaker 1: some targeted exercises and rehab for that to see if
Speaker 1: they can establish any new neural pathways. We have to
Speaker 1: take what's on today, what's turned on today, what worked
Speaker 1: right now? Right these things work a little bit. Let's
Speaker 1: let's maximize what we have right there, Solders, My arms
Speaker 1: were great, in my head were good. You know, I
Speaker 1: have a little bit of feeling in my abs and chest.
Speaker 1: Let's back. We're going to maximize what we have today.
Speaker 1: If something turns on tomorrow, we'll go for that. There.
Speaker 1: The athletes mentality has helped him. There. A lot of
Speaker 1: people only do it two or three, and he's the
Speaker 1: rehab team and Dallas especially it's an athlete Focus Rehab
Speaker 1: facility has said that they can just tell you know,
Speaker 1: this was a pro athlete, that mentality has helped him
Speaker 1: because these are grueling. Can you give us a brief
Speaker 1: rundown of some of the exercises that Sean has been doing,
Speaker 1: and lately that's included shooting Basketball's right, it has UH
Speaker 1: in addition to his strength exercises where he's learning to
Speaker 1: transition himself from a bed to his wheelchair and back.
Speaker 1: That's really the core of his rehab. The team in
Speaker 1: Dallas did have him UH several times go out to
Speaker 1: the basketball court, and it's ultimately designed to help his dexterity,
Speaker 1: but it's in a familiar setting and it's a place
Speaker 1: where he might be inclined to push himself. The day
Speaker 1: I was with him, they had him shoot a volleyball
Speaker 1: to start, because it's a little less unwieldy than a
Speaker 1: full size basketball. He parked himself near the near the
Speaker 1: rim and was was shooting little two three ft shots
Speaker 1: under the rim and was making a few of the volleyball.
Speaker 1: The basketball is a bit more of a challenge for him,
Speaker 1: just because he's got so little function in his arms
Speaker 1: and hands, but he was able to make a couple.
Speaker 1: It was hartening to see him out in that environment again.
Speaker 1: The court was even painted with a Mavericks theme, but
Speaker 1: also a jarring reminder of how different his life is now.
Speaker 1: He also, obviously was a professional athlete for a long
Speaker 1: time he played in the NBA. He a lot of
Speaker 1: his identity, I would imagine, was wrapped up in being
Speaker 1: a large, physical specimen who does something that very few
Speaker 1: human beings can do. And now his life has changed,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering how he's processing that. So the physical
Speaker 1: challenge is bigger than anything we can found. But the
Speaker 1: loss of identity, the loss of independence, the strain on
Speaker 1: mental health, that's what he wrestles with the most every day.
Speaker 1: He took great pride in being the tallest guy in
Speaker 1: the room, um and being looked up to in person,
Speaker 1: in metaphorically right, look, come into the room. I I'm
Speaker 1: the tallest always my life. It was a lot more
Speaker 1: emotional than I ever thought I would be, because I
Speaker 1: look at things that I've done without even questioning. And
Speaker 1: now he does still get noticed everywhere he goes. You
Speaker 1: can't miss eight hundred pounds of man in electric wheelchair
Speaker 1: moving into a room. It's just, you know, you've never
Speaker 1: seen anything like it. Every eye still goes towards him.
Speaker 1: What the gazes are different, right, what people are thinking
Speaker 1: is different. He knows that he understands that Dallas is
Speaker 1: really where Sean sort of found a basketball home. Mavericks
Speaker 1: owner Mark Cuban and Shawn's former teammates Michael Finley and
Speaker 1: Dirk Nowitzki also play a big part in the story, Brian,
Speaker 1: Where do they come in? Cuban and Dirk popped on
Speaker 1: a plane and flew out to see Sean at his
Speaker 1: home in St. George, Utah. So they crammed him into
Speaker 1: the hospital minivan. His legs were draped over the front
Speaker 1: seats to get them there. And he went and saw
Speaker 1: his old friends at his home, and Dirk kicked the
Speaker 1: ball all around, kicked a soccer ball around with his
Speaker 1: adopted son, who's a soccer college soccer player, uh, and
Speaker 1: the three of them just talked. They caught up. It
Speaker 1: was just a moment of normalcy, he said. They couldn't
Speaker 1: have been more gracious or caring or loving, and it
Speaker 1: just felt like old times despite all that had changed.
Speaker 1: And as beautiful of an hour or so as that
Speaker 1: was for Sean. He said the next day was really
Speaker 1: traumatic for him. It was really tough because he was
Speaker 1: used to them looking at him as a peer, looking
Speaker 1: up to him a teammate, and now he's he's changed,
Speaker 1: and they were looking at him literally looking down on him,
Speaker 1: empathizing with him. But still that you know, he's not
Speaker 1: the seven six guy in the room anymore. Sean is
Speaker 1: famously a man of faith. He's a lifelong practicing Mormon.
Speaker 1: What does that mean to his life? Now, that's a
Speaker 1: great question. And I did. I asked him about his
Speaker 1: faith a few times because I wondered, if you're a
Speaker 1: man of such a minute of faith. He's built his
Speaker 1: life around his faith. He put the NBA off to
Speaker 1: go on a mission, etcetera. Right, I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: a huge part of his life. But I want to
Speaker 1: just put to do some person. I want to do
Speaker 1: a good personal help people. But I can And maybe
Speaker 1: this is a way of I'm not I'm not saying
Speaker 1: I want to other than a good example now, but
Speaker 1: I want to my life in a way that's positive
Speaker 1: enough beating And he said it didn't shake his faith,
Speaker 1: that did not make him question, did not make him
Speaker 1: doubt it was something he could lean on through all this,
Speaker 1: and that's been a source of emotional support for him.
