November 16, 2021 • 52 mins
If you want to get to the heart of the Kobe Bryant story, you have to start with the Joe Bryant story, and that means you have to start with Philadelphia. One of the pieces of Kobe’s story that tends to get glossed over is that his dad also played in the NBA. Joe Bryant spent eight years in the league. But throwing out that fact and then moving on doesn’t capture the full picture of Joe’s career. Because long before Kobe Bryant was a high school legend around Philadelphia, Joe Bryant was a high school legend in Philadelphia. And his legend was every bit as grand as his son’s.
When Joe Bryant was a kid, Earl the Pearl Monroe was his hero, his biggest basketball influence. Which made Joe different from just about every Philly high school star who had come before him. See, “The Pearl” was 6-foot-3, and Joe wanted to play just like him. Joe put the ball behind his back. He worked on his spin moves. He aspired to be as creative and flashy as The Pearl. There was one big difference, though: Joe wasn’t 6-foot-3. He was 6-foot-9. And 6-foot-9 players didn’t do the kinds of things that Joe could do. There was a difference between Joe and Kobe, between father and son. Joe ratcheted up his competitiveness, his will to win, only sometimes, when he absolutely had to. But, of course, this is the quality that Kobe is probably most well-known for—he was at that peak level all the time.
Pre-order Mike Sielski's related book: “The Rise: Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality" (1/11/22): TheRiseOfKobeBook.com
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Our theme music is “Create Yourself” by Grover Braam feat. Justin Starling: Listen to Create Yourself on Spotify
Joe Bryant was arrested in 1976. Joe was charged with drug possession, reckless driving, and two counts of resisting arrest. The aftermath of Joe’s arrest wasn’t all that different from the aftermath of Kobe’s arrest for sexual assault all those years later. The charges and alleged crimes were different, of course, Kobe’s more severe than Joe’s. But just like with Kobe, there was public shock over Joe’s incident with the police, disbelief that he could do something so dumb, that he could put his career at risk. His actions had threatened his marriage — or seemed to, anyway — and led to speculation that the scandal would tarnish him forever. For some people, that’s certainly still the case with Kobe. The difference was, nothing much about Kobe’s career changed once the public interest in the scandal started to fade. The Lakers didn’t trade him. He didn’t decide to play somewhere else, though there were times he considered it. He was a Laker, and he remained a Laker. But even though Joe stayed out of legal trouble from then on, he was never able to establish a specific role with the Sixers — or with any other NBA team for the rest of his career.
Cover photo © Eileen Blass – USA TODAY NETWORK
“I Am Kobe” is a production of Diversion Podcasts, in association with iHeartRadio. This season is written and hosted by Mike Sielski. Produced by Jacob Bronstein and directed by Mark Francis. Consulting Producer: Andrew Kalb. Story editing by Jacob Bronstein with editorial direction from Scott Waxman. Editing, mixing, and sound design by Mark Francis. Production Assistant: Stephen Tompkins. Music Supervisor: Scott Velasquez, for Frisson Sync. Executive Producers: Mark Francis and Scott Waxman.
Thanks to Oren Rosenbaum, Susan Canavan, and Jeremy Treatman.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Diversion podcasts were welcome to the Quest of Palestrium. When
we first walked into the gym, we saw them people
outside waiting for takes, and I got I got chills
because it's starting to know that you came such a
long way and people are all here to watch you
play and watch you show your skills. And they gave
(00:26):
a lot of jilling and but I got I couldn't
really think about it. I just had to calm myself
down because if I came out with too much energy, job,
you're messing up. And turned the ball to narrable and
and then like that. At the intersection of thirty third
(00:47):
and South Streets in West Philadelphia, on the campus of
the University of Pennsylvania, stands a rectangular brick building that
is one of the most famous and revered sports arenas
in the world. It's the build in that Kobe Bryant
was talking about in that tape you just heard. The
building is called the Plestra. It was named appropriately by
(01:07):
a professor who taught Greek. It opened ninety four years ago,
and depending on what religious terminology you prefer, it is
usually referred to as the cathedral or the temple or
the mecca of college basketball and especially of Philadelphia a
basketball actually, by the standards of modern sports arenas, the
(01:32):
Polester is pretty tiny. It holds fewer than ten thousand
spectators eight thousand, seven dred and twenty two to be exact.
That's regarded as a magical and unforgettable number in Philly hoops.
Because the Polester is so small, Because everyone's on top
of each other, the building can get humid and it
can get loud. It's an electric place to see a game.
(01:54):
It's the home of the Penn Quakers. It's the home
of Philadelphia. Is Big five, all of them Division One
basketball teams in or around the city with storied local rivalries, Penn, Villanova, Temple, St. Joseph's,
and LaSalle. This tape from a seven matchup between Temple
and Saint Joe's paints a vivid image of the heat
(02:16):
and energized crowd at the Polestra could generate again. You're
looking live but the Plestra, a freezing rain has been
falling all day outside of Philadelphia. But they may not
need any money for great magnus. There may be enough
peat generated right there in the Plestra day to melt
all the ice and Philadelphia please devolved, whether they're ready
to get after one another again? Temple coming again, five
(02:38):
minity of an ay ten Saint jos to the four
and one who up the battle for the spot in
the leg race at the Rage the midway one of
the season, they are jammed in there. That remodels the
Palestra this year that now see that, I don't think
there's an MP seat end the place. The Polestra became
a very special place for Kobe, and we'll get into
(02:58):
why it was so special to whom in later episodes.
