Speaker 1: Diversion podcasts were welcome to the Quest of Palestrium. When
Speaker 1: we first walked into the gym, we saw them people
Speaker 1: outside waiting for takes, and I got I got chills
Speaker 1: because it's starting to know that you came such a
Speaker 1: long way and people are all here to watch you
Speaker 1: play and watch you show your skills. And they gave
Speaker 1: a lot of jilling and but I got I couldn't
Speaker 1: really think about it. I just had to calm myself
Speaker 1: down because if I came out with too much energy, job,
Speaker 1: you're messing up. And turned the ball to narrable and
Speaker 1: and then like that. At the intersection of thirty third
Speaker 1: and South Streets in West Philadelphia, on the campus of
Speaker 1: the University of Pennsylvania, stands a rectangular brick building that
Speaker 1: is one of the most famous and revered sports arenas
Speaker 1: in the world. It's the build in that Kobe Bryant
Speaker 1: was talking about in that tape you just heard. The
Speaker 1: building is called the Plestra. It was named appropriately by
Speaker 1: a professor who taught Greek. It opened ninety four years ago,
Speaker 1: and depending on what religious terminology you prefer, it is
Speaker 1: usually referred to as the cathedral or the temple or
Speaker 1: the mecca of college basketball and especially of Philadelphia a
Speaker 1: basketball actually, by the standards of modern sports arenas, the
Speaker 1: Polester is pretty tiny. It holds fewer than ten thousand
Speaker 1: spectators eight thousand, seven dred and twenty two to be exact.
Speaker 1: That's regarded as a magical and unforgettable number in Philly hoops.
Speaker 1: Because the Polester is so small, Because everyone's on top
Speaker 1: of each other, the building can get humid and it
Speaker 1: can get loud. It's an electric place to see a game.
Speaker 1: It's the home of the Penn Quakers. It's the home
Speaker 1: of Philadelphia. Is Big five, all of them Division One
Speaker 1: basketball teams in or around the city with storied local rivalries, Penn, Villanova, Temple, St. Joseph's,
Speaker 1: and LaSalle. This tape from a seven matchup between Temple
Speaker 1: and Saint Joe's paints a vivid image of the heat
Speaker 1: and energized crowd at the Polestra could generate again. You're
Speaker 1: looking live but the Plestra, a freezing rain has been
Speaker 1: falling all day outside of Philadelphia. But they may not
Speaker 1: need any money for great magnus. There may be enough
Speaker 1: peat generated right there in the Plestra day to melt
Speaker 1: all the ice and Philadelphia please devolved, whether they're ready
Speaker 1: to get after one another again? Temple coming again, five
Speaker 1: minity of an ay ten Saint jos to the four
Speaker 1: and one who up the battle for the spot in
Speaker 1: the leg race at the Rage the midway one of
Speaker 1: the season, they are jammed in there. That remodels the
Speaker 1: Palestra this year that now see that, I don't think
Speaker 1: there's an MP seat end the place. The Polestra became
Speaker 1: a very special place for Kobe, and we'll get into
Speaker 1: why it was so special to whom in later episodes.
Speaker 1: But the Briant family's connection to the Polestra actually started
Speaker 1: a generation before Kobe. It started with Kobe's dad Joe,
Speaker 1: I'm might seal see and from diversion podcasts, this is
Speaker 1: I am Kobe. I write Wright State, create myself up,
Speaker 1: Create yourself, say nice on, create yourself. You gotta learn
Speaker 1: from the great minds. No, we ain't tell them that's
Speaker 1: getting time. Episode two. The Bryant Family Legacy. If you
Speaker 1: want to get to the heart of the Kobe Bryant story,
Speaker 1: you have to start with the Joe Brian story, and
Speaker 1: that means you have to start in the city where
Speaker 1: Joe grew up, Piladelphia. One of the pieces of Kobe
Speaker 1: story that tends to get glossed over is that his
Speaker 1: dad also played in the NBA. It's treated as trivia.
Speaker 1: It's true Joe Bryant spent eight years in the league,
Speaker 1: but throwing out that fact and then moving on doesn't
Speaker 1: capture the full picture of Joe's career because long before
Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant was a high school legend around Philadelphia, Joe
Speaker 1: Bryant was a high school legend in Philadelphia, and his
Speaker 1: legend was every bit as grand as his sons. We
Speaker 1: always thought that Joe was um. He was a one off, right.
Speaker 1: He was a six nine guy who could dribble and
Speaker 1: shoot it and pass. That's Mo Howard. He and Joe
Speaker 1: have been friends for years. They've known each other since
Speaker 1: high school when they were maybe the two best teenage
Speaker 1: basketball players in Philadelphia. Mo on to play college ball
Speaker 1: at Maryland and have a brief career in the NBA.
Speaker 1: We always thought like, as we got older, we would
Speaker 1: compare j b to sort of like Magic Johnson, right,
Speaker 1: because at that time, big guys played near the basket.
Speaker 1: But Joe had a very unique skill set because again
Speaker 1: he was six and nine does a very very proficient
Speaker 1: dribbler and passer, and he could shoot the ball, so
Speaker 1: he was he was extraordinary as a high school player
Speaker 1: because there were not many six nine guys like him.
Speaker 1: To learn the full story of Kobe Bryant's father, you
Speaker 1: can't just pop the name Joe Bryant into Google and
Speaker 1: then wait half a second for the Internet to spit
Speaker 1: some links and post set. You have to do what
Speaker 1: I did one day during the summer. You have to
Speaker 1: go to the library at Temple University in North Philadelphia
Speaker 1: and its urban Archives. The library has hundreds of articles
Speaker 1: from the Philadelphia Bulletin, which back in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: and seventies had the largest circulation of any afternoon daily
Speaker 1: newspaper in the country. The library had these newspaper clippings
Speaker 1: and tiny Manila envelopes, and they were yellowed and fading
Speaker 1: in brittle. I had to handle them gently because I
Speaker 1: was afraid they would fall apart in my hands. But
Speaker 1: in those clippings were details that showed just how much
Speaker 1: Joe and Kobe had in common. There were some foreshadowing, there,
Speaker 1: some connections and similarities. If you were willing to look
Speaker 1: hard enough. I thought Kobe was a little more hard
Speaker 1: and Joe, Joe were more of the smiling of canna
Speaker 1: basketball player. This is Julius Thompson. He writes amazing novels
Speaker 1: about basketball and basketball players now, but he started out
Speaker 1: as a sportswriter. He spent ten years covering high school
Speaker 1: sports at the Philadelphia Bolton in the nineteen seventies and eighties,
Speaker 1: which means he covered Joe Bryant's entire career at Bartram
Speaker 1: High School in southwest Philadelphia. I can see the one thing,
Speaker 1: the agility and the quickness and the size. Now I
Speaker 1: only the call I tell Kobe Joe Joe's sixtent. I
Speaker 1: know that he was he plut six tent. Kobe made
Speaker 1: a little smaller. But you can see the same talent.