Speaker 1: The parts of his identity that are wrapped up in
Speaker 1: faith have persevered through it all and that's been a
Speaker 1: great comfort to him. And I'm wondering, you know, Sean
Speaker 1: told you and the piece that the piece should really
Speaker 1: be about carry, not him. So what can you tell
Speaker 1: me about their relationship and how she and the kids
Speaker 1: are handling this without them in the scenario without carry specifically,
Speaker 1: I don't know where Sean, where Seawan's mental state would
Speaker 1: be because she she was the most relentlessly positive person
Speaker 1: I've met in quite some time, just NonStop, and she
Speaker 1: admitted as much that she does it because she can't
Speaker 1: take a moment to pause. Because when she takes the
Speaker 1: moments to pause or to stop move of being, or
Speaker 1: just stop helping or just stop trying to make someone happy,
Speaker 1: that's when the totality of it hits her. And she would,
Speaker 1: she said sometimes she would have to take a moment
Speaker 1: when she slowed down. When Sean was in the hospital,
Speaker 1: she come home to shower and she collapsed in the
Speaker 1: closet and cry, because that was she took a moment
Speaker 1: to think in the process, but those moments are fleeting.
Speaker 1: I mean, she really does. She's there for Sean all
Speaker 1: the time. It's her top concern all the time, and
Speaker 1: he doesn't want it to be. He wants he wants
Speaker 1: her to learn to let go a bit. The carriage
Speaker 1: she's giving me in the family is amazing. In order
Speaker 1: to live this life, there needs to be a support
Speaker 1: system and exchanged their life in such a way it's
Speaker 1: really put a huge burden on especially carry I mean
Speaker 1: there's ten thousand things that she shouldn't have to be
Speaker 1: worried about that you know, ten months ago she wasn't
Speaker 1: worried about, or she was we were able to tackle
Speaker 1: because she wouldn't in a way, we could both easy
Speaker 1: to burden as well. I guess what her burdens now
Speaker 1: I'm And that's why one of my biggest challenge, I
Speaker 1: don't know how I can use the burden of me.
Speaker 1: Like Sean said, you know, we didn't sign up for this.
Speaker 1: She didn't sign up for this, and yet she's doing it.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of families out there can
Speaker 1: relate to that in one way or the other. And
Speaker 1: that was an important theme we wanted to explore. You
Speaker 1: were with the family leading up to Christmas and they
Speaker 1: were decorating the tree, and you asked Sean a pretty
Speaker 1: pointed question about decorating the with the family. What did
Speaker 1: you ask him and how did he respond? Well, So
Speaker 1: I was struck. I was watching them decorate the tree.
Speaker 1: It was a massive tree, about twelve feet tall, certainly
Speaker 1: not one that you or I could reach without some help,
Speaker 1: and one that I remember watching him I was a kid.
Speaker 1: I would grew up in Atlanta. Watched him at a
Speaker 1: Hawks Mavericks game and he would grab the rim in
Speaker 1: pre game and stretch flat footed a ten foot rim.
Speaker 1: And so I was reminded of that and looking up
Speaker 1: at that tall tree and thinking about him decorating that tree,
Speaker 1: you know how far he could reach up and watching
Speaker 1: him as the kids are on step stools and ladders
Speaker 1: and carries too, and he has to be off to
Speaker 1: the side in his chair. It just broke my heart
Speaker 1: because I know, again that's it's just a symbol, it's
Speaker 1: an identity thing. He's the tall guy. He's going to
Speaker 1: reach the top, He's gonna help. And so after I'd
Speaker 1: watched him decorated, I just when he and I had
Speaker 1: a kind of final one on one conversation. I asked
Speaker 1: him how tough that was for him to sit at
Speaker 1: the side and not be able to help and not
Speaker 1: be able to reach the top anymore, reach higher than
Speaker 1: anyone almost in the world could reach in those sort
Speaker 1: of little family situations, and he broke down, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: tall I'm gonna put the star on the river, or
Speaker 1: someone absolutely can't at the start of the or now
Speaker 1: my son has to grab the ladder and move around,
Speaker 1: you know, six different ways, which is fine because he's
Speaker 1: willing to do it, but you know, putting terry on
Speaker 1: my shoulders, I haven't heard a death great part of
Speaker 1: the top of the tree that those are special moments.
Speaker 1: It was a bittersweet moment for him. He was happy
Speaker 1: to be alive, happy to be with his family, happy
Speaker 1: to be with people who he loved and who were
Speaker 1: helping him through all this, but he was just so
Speaker 1: heartbroken that it couldn't be what it was. You've outlined
Speaker 1: a number of dark moments that he's been trying to
Speaker 1: get through. Is he able to find purpose in that
Speaker 1: he has? And he that was a big part of
Speaker 1: why he wanted to do the piece and was ready
Speaker 1: to start talking. It was, Hey, I I have been
Speaker 1: through this. Yes, we have been through this. Yes, but
Speaker 1: because of love and support and the foundations we have,
Speaker 1: we're able to find little silver linings every day, find hope,
Speaker 1: fine moments of happiness. Date nights are tough with Carrie,
Speaker 1: but maybe if they're coming back from rehab, he told
Speaker 1: me a story where they just stopped at a little
Speaker 1: yogurt shop for a cookie and dessert for fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: and forgot about it all. And you don't go through
Speaker 1: life as successful as you can without your family, but
Speaker 1: you don't go through a situation like this without your family.
Speaker 1: We had a little lifetime in a short period of time,
Speaker 1: because if we hadn't unified as much as we clad,
Speaker 1: like I mean, the kids in our striking relationships, there's
Speaker 1: no way we can do this. What was reporting this
Speaker 1: story like for you? Just as a human being emotionally,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine what it's like to be Shaun or
Speaker 1: what it's like to be carried, but it's my job
Speaker 1: to try to feel that along with them as best
Speaker 1: I can. I'd come home and talk to my wife,
Speaker 1: you know, and just talk about how grateful I am
Speaker 1: for what we have, and you know, you never know.
Speaker 1: As blissful as their life was, it gets up ended
Speaker 1: in an instant, and that could be any of us
Speaker 1: in any circumstance, and we're we're lucky to have what
Speaker 1: we have. You can't divorce yourself from the emotion to
Speaker 1: do these stories and do them well and connect with
Speaker 1: people that are willing to be brave and vulnerable like
Speaker 1: Shawn and Carry were with me. You have to connect
Speaker 1: with them on an emotional level too. You're not just
Speaker 1: gathering facts and writing them down right, so it definitely
Speaker 1: they all stick with you, and this this one will
Speaker 1: definitely stick with me for a long time. It was
Speaker 1: a beautiful, tragic, touching peace. Brian Burne said, thank you,
Speaker 1: thanks so much. Brian burn said, as a contributing writer
Speaker 1: for Sports Illustrated, we'll link to his piece in our
Speaker 1: show notes. It's titled Life After seven six. Sean Bradley,
Speaker 1: paralyzed in a bike crash, knows it will never be
Speaker 1: the same. Up next, a deep dive on how NFL
Speaker 1: quarterbacks have evolved and how that progression has changed the
Speaker 1: sport forever. We'll try to make get a great while
Speaker 1: to live struggling around at the eight game now looks
Speaker 1: flames it back at the hands Amatis caught up for
Speaker 1: the two. Connor Or is a staff writer for Sports
Speaker 1: Illustrated and The Monday Morning Quarterback who wrote about the
Speaker 1: revolutionary adjustments that have lately been made to how NFL
Speaker 1: quarterbacks play the position. Forget about the old way of
Speaker 1: doing things. Guys like Aaron Rodgers, Kyler Murray and Patrick
Speaker 1: Mahomes have changed everything we thought we knew about the
Speaker 1: right way to play quarterback, and as Or explains it,
Speaker 1: that evolution traces back to the quarterbacks who came before
Speaker 1: them and some other things you might not expect. All right,
Speaker 1: For years, Connor, we've heard about sort of the right
Speaker 1: way to play quarterback, that there was an archetype. You
Speaker 1: want big guys with big arms who stay in the pocket.
Speaker 1: But all of that has changed a little bit, at
Speaker 1: least of late, and there's been what you called, what
Speaker 1: you wrote about for Sports Illustrated, a quarterback evolution and
Speaker 1: a coaching revolution as a result. We can sort of
Speaker 1: trace all of this to Aaron Rodgers, of all people,
Speaker 1: and something called the foot pop, which you describe as
Speaker 1: an Irish step dance. Which I suppose makes Aaron Rodgers
Speaker 1: and Michael Flatley of quarterbacks. But what is the foot pop?
Speaker 1: How was it discovered? Why is it so important to
Speaker 1: this quarterback evolution? So the football is really interesting. Um,
Speaker 1: it was uncovered basically in the depths of football Twitter.
Speaker 1: So there's an emerging class of quarterback coaches out there
Speaker 1: who we're looking to do things differently. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that they were doing was looking at slow
Speaker 1: motion mechanics and throws and all this kind of stuff
Speaker 1: from the best quarterbacks in the NFL. And one of
Speaker 1: the coaches, will Hewlett, who actually is Caleb Williams, his
Speaker 1: personal quarterbacks coach, he saw this a long time ago
Speaker 1: and started tweeting about it, and then a lot of
Speaker 1: people started talking about it. He started teaching it to
Speaker 1: some of his younger kids once they sort of mastered
Speaker 1: the mechanics of it, and uh, it just caught on
Speaker 1: and he saw he could do so much more. And really,
Speaker 1: what it is is it's just this strange little thing
Speaker 1: where normally quarterback coaches are gonna teach you to keep
Speaker 1: your lead foot planted, um, because it's gonna help you
Speaker 1: get stronger. This is almost like like a little piston
Speaker 1: and an engine. It just pops up really quick before
Speaker 1: it comes down. So it was like the foot comes
Speaker 1: down as the ball's coming out, and you can do
Speaker 1: things from different body angles. You can stretch your throwing distance,
Speaker 1: all these really kind of cool things that we didn't
Speaker 1: know we're possible for that and correct me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: But it's like almost sort of like a mini bunny hop,
Speaker 1: and an outfielder might take it's a little bit like that,
Speaker 1: but it's almost like your back foot is still normal.
Speaker 1: It's that lead foot that just sort of like pops
Speaker 1: up just a little bit, so almost like a modified
Speaker 1: crow hop from the outfield, I would say, but almost,
Speaker 1: um like if you had to keep your back foot down.
Speaker 1: Being that we're a podcast, will have to paint that
Speaker 1: picture with words. Yes, but you rite that it unlocked
Speaker 1: Roger's arm talent in ways that no one could conceive.
Speaker 1: So how does he go from being Aaron Rodgers was
Speaker 1: already good, to being Aaron Rodgers, who's even better? Yes,
Speaker 1: So I made a I made a big interviewing mistake
Speaker 1: when I was talking to Aaron Rodgers for this story,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, so it made you be
Speaker 1: able to make all these crazy throws. And his response
Speaker 1: was sort of like, I'm Aaron Rodgers, I can I
Speaker 1: can make most of those. Um. But what it did
Speaker 1: was so he's had knee problems for almost his entire career,
Speaker 1: Like he said, he's had knee problems for like nineteen years,
Speaker 1: and so they're just really weird things like if he's
Speaker 1: rolling out, for example, it limited the way that he
Speaker 1: was able to maybe he had to stick to like
Speaker 1: a throw that was in the short to medium range,
Speaker 1: because it's like, Okay, if I bend my knee this way,
Speaker 1: I'm totally screwed. I'm just gonna twist my body into
Speaker 1: a pretzel and I'm not gonna be able to exist anymore.