Speaker 1: You can see the same we'll want to be excellent.
Speaker 1: You can see the same quickness, and you can see
Speaker 1: the same move So so sometimes I watched Kobe, I
Speaker 1: could almost see Joe, a little shorter virgin of Joe
Speaker 1: on the on the on the court. Um shoot if
Speaker 1: you can't wait to shoot the shoot, can shoot it
Speaker 1: from going to the basket, hard, play strong. When he
Speaker 1: had to and one thing I should people realized determination.
Speaker 1: That's the thing I think, and that that will is
Speaker 1: to be the best. And I saw that in the vote.
Speaker 1: Philadelphia has had a share of young groups phenots. Of course,
Speaker 1: before he scored a hundred points in one NBA game,
Speaker 1: Wilt Chamberlain scored ninety in a game for Overbrooke High.
Speaker 1: Tom Gola was the king of the city at Lassal
Speaker 1: High School and at Las South College, where he won
Speaker 1: a national championship. Into Golda still holds the n c
Speaker 1: A record for most rebounds in a career. Earl top
Speaker 1: of the gig road, right, what hey, what a player.
Speaker 1: And then there's the legendary Hall of Famer Earl Monroe,
Speaker 1: who proceeded Joe Bryant and far from high he could
Speaker 1: have handled the ball like it was on a string.
Speaker 1: Monroe became one of the most skilled guards the NBA
Speaker 1: has ever seen. That clip of the pearl on MSG
Speaker 1: net was just one of many highlights he would have
Speaker 1: on a nightly basis. He was part of a generation
Speaker 1: of players who brought the flare of street basketball to
Speaker 1: the pros who made it mainstream. He also had maybe
Speaker 1: the two coolest nicknames in basketball History, Black Jesus and
Speaker 1: the poem. Here's Mo Howard. Back at that time, the
Speaker 1: men who played on the seventies sixers and the pros
Speaker 1: from Philadelphia played in the Baker League, and uh, prior
Speaker 1: to any of the Baker League games, we had sunny
Speaker 1: year games and were very approachable, right, I mean at
Speaker 1: everybody in Philadelphia wanted to be any played basketball anyway,
Speaker 1: wanted to have at least Earl spin move, right, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean those guys influenced all of us, not just
Speaker 1: in the basketball part, but you know as being part
Speaker 1: of our community as well. You know, these guys, as
Speaker 1: I said, with very approachable. They were very visible and
Speaker 1: present in our community. So there were a few guys
Speaker 1: that you know, we sort of kind of looked up to.
Speaker 1: But I would have to say from my era it
Speaker 1: was Earle Pearl Monroe and Joe Bryant grew up in
Speaker 1: the same neighborhood and it was a pretty rough neighborhood.
Speaker 1: There was crime, there were gangs. Joe once got stabbed
Speaker 1: in the leg with a knife during a fight. But
Speaker 1: his father, Joe Sr. Was tough and protective, and Joe
Speaker 1: found solace in sports, football, track, and especially basketball. If
Speaker 1: you could play on the playground courts of Philadelphia, you
Speaker 1: could play just about anywhere. It was a lesson Joe's
Speaker 1: son would learn too, because at that time he had
Speaker 1: to understand there was gangs and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of negative things going on in the community, and so
Speaker 1: this was a way for kids to express themselves. And
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, when I first started covering high
Speaker 1: school sports in Philadelphia, there were no night games allowed
Speaker 1: in the public League. Everything had to be on Tuesday
Speaker 1: afternoon and on Thursday afternoon, and you had to have security.
Speaker 1: Fans were not allowed. They gradually they brought the fans
Speaker 1: come to the game, but it was kind of difficult era.
Speaker 1: But then when the athletics started really exploding and people
Speaker 1: started to get interest, there was a lot more people
Speaker 1: going to the games, and the Polester with just the
Speaker 1: ultimately you played the Polester. That was an incredible, incredible experience.
Speaker 1: When Joe Bryant was a kid, Earl the Pearl was
Speaker 1: his hero, his biggest basketball influence, which made Joe different
Speaker 1: from just about every Philly high school star who had
Speaker 1: come before. And see the Pearl was six ft three.
Speaker 1: Joe wanted to play just like it. And he could,
Speaker 1: and he did. Joe put the ball behind his back.
Speaker 1: He worked on his spin moves. He aspired to be
Speaker 1: as creative and flashy as the pearl. There was one
Speaker 1: big difference though Joe wasn't six ft three, he was
Speaker 1: six ft nine, and six ft nine players didn't do
Speaker 1: the kinds of things that Joe could do. I'd like
Speaker 1: to do stories and do picture stories, and so I
Speaker 1: went and brought them, uh and I and I saw
Speaker 1: him playing. I was just amazed at the agility and
Speaker 1: did quickness, and the size and talent and multiple of
Speaker 1: the personality, the great personality. He could just charm anybody
Speaker 1: with the smile. As a senior in nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: Joe average more than twenty seven points at seventeen rebounds
Speaker 1: a game. He scored fifty seven points in one game
Speaker 1: and had forty points and twenty one rebounds in another.
Speaker 1: The newspapers in Philly, The Daily News, The Inquirer, the
Speaker 1: Bulletin covered him like he played in the NBA already.