Speaker 1: But with this little move when he's on the run,
Speaker 1: like he can pop the foot up. It saves sort
Speaker 1: of the pressure, and then it allows your body to
Speaker 1: kind of like torque in a way that you can
Speaker 1: like you can almost throw across your body with the
Speaker 1: same sort of power and distance that you would have
Speaker 1: just from a set motion. And so you'll see things that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I talked to some people who observe the
Speaker 1: Packers offense for this story, and they're like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean there's just stuff that they can call in a
Speaker 1: playbook that we didn't know you even needed to defend,
Speaker 1: because it's like, why would I put a guy over
Speaker 1: there if the quarterbacks over here, he's not going to
Speaker 1: be able to make that throw and then lo and
Speaker 1: behold he starts torching people with this, and so everybody's
Speaker 1: got to kind of react and move around. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that part is important, I think because it's a
Speaker 1: copycat league and it's Aaron Rodgers doing it, so I
Speaker 1: think it gives it automatic credibility. Whereas if you had
Speaker 1: say Daniel Jones doing it and I love to throw
Speaker 1: shade at the New York Giants anytime, like, but if
Speaker 1: you had somebody like that doing it, then maybe you
Speaker 1: don't get that same sort of credibility. So I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: because it is a copycat league, does it give permission
Speaker 1: to other teams and other quarterbacks to try something that
Speaker 1: they might have otherwise seen as forbidden. I think not
Speaker 1: at first, right, Because so here's the interesting thing. One
Speaker 1: of the coaches that teaches it said, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: teaching it to my kids and then they're going to
Speaker 1: college and their coaches are saying stop that, and then
Speaker 1: they're calling me, and I'm saying, why would we stop it?
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers does it? And then the coach says, well,
Speaker 1: your prospect isn't Aaron Rodgers. And he said, my response is,
Speaker 1: how do we get another Aaron Rodgers if we don't
Speaker 1: start acting like Aaron Rodgers? And it's kind of a
Speaker 1: really interesting back and forth argument. He said. It's kind
Speaker 1: of in split where he's had some college coaches just
Speaker 1: say you're not allowed to do this anymore. But I
Speaker 1: would say that the growing majority of college coaches now
Speaker 1: are saying, you know what, why are we going to
Speaker 1: try to fix something that isn't broken. This is cool.
Speaker 1: If it works and you can hit all your throws
Speaker 1: and everything looks the same, I don't care how it
Speaker 1: comes out of your hands. As long as it's everything
Speaker 1: is sort of productive. So I think that is the
Speaker 1: growing consensus that as long as it's consistent and you're
Speaker 1: winning with it, who cares. As you mentioned, I mean,
Speaker 1: coach just tend even though it is a copycat league,
Speaker 1: coaches tend not to want to be sort of super radical,
Speaker 1: at least not be the first guys to try these things.
Speaker 1: They want to keep their jobs too. So what kind
Speaker 1: of pushback or reluctance or footpop deniers are we looking at.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of footpop deniers out there, and
Speaker 1: it's interesting, like, so there are coaches out there who
Speaker 1: are incensed at Like there's a lot of Instagram videos
Speaker 1: of kids doing footpops now, which is a thing. It's
Speaker 1: like football TikTok, and the coaches are filming it in
Speaker 1: the slow mo cinematic iPhone mode and there are people
Speaker 1: that are like, you're ruining these kids and stop doing that.
Speaker 1: And so there's sort of a war being raged on
Speaker 1: where you say, well, we have to teach them the fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals,
Speaker 1: And then there is the new crowd that's like, fundamentals
Speaker 1: don't really exist, right because a clean pocket doesn't exist,
Speaker 1: an uncontested throw doesn't exist, and unathletic defense doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: So we're throwing out the textbook. And so I found
Speaker 1: it to be really fascinating. It really depends on who
Speaker 1: you fall in with. You know, you could be a
Speaker 1: quarterback guru who still teaches things the way that they
Speaker 1: did back in the nineteen sixties, or seventies, or you
Speaker 1: could be one of these guys that is just um
Speaker 1: when coach told me a third of their practice, now
Speaker 1: I get ninety minutes with a kid. A third of
Speaker 1: that practice is just doing whatever you want, like throwing
Speaker 1: the ball side arm like you're a diving shortstop, or
Speaker 1: you know, spinning around and just doing the weirdest thing
Speaker 1: you can imagine. Because he's like, because that's most of
Speaker 1: what you're gonna have to do in the NFL. Now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that part I think is key because it's not just
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers who has decided, Okay, I'm gonna work on
Speaker 1: this foot pop thing all of a sudden. We have
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the NFL who are sort
Speaker 1: of quarterback freelancing on what would otherwise be traditional fundamentals, right,
Speaker 1: and you have Kyler Murray and Lamar Jackson throwing jump
Speaker 1: passes or Patrick Mahomes who you mentioned shortstops throwing side arms.
Speaker 1: We see that all the time where Patrick Mahomes is
Speaker 1: changing his arm angle and dropping down to avoid a defenders.
Speaker 1: So is this just sort of like the natural extension
Speaker 1: of what we're seeing with the foot pop Now it's
Speaker 1: you know, Kyler Murray and Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes
Speaker 1: and all these other quarterbacks who who have decided, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can do this in a non traditional way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so the foot pop made that anomaly acceptable, so
Speaker 1: that other anomalies could be similarly acceptable. So I talked
Speaker 1: to Lamar Jackson's quarterbacks coach, who had a really interesting perspective. Right,
Speaker 1: this is a guy who doesn't have a lot of
Speaker 1: big time clients. He is a high school English teacher,
Speaker 1: and they practice in a park alongside like kids in Florida.
Speaker 1: This is not like, you know, an ivan drago operation.
Speaker 1: And so he said, when Lamar started throwing the ball
Speaker 1: side arm during games, for example, like I think his
Speaker 1: first playoff game, he almost like bent a ball around
Speaker 1: like a defender's head, like it was like a free
Speaker 1: kick in soccer. And the coach is freaking out because
Speaker 1: he's like, Okay, everyone's gonna blame this on me. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be looked at as the guy who ruined Lamar Jackson.
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna get any clients again. And then he said,
Speaker 1: but what if the next time we practice, at the
Speaker 1: end of practice, we just keep doing it and you
Speaker 1: keep throwing its side arm and you build it in
Speaker 1: to your repertoire and you make it consistent. He said.
Speaker 1: You know, at the end of every practice, Lamar plays
Speaker 1: with all the kids at the park, so they're tackling
Speaker 1: each other and diving around, and they're chasing him around
Speaker 1: and he's just throwing the ball over his shoulder and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. But they will take things from those
Speaker 1: freelance periods with the kids that work and that feel
Speaker 1: normal and that feel kind of like they could help,
Speaker 1: and then they'll build them into the practice routines. So
Speaker 1: next week, for fifteen minutes, you're gonna throw the ball
Speaker 1: side arm. For fifteen minutes, you're gonna like pretend you're
Speaker 1: falling down and throw it backwards over your shoulder, and like,
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to get as good at all
Speaker 1: this stuff as the other stuff, because in a game,
Speaker 1: it's just disapplicable as drop back, clean throw, all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So all this stuff feels new, But
Speaker 1: I think sometimes we also have a recency bias right
Speaker 1: where we go, Oh, you know, Patrick Mahomes and Kyler Murray,
Speaker 1: Lamar Jackson are so dynamic and they're the first guys
Speaker 1: to do it. But then I think about in order
Speaker 1: for there to be an evolution, there must have been
Speaker 1: someone or something that they evolved from. And there are
Speaker 1: plenty of precursors in my mind where I go, oh, right,
Speaker 1: Randall Cunningham was doing that, or Steve Young was doing that,
Speaker 1: or Michael Vick more recently was doing that. There's play
Speaker 1: from about the twelve and there's Vick As you talked
Speaker 1: about John Roling and watching downfield for the shot Jackson
Speaker 1: Whiscellars called the opening play all the way for a
Speaker 1: touchdown yards. Is that sort of a natural extension for
Speaker 1: these guys. Yeah. I think their existence um and success
Speaker 1: allowed for the modern quarterback to be able to push
Speaker 1: the envelope a little bit, right. I think it's every
Speaker 1: successive generation is a little bit more envelope pushing. And
Speaker 1: when Aaron Rodgers said, was being able to watch Brett
Speaker 1: Farve for four years or whatever was huge because he
Speaker 1: didn't really like his footwork was impeccable, but it looked
Speaker 1: a lot different than what everybody else was doing, and
Speaker 1: like it was beautiful, but it was not textbook, and
Speaker 1: so he it kind of got me thinking and it
Speaker 1: gave me mental permission to say, Okay, then I can
Speaker 1: do things my own way too, and he said that
Speaker 1: he was always drawn to people like that. He mentioned
Speaker 1: Steve Young and Randall Cuttingham as two other examples, and
Speaker 1: he said, yeah, I mean, without those guys, I'm probably
Speaker 1: not feeling that internal permission to be able to go
Speaker 1: out there and do that. So, for sure, like those
Speaker 1: sort of outlaws, and maybe we got one or two
Speaker 1: of those a decade for the last few decades gave
Speaker 1: us what we have now, which is, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: probably a third of the league is not abiding by
Speaker 1: these traditional, sort of dusty old quarterback standards. This natural
Speaker 1: progression of quarterbacks would in anybody else's hands be a
Speaker 1: typical straight sports story, Connor, but this was not in
Speaker 1: anybody else's hands. This was in your hands. And you
Speaker 1: are not a typical sports writer, and you got a
Speaker 1: little weird with this one. And that's something I want
Speaker 1: to get into. Explain to the listeners and to me, please,
Speaker 1: what all this has to do with wizards in Puerto
Speaker 1: Rico and elephants in Southeast Africa and dear mice from
Speaker 1: ten thousand years ago. Yeah, So we were talking about
Speaker 1: the idea of evolution and I sent an email to
Speaker 1: Harvard's evolutionary theory department, and Dr Hopie Hochstra email me
Speaker 1: back and she was like, Hey, I'd love to talk
Speaker 1: to you about this, but someone from Harvard before that
Speaker 1: called me and was like, let me just explain evolution
Speaker 1: to you because I don't think you understand it. And
Speaker 1: then like, before you talk to any of these really
Speaker 1: smart people about this, let me just make you not
Speaker 1: seem as much of an idiot. And it was very helpful.
Speaker 1: And uh so when Dr Hochstra called I like googled
Speaker 1: her really quickly and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: Like this woman is the science rock star. Right. She
Speaker 1: basically reproved Darwin's evolutionary theory, but in a way that
Speaker 1: we never or understood it before, that evolutionary change can
Speaker 1: happen over the course of a light our lifetime. Like, no,
Speaker 1: it doesn't take tens of thousands of years. It takes
Speaker 1: like eight months, nine months, you know, or whatever. And
Speaker 1: so they did an experiment with field mice where they
Speaker 1: went to Nebraska. They bought a bunch of land off
Speaker 1: of this dude that they met at a bar named
Speaker 1: wild Bill, and yeah, because why why not? So they
Speaker 1: put dark and light mice and all these different enclosures, right,
Speaker 1: and so they had dark soil and light soil, and
Speaker 1: what happens naturally is light mice on dark soil get
Speaker 1: killed by predators at a much faster rate because they
Speaker 1: can see them dark mice. And the same for the
Speaker 1: other thing. But over like the course of one or
Speaker 1: two generations, the gene in the mice got passed down
Speaker 1: to make them more adaptable to their environments. So the
Speaker 1: light mice became lighter, the dark mice became darker, and
Speaker 1: over time they were able to survive. And there's a
Speaker 1: lot of these really interesting studies that are going on
Speaker 1: about evolutionary speed in science. So another one was the
Speaker 1: elephants in Mozambique. Because of the civil war, they're being
Speaker 1: hunted for their tusks, and and just like a matter
Speaker 1: of like one generation, the rate of tusk less elephants
Speaker 1: fell dramatically because they're adapting right there, Like if these
Speaker 1: kids are born with tusks, they're screwed. And so these
Speaker 1: elephants are just being born without tusks at a much
Speaker 1: faster rate than before. Same with lizards in Puerto Rico,
Speaker 1: right where urbanization cut into the jungle. So all of
Speaker 1: a sudden they sort of weighed out there, and within
Speaker 1: two generations their toe pads get bigger. They can climb buildings,
Speaker 1: they can stick to metal like they've never known anything
Speaker 1: other than trees before, and they become faster to avoid
Speaker 1: cars and bikes and all this other stuff. And so
Speaker 1: it's sort of like analogous to like the way that
Speaker 1: we change as people. Animals are doing this, and so
Speaker 1: it's this like cool moment where it's like, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: all sort of this one big thing and no matter
Speaker 1: what life throws at us can kind of find a
Speaker 1: way to survive. Quarterbacks have evolved. Connor Or, I greatly
Speaker 1: enjoyed listening to you and reading you grow your sportswriter,
Speaker 1: Lizard to Pad. Thank you for doing this, Thank you
Speaker 1: for having me. You can read connor or Sports Illustrated
Speaker 1: cover story in the Throes of Change on SI dot com.