Speaker 1: When Joe was in high school, they played a team
Speaker 1: called Germantown High School with Mike Sojoona. Germantown was the
Speaker 1: biggest team i've ever seen the high school basketball we
Speaker 1: called the Johnny Green Giants. The shortest guy was six ft,
Speaker 1: the only six points six five six seven six nine
Speaker 1: seven seven one their only botch of had Joe and
Speaker 1: another kid to call Maddy dog a rebound. Joe want
Speaker 1: to term to win the game, and people said, they bought,
Speaker 1: you can't win botcham can't do they botch of just
Speaker 1: two Freeland. It was that's old McDonald's hall pat house.
Speaker 1: Joe scored over forty points, took over the game, took
Speaker 1: over the game. And that's that same determination to steely
Speaker 1: when he had to be and I see that moreent.
Speaker 1: Kobe Thompson is getting at something really important here, the
Speaker 1: difference between Joe and b b between father and son.
Speaker 1: Joe ratcheted up his competitiveness, his will to win only
Speaker 1: sometimes when he absolutely had to. But of course this
Speaker 1: is the quality that Kobe is probably most well known for.
Speaker 1: He was at that peak level all the time, so
Speaker 1: that steely kind of attitude, I'm gonna be the best.
Speaker 1: Joe didn't have that all the time, but when he
Speaker 1: did get it, like a net game. That's why he's
Speaker 1: publicly champion. Because she said this is mine. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: We're gonna win this, and he's stunned the Philadelphia basketball
Speaker 1: I'm he absolutely stunned it. That's how fame worked back then.
Speaker 1: There was no sports center, no Twitter, no social media
Speaker 1: scuttle butt. There was just one newspaper headline after another
Speaker 1: proclaiming that Joe Bryant was the next great Philly player.
Speaker 1: The guys on the playgrounds gave him the nickname based
Speaker 1: in an old Big band lyric, must bid love Ja,
Speaker 1: That's who Joe was now jelly Beans. He even brad
Speaker 1: to a reporter that he ate four pounds of jelly
Speaker 1: beans a day. Was it true, didn't matter, It just
Speaker 1: added to the legend I knew of Joe. Brody was
Speaker 1: the same high school classes of me. And the only
Speaker 1: game I really saw as the City championship came that
Speaker 1: year and I went down to the Fluster to see it.
Speaker 1: It was just it was just so exciting. It was
Speaker 1: a packhouse. That's aren't tell Him, a native of West
Speaker 1: Philadelphia and one of the most powerful sports agents of
Speaker 1: the last half century. NBA stars Tracy McGrady, Anthony Davis, Russell, Westbrook,
Speaker 1: Derek Rose, tell him represented all of them during his career.
Speaker 1: He was also Kobe Bryant's first age tell Him and
Speaker 1: Joe Bryant grew up not far from each other. Tell
Speaker 1: Him had read about Joe in the local papers, had
Speaker 1: heard about this kid who could play anywhere on the floor,
Speaker 1: and he just had to see him for himself. When
Speaker 1: Bartram met St. Thomas Moore in ninety two for Philly
Speaker 1: High School Hoops Supremacy, tell him and moved out of
Speaker 1: the city by then to Lower Merion Township, but he
Speaker 1: made sure he was at the Palestra that day for
Speaker 1: that game. And even though Joe and Bartram lost, tell
Speaker 1: Him was fascinated by him. I just remember watching Joe.
Speaker 1: The thing that struck me about Joe was that he
Speaker 1: was a player that with his size, that could play
Speaker 1: from any team, and I've never really seen that before.
Speaker 1: Usually the the tallest guy on the team are one
Speaker 1: of the biggest guy team was not bringing the ball
Speaker 1: off the part. And what struck me about Joe orgists
Speaker 1: as unbelieable skill level as a player from guy that size.
Speaker 1: He know, he was a guy that was actually playing
Speaker 1: point guard, you know, for his team. Joe was such
Speaker 1: a brilliant high school player that he was selected to
Speaker 1: play in the Dapper Dan round Ball Classic, an all
Speaker 1: star game in Pittsburgh that pitted the best prospects from
Speaker 1: Pencil Vania against high school standouts from the rest of
Speaker 1: the country. It was the McDonald's All American Game before
Speaker 1: the McDonald's All American Game, and it was founded and
Speaker 1: organized by a former school teacher from Western Pennsylvania who
Speaker 1: had turned himself into a basketball recruiter and promoter, Sonny Vacaro.
Speaker 1: We'll hear more about Sonny later in Kobe's Story. Hey,
Speaker 1: this is Mike Selsky, host and writer of I Am Kobe.
Speaker 1: This podcast project came out of my work on a
Speaker 1: related book called The Rise Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit
Speaker 1: of Immortality. If you want to explore other parts of
Speaker 1: Kobe's story, check out The Rise. It's not just a
Speaker 1: book version of the podcast. I dive deeper into some
Speaker 1: of the topics covered in this series, and even some
Speaker 1: that we don't cover at all. Kobe's upbringing, his family,
Speaker 1: his identity, his effect on his friends and teammates, his
Speaker 1: journey into the n b A, and his earliest days
Speaker 1: with the Lakers. The Rise Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit
Speaker 1: of Immortality is out now. Just head over to the
Speaker 1: Rise of Kobe book dot Com and you can buy
Speaker 1: it from any of your favorite retailers. That's the rise
Speaker 1: of Kobe book dot Com. Thanks. Nowadays, high school superstars
Speaker 1: leave their hometowns for big national college programs all the
Speaker 1: time Duke Kansas, North Carolina, Kentucky. That didn't happen as
Speaker 1: much in the seventies. A great player was more likely
Speaker 1: to stay local, which is exactly what Joe wanted to
Speaker 1: do and exactly what he did do. He decided to
Speaker 1: go to Lasau College. It would be comfortable, his family
Speaker 1: would be able to see him play all his home games,
Speaker 1: and the Lossale Explorers coach Paul west Head had his
Speaker 1: team play a wide open style that suited Joe's game.
Speaker 1: It wasn't quite as open as Barge from his running
Speaker 1: gun style, but it was close. Here's west Head well,
Speaker 1: Joe Briant was a multifaceted basketball party. He was, you know,
Speaker 1: in modern terms, he was the six ten point guard
Speaker 1: Jose Slemma was. When you were six ten back in
Speaker 1: the seventies, no one saw you as a point guard.
Speaker 1: But but Joe could handle the ball. Joe was a
Speaker 1: great pass or a great shooter. He had vision for
Speaker 1: the game. So his biggest asset was just give him
Speaker 1: the ball and leave him alone and he will create
Speaker 1: for you. He fought his whole career. I think you
Speaker 1: not so much with me, but his whole career. People
Speaker 1: didn't want to give him the ball. They wanted them
Speaker 1: the position up either in the posts or down on
Speaker 1: the baseline and then hopefully score for you. But he
Speaker 1: wanted to be a handler. He was. He was a
Speaker 1: player way ahead of his times. What were some of
Speaker 1: the negatives, drawbacks, shortcomings he might have had as a player. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he need to have a lot of shortcomings. I mean,
Speaker 1: when when you can score it well, when you can
Speaker 1: drive and jump over top of people, when you can
Speaker 1: hit the outside shot, I mean he had some drawbacks.
Speaker 1: I mean the years Ico show, the sal they banned
Speaker 1: dunking because they were ruining brims that stopping games. So
Speaker 1: the s C Double as a note, said no dunkings. Well,
Speaker 1: Joe had a propensity to dunk the basketball. So his
Speaker 1: shortcoming was he just couldn't resist a good dunk once
Speaker 1: in a while. And and uh, but you can't call
Speaker 1: them for that. Who was personality like Joe was about
Speaker 1: as outgoing and as gregarious as you could finding a
Speaker 1: basketball player. He was friendly, courteous, engaging. He easily put
Speaker 1: his arm around team Mason. Hey, don't worry about that, Chad.
Speaker 1: You okay, Maybe next time get me the ball and
Speaker 1: I'll make the shot for a game. So so, Joe
Speaker 1: always had a smile on his face. I don't ever
Speaker 1: remember seeing Joe uh in an unhappy or unpleasant mode.
Speaker 1: Joe didn't qualify academically to play as a freshman, so
Speaker 1: he sat out a year to pull his grades up.
Speaker 1: In his first college game in the fall of three,
Speaker 1: he established himself immediately as the team's best player. His
Speaker 1: debut was incredible. He had nineteen points and fifteen rebounds
Speaker 1: and made three behind the back passes. He did a
Speaker 1: little bit of everything, and LaSalle won by fifty. But
Speaker 1: that game, the first of a double header at the Palestra,
Speaker 1: was significant to Joe for another more lasting reason. Villanova
Speaker 1: was playing in the doubleheader's nightcap and had a freshman
Speaker 1: guard named John Cox who had grown up near Joe's neighborhood.
Speaker 1: And John Cox had a sister, Pam Joe had had
Speaker 1: a crush on Pam when they were younger, and when
Speaker 1: they said hello to each other again in the palestra
Speaker 1: that night, that was that they got married the following summer,
Speaker 1: as they were entering their junior years of college. Their
Speaker 1: personalities complimented each other. Joe was fun, loving and carefree.
Speaker 1: Pam was strong will protective of Joe and her family.
Speaker 1: She had been raised a devout Catholic. Those polarities would
Speaker 1: to a great degree, come to define their son's life.
Speaker 1: Joe and Pam's plan was to have Joe finish up
Speaker 1: at LaSalle then entered the NBA after graduating. He had
Speaker 1: pretty much proved by now that he was the best,
Speaker 1: most talent player in the Big Five, and some people
Speaker 1: believed that if Joe stayed in school through his senior year,
Speaker 1: he would be the top pick in the nineteen NBA draft.
Speaker 1: Here's writer Julius Thompson again, Joe was like poetry, emotion,
Speaker 1: and he could hold the ball. He he was before
Speaker 1: his era. Joe should have been the era and there
Speaker 1: where you could have people, even the big guys, hand
Speaker 1: the ball. At that time, you were told to take
Speaker 1: you a big lankey behind get down on the block,
Speaker 1: you know, put your back to the bad catch the ball.
Speaker 1: But Joe said, Joe was a rebel. Joe could hound
Speaker 1: the ball, he could run the offense, he could free land,
Speaker 1: he could shoot, but only being Joe didn't like to do.
Speaker 1: Joe did not like to rebound. He didn't like to
Speaker 1: get down there and ball the big guys. He want
Speaker 1: to be outside. He wanted to be pretty boy. And
Speaker 1: everybody's lap at Joe being the pretty boy because he
Speaker 1: he would just but he was absolutely fantastic to watch.
Speaker 1: I cannot think of a player today that big and
Speaker 1: that quick. I just came with a different era. He
Speaker 1: had been ruling today. Everybody would have thought, he wow,
Speaker 1: big man, can handle the ball, could do all kinds
Speaker 1: of things. But Joe's dad, Joe Bryant, Sr. Fell and
Speaker 1: broke a bone in his back, which many couldn't work anymore,
Speaker 1: which meant Joe and Pam's plans had to change. After
Speaker 1: LaSalle lost in the n c A Tournament, Joe withdrew
Speaker 1: from several of his classes and lost interest in the
Speaker 1: other ones. He got approval from the NBA to enter
Speaker 1: the draft early. It didn't take much. He had to
Speaker 1: show that he was what the league called an economic hardship,
Speaker 1: which was pretty much a rubber stamp. The Golden State Warriors,
Speaker 1: who had just won their first championship, took Joe with
Speaker 1: the fourteenth pick in the first round. He was off
Speaker 1: to the West Coast. He was going going gone, or
Speaker 1: so he thought. The Warriors had a problem. They had
Speaker 1: neglected to tender Joe a contract by the league's September
Speaker 1: one deadline. It was a clerical error, but it was
Speaker 1: a costly They had lost his rights. He could sign
Speaker 1: with any team he wanted, and he wanted to sign
Speaker 1: with the Sixers and stay in phil so he did.