Speaker 1: After the Break the Wild True Story of the College.
Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant almost attended, but didn't. He's a columnist for
Speaker 1: the Philadelphia in Choir and the author of the fabulous
Speaker 1: new book Rise, Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality.
Speaker 1: You've heard him on the Crossover with Howard Beck and
Speaker 1: now he's here, Mike Selski. Welcome to Sports Illustrated Weekly. God,
Speaker 1: it's great to be with you, my friends. Thanks for
Speaker 1: doing this. Yes, congrats on the book. It's getting great reviews.
Speaker 1: It's a subject that you and I know intimately we
Speaker 1: have sort of a unique perspective on this. We're both
Speaker 1: from Philadelphia, we're both roughly the same age as Kobe
Speaker 1: would have been. Kobe went to a neighboring high school
Speaker 1: not far from mind. I watched him demolish our high school,
Speaker 1: which is why when we went off to college, I
Speaker 1: was excited to think, oh, maybe, you know, maybe he
Speaker 1: will also go to college and not just jump straight
Speaker 1: to the pros. And I think Mike, in retrospect, looking back,
Speaker 1: everybody just thinks, well, of course Kobe was always going
Speaker 1: to jump right to the pros. But there was a
Speaker 1: time when that was in question. And I want you
Speaker 1: to set the stage for people. It's Kobe Bryant in
Speaker 1: his senior year and he's deciding whether to go to
Speaker 1: college or make the jump to the professional level. Explain
Speaker 1: to everybody the hype surrounding him at the time. So
Speaker 1: what was interesting about this guns and kind of taking
Speaker 1: this trip down memory lane was how that height built
Speaker 1: really gradually over the first three years that he was
Speaker 1: in high school to the point where you look back
Speaker 1: on and you're like, why aren't people in the media
Speaker 1: and in the Philadelphia area making a bigger deal about
Speaker 1: the fact that suburban city school has the son of
Speaker 1: a former sixer on it and he's really good and
Speaker 1: he is probably gonna turn out to be a Division
Speaker 1: one recruit at a minimum. Right like freshman year sophomore
Speaker 1: year for Kobe, there's very little written about him, or
Speaker 1: even there's some buzz, but you really had to be
Speaker 1: plugged in to hear it. And it's during that time
Speaker 1: that he's really thinking, you know, I want to play
Speaker 1: in the NBA, but college is probably where I'm gonna go.
Speaker 1: And then junior his junior year, lower Marian really takes off.
Speaker 1: They make the district championship game, they lose, but they
Speaker 1: make it, and the team is better than it's ever been.
Speaker 1: And so entering Kobe senior year, now he's a thing.
Speaker 1: Now It's this been kind of gradual growing and building
Speaker 1: and building, and entering his senior year, he's probably I
Speaker 1: don't think it goes too far to say, like the
Speaker 1: biggest basketball entity in the Philadelphia area, because the Sixers
Speaker 1: are so bad. They are there at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference. They're god awful, and so it's Kobe
Speaker 1: who's the star of the area. Yeah, and you're not
Speaker 1: under selling that because Kobe goes as a high schooler
Speaker 1: to practice with the Sixers, who are professional players, and
Speaker 1: that's really when the hype and the buzz started to
Speaker 1: ramp up. I mean again, I had seen him dunk on,
Speaker 1: you know, my high school classmates, and that's one thing.
Speaker 1: It's another thing when you hear that this kid from
Speaker 1: Lower Marion who's jelly Bean Bryant's son, is now practicing
Speaker 1: with the Sixers during his downtime. Tell us about what
Speaker 1: some of those practices were like. Because Kobe didn't just
Speaker 1: play well and acquit himself well, he basically dominated these guys.
Speaker 1: Well he did and he didn't. All right, So there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of myth making around the summer of
Speaker 1: and a lot of it is true. You know, Kobe
Speaker 1: is sixteen years old, about to turn seventeen, and he
Speaker 1: is scrimmaging and practicing and working out with Jerry Stackhouse
Speaker 1: and Rick Mulhorne and Vernon Maxwell and Sean Bradley and
Speaker 1: Sharone right in a bunch of Division one players who
Speaker 1: are in the Philadelphia area at that time. And you
Speaker 1: have to remember that, you know, the year before, the
Speaker 1: Sixers had taken Jerry Stackhouse with the number three overall
Speaker 1: pick in the draft. Kobe Bryant from Great Stock. If
Speaker 1: father Joe telling me Bryant played for the Sixers is
Speaker 1: now assistant coach with was South Joe Bryant. In fact,
Speaker 1: as I said, coming Brant practice with the Sixers from
Speaker 1: time to time, play for him right out, and so
Speaker 1: he's playing against these guys and some days he is
Speaker 1: dominating them, and some days they're beating him too. And
Speaker 1: it's a situation where because he's young and because he
Speaker 1: goes on to be great, some of the stories that
Speaker 1: have been told about that summer are a little bit
Speaker 1: amped up, right, Like, Jerry Stackhouse did not talk to
Speaker 1: me for this book. He turned down an interview request,
Speaker 1: And part of the reason I suspect he did is
Speaker 1: that he's tired of hearing these stories and tired of
Speaker 1: having to talk about how Kobe Bryant demolished him and
Speaker 1: dominated him during that summer, because while Kobe did outplay
Speaker 1: him at times, Stack got the better of him too.