Speaker 1: The Sixers had been a pretty good team the year before,
Speaker 1: and Joe figured he'd come in and play right away.
Speaker 1: It didn't quite work out that way. Before the season began,
Speaker 1: the team spent six million dollars a fortune at the
Speaker 1: time to sign superstar Julius Irving, and Dr Jay's arrival
Speaker 1: pushed Joe down on the depth chart, and when the
Speaker 1: season did start, Joe kept shooting, even though he couldn't
Speaker 1: make any of his shots. He missed thirty of his
Speaker 1: first thirty six shots from the field. In time, Joe
Speaker 1: got his Barracks. He played about sixteen minutes a game,
Speaker 1: average seven or eight points in the not up to
Speaker 1: his own expectations, but not bad for a rookie. Here's
Speaker 1: longtime NBA executive Pat Williams, who was the Sixers general
Speaker 1: manager at the time. He was multi talented, very colorful, flamboyant, exciting,
Speaker 1: free willed big. He was a legitimate six nine athletic.
Speaker 1: Could do things with the ball that were astounding. He
Speaker 1: could handle it, and he could pass it, and he
Speaker 1: was a showman. I can still see him up and
Speaker 1: down the court. He could run. He he was not
Speaker 1: a consistent shooter, and that's probably what limited him. You know,
Speaker 1: he could score in spurts, but you would never call
Speaker 1: him a consistent offensive force. So Joe would have moments
Speaker 1: like that, you know, where he could he could churn
Speaker 1: up an awful lot of offense ahead of following, you know,
Speaker 1: Philly Kid, very popular with the Philadelphia fans. Hometown kid.
Speaker 1: It worked in theory. But to have a first round
Speaker 1: pick fall into your lap, you know, without without giving
Speaker 1: up anything because of a clerical mistake, that was a
Speaker 1: no brainer. On Christmas Eve, Joe and Pam bought a
Speaker 1: house a five bedroom colonial on Remington Road in Winwood,
Speaker 1: a neighborhood in Lower Merion Township just outside Philadelphia. Joe
Speaker 1: also bought himself a sports car, a white dots and
Speaker 1: two eight es. Everything seemed to be set up perfectly
Speaker 1: for him. As the clock neared midnight on Wednesday, May five,
Speaker 1: to Philadelphia police officers were patrolling the area around Fairmount
Speaker 1: Park West, a huge burden pub look a park near
Speaker 1: West Hilling. They noticed a car a white dots and
Speaker 1: two eight z with one of its tail lights out.
Speaker 1: When they approached the car, they saw a familiar face
Speaker 1: inside Joe Bryant's. He was with a twenty one year
Speaker 1: old woman who had been his girlfriend in high school.
Speaker 1: The combustible nature and context of this situation cannot be
Speaker 1: over emphasized. Here was Joe, a local celebrity, a young
Speaker 1: man instantly recognizable to anyone with a passing interest in
Speaker 1: the city sports scene, in a car late at night
Speaker 1: with a woman who was not his wife. Here was
Speaker 1: Philadelphia in the mid nineties seventies, crime ridden gang lead.
Speaker 1: The city had experienced a one rise in violent crime
Speaker 1: since the previous decade. Here were two white members of
Speaker 1: the police department approaching a car driven by a black man.
Speaker 1: Just a year earlier, a Pulitzer Prize winning series of
Speaker 1: investigative articles in The Philadelphia Inquiry had revealed that several
Speaker 1: cops had been engaged in coercive and illegal interrogation practices
Speaker 1: that included handcuffing suspects chairs and beating them with blackjacks,
Speaker 1: brass knuckles, and lead pipes. Each one of the people
Speaker 1: in Fairmount Park that night had cause to be on guard.
Speaker 1: Glands were pumping adrenaline and cortisol. Palms and brows were
Speaker 1: wet with sweat. Joe got out of the car. The
Speaker 1: officers asked him for his license and registration. Joe got
Speaker 1: back in the car, but instead of handing over the documents,
Speaker 1: he turned the key and sped off, heading south. He
Speaker 1: didn't even bother to turn the headlights on. The chase
Speaker 1: lasted three miles until Joe crashed his dots and into
Speaker 1: a stop sign, a no parking sign, and finally a wall.
Speaker 1: He jumped out of the car and tried to run.
Speaker 1: Officer Robert Lombardi grabbed him. He raised his fist, Lombardi
Speaker 1: said later, and I struck him. I subdued and handcuffed him,
Speaker 1: subdued and handcuffed. It was soft language for a hard encounter.
Speaker 1: Joe ended up in the hospital with six stitches. Inside
Speaker 1: the car, police found two vials of cocaine. We did
Speaker 1: our best to track down a contemporary TV or radio
Speaker 1: news report about the incident to play for you, but
Speaker 1: there weren't any out there. It just goes to show
Speaker 1: you how different the media landscape was back in the
Speaker 1: mid nineteen seventies. Joe was a big deal in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: a local hero. This story would have been all over
Speaker 1: Twitter and social media if they had existed back then.
Speaker 1: I was able to dig up several newspaper articles from
Speaker 1: that time, all of which treated the incident like the
Speaker 1: major news story that it was. Here's how the Philadelphia
Speaker 1: Inquirer covered it. After a high speed chase, which ended
Speaker 1: only after his car struck three parked vehicles and rammed
Speaker 1: into a wall. Seventy six ers forward, Joe Bryant was
Speaker 1: arrested on a charge of possession of cocaine. Police originally
Speaker 1: approached the nineteen seventy two model Dotson in which he
Speaker 1: was parked because one tail light was out. Bryant was
Speaker 1: a Philadelphia basketball star, at Bartram High before entering LaSalle,
Speaker 1: where he led the Big Five in scoring his junior season.
Speaker 1: Joe was charged with drug possession, reckless driving, and two
Speaker 1: counts of resisting arrest. At the trial a month later,
Speaker 1: Joe's attorney, Richie Phillips, had twenty character witnesses testify on
Speaker 1: his behalf, including several of his teammates. Joe's wife, father,
Speaker 1: and baby daughter Shariah were all there too as a
Speaker 1: united front. The judge ruled that the police's search of
Speaker 1: Joe's car was illegal, and he dismissed the remaining charges.
Speaker 1: Even though Joe's race had almost certainly played a role
Speaker 1: in how he was treated by the police, he was
Speaker 1: afraid that his actions had embarrassed the Sixers. The incident
Speaker 1: happened during what was already a hectic year for the franchise.
Speaker 1: Three weeks after Joe's arrest, the Sixers owner RV. Koslov
Speaker 1: sold the team, and according to Pat Williams, Joe thought
Speaker 1: that his mistake had led to Koslov's decision, And I
Speaker 1: remember his reaction was that these actions of his had
Speaker 1: prompted cause to sell the team. I remember he took
Speaker 1: that seriously. That was not the case at all. That
Speaker 1: sale was in the works and what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: But Joe did feel guilty. You know that this might
Speaker 1: have prompted cause to sell the team. It was all
Speaker 1: new stuff. You know, nobody knew anything had drugs. Then
Speaker 1: you've never heard anything. I do remember going to court
Speaker 1: and speaking on his behalf. This is a fine young
Speaker 1: man with a bright future, and he made a mistake.
Speaker 1: It will never happen again. Please don't let anything damage
Speaker 1: his career. Here. We need to uh, you know, keep
Speaker 1: going the street and narrow. We'll keep an eye on him.
Speaker 1: I think that was a wake up call to him,
Speaker 1: and I think he took it very seriously that he
Speaker 1: had been caught doing something that was embarrassing to him
Speaker 1: into his family. It probably did affect his career in
Speaker 1: his life. I don't think he ever got near anything
Speaker 1: like that again, if you think about it. The aftermath
Speaker 1: Joe's arrest wasn't all that different from the aftermath of
Speaker 1: Kobe's arrest for sexual assault all those years later. The
Speaker 1: charges and alleged crimes were different. Of course, Kobe's more
Speaker 1: severe than Joe's, but just like with Kobe, there was
Speaker 1: public shock over Joe's incident with the police, disbelief that
Speaker 1: he could do something so dumb that he could put
Speaker 1: his career at risk. His actions had threatened his marriage,
Speaker 1: or seemed to anyway, and led the speculation that the
Speaker 1: scandal would tarnish him forever. For some people. That's certainly
Speaker 1: still the case with Kode. The difference was nothing much
Speaker 1: about Kobe's career changed once the public interest in the
Speaker 1: scandal started to fade. The Lakers didn't trade him, He
Speaker 1: didn't decide to play somewhere else, though there were time
Speaker 1: hims he considered it. He was a Laker, and he
Speaker 1: remained a Laker. But even though Joe stayed out of
Speaker 1: legal trouble from then on, he was never able to
Speaker 1: establish a specific role with the Sixers or with any
Speaker 1: other NBA team for the rest of his career. The
Speaker 1: Sixers were a good team. They reached the finals in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven and were contenders for years thereafter, and
Speaker 1: Joe had hoped he'd stay with them for a long time.
Speaker 1: In August of ninety eight, Joe and Pam had their
Speaker 1: third child, a boy. They named him Kobe, after the
Speaker 1: famous beef of Kobe Japan. It was part of the
Speaker 1: name of their favorite restaurant. His middle name was being
Speaker 1: derived from his father's nickname, Jelly Beam. But Joe never
Speaker 1: really justified all the hoopla around him in Philadelphia. He
Speaker 1: was never anything more than a bench player for the Sixers.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy nine, they traded him to one of
Speaker 1: the NBA's worst teams, the San Diego Clippers, who in
Speaker 1: turn traded him in two to another of the league's
Speaker 1: worst teams, the Houston Rockets. That season was so bad
Speaker 1: for Joe and the team that the Rockets owner offered
Speaker 1: him a job afterwards as a salesman at one of
Speaker 1: the Guys Car franchises. Joe was just twenty eight, He
Speaker 1: had a wife and three kids. Where was his basketball
Speaker 1: career headed? As it turned out, he was headed to Italy.
Speaker 1: A friend of Joe's suggested he go play in Europe.
Speaker 1: He could make good money there, He could play the
Speaker 1: way he wanted to play. There, he could shoot whenever
Speaker 1: he wanted. The Italian people would embrace him, they would
Speaker 1: love him. So he and Pam decided that they and
Speaker 1: their three kids, Shariah, Shaya, and Kobe, would go to Italy.
Speaker 1: Kobe was five years old. Here he is talking to
Speaker 1: Jeremy Treatment about the move. I didnt know, just because
Speaker 1: we were going to that's what did. Joe signed with
Speaker 1: a basketball club in Rea, a town on a hilltop
Speaker 1: an hour north of Rome. It was a much more
Speaker 1: relaxed style of life than in America. The team played
Speaker 1: games once a week on Sundays. Kobe and his sisters
Speaker 1: went to school six days a week, but just four
Speaker 1: hours a day. The family didn't really know anybody there
Speaker 1: and couldn't communicate clearly with many people. At first, the
Speaker 1: isolation bonded them. It brought them closer together. Over there
Speaker 1: were really by ourselves because we couldn't speak to the
Speaker 1: Italian language and didn't have a lot of friends with it. Friends.
Speaker 1: I had a bunch of sisters. There are my sholders.
Speaker 1: I went to them playing trouble. Maybe something in school.