Speaker 1: But the point is a sixteen seventeen year old kid
Speaker 1: really shouldn't be holding his own against NBA players. There's
Speaker 1: an anecdote in the book where Maurice Cheeks, who is
Speaker 1: an assistant coach at the time, and Harold Katz, the
Speaker 1: team's owner at the time, we're talking and Cats asks Cheeks,
Speaker 1: who is this guy you know? Oh, he's Kobe Bryant.
Speaker 1: He's he's from Lower Marian And Cat says, no, I
Speaker 1: don't care where he lives. Where does he play like college?
Speaker 1: Your team does he play for? And more Cheeks is like, no,
Speaker 1: he plays at Lower Merion High School. And so that
Speaker 1: adds to the lore of that summer, and to your point,
Speaker 1: that's a turning point for Kobe because once he gets
Speaker 1: through that summer, even as he's in the middle of
Speaker 1: that summer, he realizes, you know what, I don't have
Speaker 1: to go to college. I don't have to go to
Speaker 1: Duke North Carolina anywhere else. I can make the jump
Speaker 1: because I've gone toe to toe with all these guys
Speaker 1: and held my own and I can do it at
Speaker 1: the highest level. Yeah. Not surprisingly, Kobe pretty quickly realizes
Speaker 1: that he could play at the professional level, which does
Speaker 1: away with the idea of him going to college. But
Speaker 1: there was for a time some thought that he would
Speaker 1: still go to college. You mentioned Duke, you mentioned North Carolina,
Speaker 1: and you mentioned somewhere else. Somewhere else is where you
Speaker 1: and I come in, Mike, because the somewhere else was
Speaker 1: Lasau University, a small liberal arts school in North Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: where Joe Bryant, Kobe's dad, who played in the NBA,
Speaker 1: went to college and at the time, jelly Bean Brian
Speaker 1: as he's nicknamed, was an assistant coach for then head
Speaker 1: coach Speedy Morris. The other reason why it's significant is
Speaker 1: because both you and I went to Lasau University and
Speaker 1: we're there at the time. I was a freshman, you
Speaker 1: were a junior. And again the buzz on campus, the
Speaker 1: whispers start to grow into full throated screams. What if
Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant doesn't go to the NBA. What if he
Speaker 1: doesn't go to Duke in North Carolina? What if he
Speaker 1: comes to his father's alma mater and reboots a long
Speaker 1: dormant men's basketball program, and how excited were we at
Speaker 1: the time, and what did Lasa I'll do in taking
Speaker 1: some very interesting steps to try to court Kobe Bryant. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you have to put this in context, right,
Speaker 1: guns Like LISAL had been a good, a really good
Speaker 1: program for what it was in the MAC. It pretty
Speaker 1: much could get to the tournament every year, had players
Speaker 1: like Lionel Simmons and Doug Overton. And when I was
Speaker 1: a kid and you were a kid, they were really
Speaker 1: good teams locally. Then they moved to they make the
Speaker 1: disastrous decision to go to the Midwestern Collegiate Conference. So
Speaker 1: they're playing teams in the Midwest like Detroit Mercy and
Speaker 1: all this. So the program is down. It's dormant, like
Speaker 1: you said. So the idea, just the idea itself of
Speaker 1: getting a player like Kobe Bryant was incredible to us
Speaker 1: as students. They're like, oh my gosh, this could really happen.
Speaker 1: His dad played here, coaches here, all that stuff. So
Speaker 1: LISU is thinking the same thing. So it's athletic director
Speaker 1: at the time, a god named Bob Mullen. The guy
Speaker 1: had the idea of changing conferences and causing all this
Speaker 1: problem decides he's gonna pull out all the stops to
Speaker 1: try to get Kobe. He gives Joe Bryan a raise,
Speaker 1: which is the first thing he does. But the more
Speaker 1: interesting thing is that Kobe's second older sister, Shaya I
Speaker 1: love the story, is a volleyball player at Lower Marion.
Speaker 1: So one day John Kunzier, the women's volleyball coach at LASAL,
Speaker 1: gets a knock on the door and it's from an
Speaker 1: administrator at LASA who says, I have good news for you.
Speaker 1: We came up with another scholarship for you in the program,
Speaker 1: and we're giving it to an athlete named Shaya Bryant.
Speaker 1: And the coach John comes literally goes, who is Shaya Briant?
Speaker 1: I have never recruited her. I don't know who she is.
Speaker 1: I haven't who is this? And LASAL gives Kobe's sister
Speaker 1: a full athletic scholarship for volleyball in the hopes that
Speaker 1: that will entice him and Joe to have Kobe come
Speaker 1: to LASAL, and in retrospect, is just so desperate, kind
Speaker 1: of small time in a way that you look back
Speaker 1: on it and laugh. But by the same token, when
Speaker 1: Kobe was a sophomore in high school and a junior,
Speaker 1: he thought about it, you know, he thought about, Hey,
Speaker 1: I can to play for my dad. We can get
Speaker 1: all these other guys who I play with on the
Speaker 1: a U circuit, like Rip Hamilton's and Sheen Holloway and
Speaker 1: Larry Kentner and all these guys, and we'll do the
Speaker 1: Fab five part two at LaSalle And then the summer
Speaker 1: ninety five rolls around and he's like, yeah, the hell
Speaker 1: with that. Yeah, And that's the end of that. How
Speaker 1: was his sister as a volleyball player. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: the head volleyball coach was taken by surprise here. But
Speaker 1: she did okay, right, she did okay in the one
Speaker 1: year she was there. Shariah Kobe's the older of Kobe's
Speaker 1: two sisters, was actually a much better volleyball player and
Speaker 1: had a terrific career at Temple. Shaa was pretty good.