Speaker 1: I had a problem school. I may company me. She
Speaker 1: had a great good time to Gavin. That's that boy experience,
Speaker 1: and that boy time experience gave me. I like thinking
Speaker 1: about the past a lot. I like thinking about Italy
Speaker 1: and all my friends down there. With a long way
Speaker 1: I came to get to where I'm at now. That
Speaker 1: keeps me going. I think it's always a motivating you
Speaker 1: go back to your roots and see me you came
Speaker 1: from Italy a whole in session. Yeah. Leon Douglas was
Speaker 1: another American playing pro in Italy at the time. Douglas
Speaker 1: and Joe Bryant had met in high school and then
Speaker 1: reconnected in Europe. They eventually became teammates in another town, Thestoria,
Speaker 1: and their families became friendly. My wife and his wife,
Speaker 1: they participating things together. Covid and sister used to babysit
Speaker 1: my daughter and whenever the birthday, they would all be
Speaker 1: together during the birthday situation. But the families was cold
Speaker 1: because who was in a situation way with us against
Speaker 1: them more or less. And uh then to Apafrican American
Speaker 1: families were finished family in structures that we sort of
Speaker 1: looked out for each other. Great. You know. Covid idolized
Speaker 1: his father. One wing was his whole basketball game was
Speaker 1: basically Joe when Joe was young. You know, the way
Speaker 1: he played in the NBA was similar to the ways
Speaker 1: that his father played when I played with the offensively,
Speaker 1: especially because during Cole I get there in the fourth year,
Speaker 1: but I was watching him. I would always see him
Speaker 1: do some of the things that his father did, like
Speaker 1: a jump shot, like his drive and uh, a lot
Speaker 1: of old guys that was in Europe, they all called
Speaker 1: him a little Jim because of some of the things
Speaker 1: that he did, similar to his sponsor. One day, Kobe
Speaker 1: accompanied his dad on a long bus trip to a game.
Speaker 1: The two of them sat with Douglas for the ride.
Speaker 1: That didn't happen often because the fact that we didn't
Speaker 1: allow him young people to travel with, especially if it
Speaker 1: was over night game and this was the day game.
Speaker 1: And why when while he was traveling, Joe started talking
Speaker 1: about his grandparents and I think one of his grandparents
Speaker 1: who was a minister, and she prompt sized that that
Speaker 1: was going to be someone in the family that was
Speaker 1: going to change the whole family structure, that was going
Speaker 1: to do things but then family that had never been
Speaker 1: done before, and there was going to be a legacy
Speaker 1: and in itself. And uh, Joe and I were talking
Speaker 1: and Joe made his coming. He said, well, he said,
Speaker 1: I know it's not gonna be mean because I'm in
Speaker 1: un and uh, looking around, it's hard to figure out
Speaker 1: who it's going to be. And uh and Coba was
Speaker 1: on the bus, and you know, he said, well, maybe
Speaker 1: his him. But Joe was unshum. But he did prophesize
Speaker 1: someone that prophesized him that this person was coming that
Speaker 1: was going to change the family. Because of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to travel to Italy to visit Kobe's
Speaker 1: old stomping grounds, but what I did do was by
Speaker 1: a copy of Italiano Dinome Kobe, a book by Italian
Speaker 1: journalist Andrea Barocci. The title in English means an Italian
Speaker 1: named Kobe. Not too many people in the United States
Speaker 1: have read the book, mostly because it's written in Italian,
Speaker 1: but I have a longtime family friend who speaks the language,
Speaker 1: and she translated the whole thing for me. One thing
Speaker 1: that comes through clearly in the book is the manner
Speaker 1: in which Joe and Pam raised their kids. Kobe in particular,
Speaker 1: They disciplined him when it came to certain things, academics
Speaker 1: being the big one. They sent him to private schools
Speaker 1: while they lived abroad, but they indulged him when it
Speaker 1: came to basketball. One day, when Kobe was nine, Joe
Speaker 1: brought his son to practice with him, and Kobe got
Speaker 1: up and started dribbling and shooting at the far end
Speaker 1: of the court the coach. Joe's coach kind of laughed
Speaker 1: at and said stay seated. Kobe's response was four words,
Speaker 1: fuck you, fuck you. When he played organized basketball himself,
Speaker 1: Kobe shot the ball more frequently than Joe did. He
Speaker 1: shot at every time he had it. He might make
Speaker 1: ten in a row, but the other kids wouldn't exactly
Speaker 1: be thrilled with His grandfather back in the States would
Speaker 1: mail in videos of basketball pros like Magic Johnson and
Speaker 1: Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Michael Jordan's, and Kobe would study
Speaker 1: them with his dad, picking up moves that he would
Speaker 1: practice himself. Away from basketball, though, Kobe bonded not only
Speaker 1: with his family but with some of his peers in Italy,
Speaker 1: especially with the children of his father's friends and teammates.
Speaker 1: Maybe the best example was Tamika Catchings, whose father, Harvey,
Speaker 1: had played with Joe on the Sixers. Tamika, her sister Tauja,
Speaker 1: and Kobe became fast friends, walking around town squares, sharing
Speaker 1: slices of pizza, playing soccer together, and as to mek Up,
Speaker 1: her breasted in her own basketball career as she went
Speaker 1: on to win four Olympic gold medals, a w NBA Championship,
Speaker 1: and a w n B A m v P Award.
Speaker 1: She and Kobe stayed in touch. It's crazy to think,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people were asked, just as far
Speaker 1: as Kobe goes, a lot of people will ask what
Speaker 1: was it like when we were growing up? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: we were just kids. I don't think either one of
Speaker 1: us at that point in time, what have ever dreamed
Speaker 1: about the role that we were in and just the
Speaker 1: opportunity that we had, both of our father's playing being
Speaker 1: in a foreign country. I mean, it's not necessarily a
Speaker 1: typical life of any child, and definitely not for us.
Speaker 1: But at the time, we're on and you know, my
Speaker 1: father only played for a year, we moved back to
Speaker 1: the States, and then after that he moved back and
Speaker 1: I just remember at that point in time when he
Speaker 1: got drafted, calling my parents like, this is the Kobe
Speaker 1: that we were just in Italy was right? And yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. So he went to the pros. I went
Speaker 1: to college four years after that, went to the w
Speaker 1: n B A and the rest of his history lives intertwined.
Speaker 1: The thing about it, when you look at it is
Speaker 1: it's almost like a book. When you see the book
Speaker 1: and you start filling it with the words and the chapters,
Speaker 1: you've come just what's gonna be the storybook? In the
Speaker 1: close one book, you start a new book. And that's
Speaker 1: really for me. That's what I imagine. On Saturday May
Speaker 1: two thousand twenty one, about a year and a half
Speaker 1: after Kobe died, he and Tamika were inducted together into
Speaker 1: the Nay Smith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. At the
Speaker 1: end of the ceremony, Michael Jordan's held the hand of
Speaker 1: Kobe's widow, Vanessa as he escorted her to the stage
Speaker 1: to deliver a speech that her husband would have given.