Speaker 1: She stayed for one year at Lasau and then after
Speaker 1: Kobe ended up with the Lakers, she and Joe and
Speaker 1: Pam moved out to the West Coast to be with
Speaker 1: Kobe and lived with him. So you're saying, in retrospect,
Speaker 1: it seems sort of small time and desperate and we
Speaker 1: laugh about it, but that's not all Lassau was willing
Speaker 1: to do to get Kobe Bryant. There were these rumors
Speaker 1: that Speedy Morris, who was sort of a LaSalle legend
Speaker 1: and a Big five legend for people who aren't acquainted
Speaker 1: with Big five basketball, it's a big deal in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: It includes Villanova st Joe, LaSalle, Temple, and Penn and
Speaker 1: Speedy had fallen on some hard times. The program had
Speaker 1: fallen on some hard times, but he was still an
Speaker 1: institution at LASA University. But according to the reporting in
Speaker 1: the book, you think they would have been willing to
Speaker 1: throw him overboard and elevate Joe Bryant if Kobe would
Speaker 1: have gone there, right, There was discussion of that yedge.
Speaker 1: This was kind of Joe's grand plan. There's a column
Speaker 1: written into your former paper, my current paper, the Phiotoelphia,
Speaker 1: inquired by a legendary columnist, Bill Lyon. It basically says
Speaker 1: LASA should stay by Speedy Morris, and Lasal does, and
Speaker 1: so this grand plan is never hashed and kind of
Speaker 1: by that time, Kobe and Joe already know Lsalian happening.
Speaker 1: Kobe's going to the NBA. Sonny Vacaro is where it's at,
Speaker 1: not Speedy Morris. Yeah, and you and I both love
Speaker 1: Speedy Morris. But given the choice between Kobe and Speedy,
Speaker 1: I would have gone Kobe too. But it doesn't work
Speaker 1: out that way. Lasal does not get Kobe Bryant. He
Speaker 1: decides to jump to the NBA. But still, despite making
Speaker 1: that decision, Mike, there's still a chance he might stay
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. Right there. It's not a foregone conclusion that
Speaker 1: he ends up being drafted by the Hornets and traded
Speaker 1: to the Lakers. There was a time when we thought, hey,
Speaker 1: he might have landed with the Sixers. Well, the Sixers
Speaker 1: have the number one overall pick in the draft, and
Speaker 1: there are discussions in their front office amongst their scouts
Speaker 1: and player personnel people, do should we take Kobe? Yes? Yeah.
Speaker 1: Tony de Leo is a longtime executive for the team
Speaker 1: and scout was very much supportive of that idea. He
Speaker 1: wanted them to take Kobe. There were a couple other
Speaker 1: people in there who did, but you have to put
Speaker 1: that into context. To number one, it's Allen Iverson who
Speaker 1: they wanted. You can kind of hardly rip them for
Speaker 1: wanting to take Allen Iverson with the first pick in
Speaker 1: the nineteen NBA Draft. The Philadelphia seventy six is select
Speaker 1: Allen Iverson from Georgetown University. It's so taking a school
Speaker 1: player is perceived to be far riskier than taking a
Speaker 1: college player, especially one that's built like Kobe. Right, Kevin
Speaker 1: Garnett had come out the year before. He's seven feet tall,
Speaker 1: he's muscular, he's built like a grown man. Kobe six
Speaker 1: six and a guard, and there's just this risk associated
Speaker 1: with taking a high school kid, so they play it
Speaker 1: safe and take a I having said that, one of
Speaker 1: Kobe's coaches at Lower Marion does in fact call up
Speaker 1: the Sixers and get their general manager, Brad Greenberg on
Speaker 1: the phone and say, look, I coach Kobe Bryant, the
Speaker 1: smartest thing you could ever do would be to take
Speaker 1: him with the number one overall pick. It'll be a
Speaker 1: mistake if you don't. And it turns out the coach
Speaker 1: was right, yeah, which is kind of whild because I
Speaker 1: certainly thought that they should take Alan Iverson. It worked
Speaker 1: out grade he was one of Philadelphia's all time favorite athletes,
Speaker 1: and yet measuring career against career, it's still Kobe in
Speaker 1: that scenario. But at least he didn't go to Villanova,
Speaker 1: so that's all that matters. That's all that matters. And
Speaker 1: you know, Lisa didn't get Kobe, but Lisa got the
Speaker 1: two of us, so call it a push. You can
Speaker 1: read him in the Philadelphia Inquire go get his excellent
Speaker 1: new book, Rise Kobe Bryant in the Pursuit of Immortality.
Speaker 1: Mike Selski, thank you for doing this. Thanks enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrator Weekly is a production of Sports Illustrated and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. And for more of Sports Illustrated
Speaker 1: It's best stories and podcasts, visit SI dot com. This
Speaker 1: episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly was produced by Alex Kappelman
Speaker 1: and Isaac Lee, who was also our sound engineer. Our
Speaker 1: senior producer is Dan Bloom. Our executive producers are Scott
Speaker 1: Brody and me John Gonzalez. Our theme song is by
Speaker 1: Nolan Schneider. Thanks for listening, and if you've stuck around
Speaker 1: this long, we leave you with this from high schooler
Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant. Jamaine Griffin, the number whose news back to back.
Speaker 1: Tampis what do you say? We want to stay Jammy
Speaker 1: a kid. Don't you ever forget it? Thank you very much,
Speaker 1: it's been a pleasure. You see when when is it?
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety six, ninety six, see you in a little bit.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. You're an ACES world up.