Speaker 1: If my husband were here tonight, he would have a
Speaker 1: long list of people's saying that it helps inspire him
Speaker 1: and equip him to be in the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: Family friends, mentors, the Lakers, teammates, muses and opponents. This
Speaker 1: is one of the many hard parts about not having
Speaker 1: him here. At the risk of leaving anyone out, I
Speaker 1: can only say thank you to all those who helped
Speaker 1: him get here. You know who you are, and I
Speaker 1: thank you on his behalf. It was supposed to be
Speaker 1: the perfect coda to Kobe's life, to all the choices
Speaker 1: that Joe and Pam Bryant had made that had led
Speaker 1: to this moment. It was supposed to be the perfect
Speaker 1: capstone to the Bryant family's basketball legacy. Instead, it was
Speaker 1: bitter sweet. Kobe was gone, and the people who knew him,
Speaker 1: who cheered for him, who admired him, all they could
Speaker 1: do was remember him as he was, remember the journey
Speaker 1: he had taken that was supposed to lead to that night,
Speaker 1: to that moment. That journey had begun across an ocean,
Speaker 1: in another country, in the place where he had first
Speaker 1: embraced basketball, and where basketball embraced him when he first
Speaker 1: realized what he was born to do. He was so
Speaker 1: young then, but he carried that understanding and knowledge with
Speaker 1: him through every stage of his life. In a way
Speaker 1: that is so rare, so impressive. He was able to
Speaker 1: reach the kind of heights and to be the kind
Speaker 1: of figure we see only once every few generations. Joe
Speaker 1: Bryant had been bitter about his career in the NBA.
Speaker 1: He felt he got a raw deal. The team should
Speaker 1: have recognized his talent and given him more of an
Speaker 1: opportunity to put it on display, and he brought this
Speaker 1: up to his son throughout Kobe's early life. That was
Speaker 1: fuel to feed Kobe's fire. He wanted to restore his
Speaker 1: father's reputation, his good name within basketball. He would do
Speaker 1: what Joe hadn't done. He would bring it every practice,
Speaker 1: every game, every day, every night. Kobe was determined to
Speaker 1: be the player that his father should have been. In
Speaker 1: the next episode, Kobe returns stateside and begins to conceive
Speaker 1: of what he wants to do with his life. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you the story of how he
Speaker 1: learned what he needed to do to get there. Who say, yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys are not gonna win, and right, not gonna
Speaker 1: win it like it's a big deal. I can's money
Speaker 1: with the mouth. That's next week on I Am Kobe.
Speaker 1: I Am Kobe is a product action of the Version
Speaker 1: Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio. This season is
Speaker 1: written and hosted by me Mike Sealsky. It's produced by
Speaker 1: Jacob Bronstein and directed by Mark Francis. Story editing by
Speaker 1: Jacob Bronstein, with editorial direction from Scott Waxman, Editing, mixing
Speaker 1: and sound design by Mark Francis. Stephen Tompkins is our
Speaker 1: production assistant Our theme music is Create Yourself by Grover
Speaker 1: Brown featuring Justin Starling. Find Create Yourself wherever you stream music.
Speaker 1: Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freesan Sink. Executive producers
Speaker 1: are Mark Francis and Scott Waxman. Join the conversation about
Speaker 1: I Am Kobe on social media on Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 1: It's at diversion Pods thanks to Orin Rosenbaum, Susan Cannavan
Speaker 1: and Jeremy Treatment the Bob Flaw the Son. They don't
Speaker 1: want to stand when I said to Brian is fun.
Speaker 1: Never clack you out even where my work is done.
Speaker 1: If they trying to block me, I might hurt someone
Speaker 1: through the blood sweat and says we persefit, stay tilling it,
Speaker 1: let it keep the hurses. And then if they don't
Speaker 1: believe in themselves, they revert to find that the champion's heads.
Speaker 1: So I'm telling them, ask my am, this the reason
Speaker 1: why my work so damn different. Cert the negatives. I
Speaker 1: can't mist see me at the time, you can't listen
Speaker 1: for where I'm gonna vote to play like cash is
Speaker 1: see I pay my dudes because of taxes, gotta work.
Speaker 1: I think can grind ahead of his time. So I'm
Speaker 1: saying that they made you. Don't tell them you create
Speaker 1: yourself the besh you fin or watch us by this
Speaker 1: by that time you gotta stay clock then break clock
Speaker 1: break we create ourselves. Watch me Qua watch watch to
Speaker 1: create myself. Exacli signs up. Create yourself, stay nice and
Speaker 1: ain't go hard create yourself. You gotta learn from the
Speaker 1: great minds that we ain't lying. To tell them that
Speaker 1: anytime this town I wasn't giving it was d the future.
Speaker 1: Any time I could change better tell them that I
Speaker 1: made it back home. As I walked through the hearts
Speaker 1: of the fame, I came from the valley of the Shadow,
Speaker 1: with death waiting for us. Some spoons don't hold your breath,
Speaker 1: sat Town sat trains. But I did it with less
Speaker 1: I know one that to be so there's nothing to guess. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's nothing to guess. It's our times. Something we up next.
Speaker 1: We don't got any regrests. I did it with my
Speaker 1: soon hands, and we never forgets my a bit. The
Speaker 1: reason why my work so damn different to the negatives.
Speaker 1: I can't listen see me at the time. You can't
Speaker 1: listen for where, rebuild, reshape, give me your eye. You
Speaker 1: got to risk take do it now. When I'm saying
Speaker 1: why waits, I was saying that they may you don't
Speaker 1: tell them. You create yourself, then you Finn watch us
Speaker 1: by it's by that time. You gotta snake clock, then
Speaker 1: break clock, break we create ourselves. Watch me watch the
Speaker 1: create my self exac client that clients I'm sell about
Speaker 1: to create yourself. May nice and nays, go on, create yourself.
Speaker 1: Gotta line for the great minds. But we ain't lying
Speaker 1: telling next anytime, ye. Diversion podcasts