But the Briant family's connection to the Polestra actually started
a generation before Kobe. It started with Kobe's dad Joe,
I'm might seal see and from diversion podcasts, this is
I am Kobe. I write Wright State, create myself up,
(03:28):
Create yourself, say nice on, create yourself. You gotta learn
from the great minds. No, we ain't tell them that's
getting time. Episode two. The Bryant Family Legacy. If you
(03:51):
want to get to the heart of the Kobe Bryant story,
you have to start with the Joe Brian story, and
that means you have to start in the city where
Joe grew up, Piladelphia. One of the pieces of Kobe
story that tends to get glossed over is that his
dad also played in the NBA. It's treated as trivia.
It's true Joe Bryant spent eight years in the league,
(04:12):
but throwing out that fact and then moving on doesn't
capture the full picture of Joe's career because long before
Kobe Bryant was a high school legend around Philadelphia, Joe
Bryant was a high school legend in Philadelphia, and his
legend was every bit as grand as his sons. We
(04:35):
always thought that Joe was um. He was a one off, right.
He was a six nine guy who could dribble and
shoot it and pass. That's Mo Howard. He and Joe
have been friends for years. They've known each other since
high school when they were maybe the two best teenage
(04:57):
basketball players in Philadelphia. Mo on to play college ball
at Maryland and have a brief career in the NBA.
We always thought like, as we got older, we would
compare j b to sort of like Magic Johnson, right,
because at that time, big guys played near the basket.
But Joe had a very unique skill set because again
(05:21):
he was six and nine does a very very proficient
dribbler and passer, and he could shoot the ball, so
he was he was extraordinary as a high school player
because there were not many six nine guys like him.
(05:42):
To learn the full story of Kobe Bryant's father, you
can't just pop the name Joe Bryant into Google and
then wait half a second for the Internet to spit
some links and post set. You have to do what
I did one day during the summer. You have to
go to the library at Temple University in North Philadelphia
and its urban Archives. The library has hundreds of articles
(06:04):
from the Philadelphia Bulletin, which back in the nineteen sixties
and seventies had the largest circulation of any afternoon daily
newspaper in the country. The library had these newspaper clippings
and tiny Manila envelopes, and they were yellowed and fading
in brittle. I had to handle them gently because I
was afraid they would fall apart in my hands. But
(06:25):
in those clippings were details that showed just how much
Joe and Kobe had in common. There were some foreshadowing, there,
some connections and similarities. If you were willing to look
hard enough. I thought Kobe was a little more hard
and Joe, Joe were more of the smiling of canna
(06:48):
basketball player. This is Julius Thompson. He writes amazing novels
about basketball and basketball players now, but he started out
as a sportswriter. He spent ten years covering high school
sports at the Philadelphia Bolton in the nineteen seventies and eighties,
which means he covered Joe Bryant's entire career at Bartram
High School in southwest Philadelphia. I can see the one thing,
(07:11):
the agility and the quickness and the size. Now I
only the call I tell Kobe Joe Joe's sixtent. I
know that he was he plut six tent. Kobe made
a little smaller. But you can see the same talent.
You can see the same we'll want to be excellent.
You can see the same quickness, and you can see
the same move So so sometimes I watched Kobe, I
(07:34):
could almost see Joe, a little shorter virgin of Joe
on the on the on the court. Um shoot if
you can't wait to shoot the shoot, can shoot it
from going to the basket, hard, play strong. When he
had to and one thing I should people realized determination.
That's the thing I think, and that that will is
(07:54):
to be the best. And I saw that in the vote.
Philadelphia has had a share of young groups phenots. Of course,
before he scored a hundred points in one NBA game,
Wilt Chamberlain scored ninety in a game for Overbrooke High.
(08:18):
Tom Gola was the king of the city at Lassal
High School and at Las South College, where he won
a national championship. Into Golda still holds the n c
A record for most rebounds in a career. Earl top
of the gig road, right, what hey, what a player.
(08:43):
And then there's the legendary Hall of Famer Earl Monroe,
who proceeded Joe Bryant and far from high he could
have handled the ball like it was on a string.
Monroe became one of the most skilled guards the NBA
has ever seen. That clip of the pearl on MSG
net was just one of many highlights he would have
on a nightly basis. He was part of a generation
(09:05):
of players who brought the flare of street basketball to
the pros who made it mainstream. He also had maybe
the two coolest nicknames in basketball History, Black Jesus and
the poem. Here's Mo Howard. Back at that time, the
men who played on the seventies sixers and the pros
(09:27):
from Philadelphia played in the Baker League, and uh, prior
to any of the Baker League games, we had sunny
year games and were very approachable, right, I mean at
everybody in Philadelphia wanted to be any played basketball anyway,
wanted to have at least Earl spin move, right, you know.
(09:48):
I mean those guys influenced all of us, not just
in the basketball part, but you know as being part
of our community as well. You know, these guys, as
I said, with very approachable. They were very visible and
present in our community. So there were a few guys
that you know, we sort of kind of looked up to.
(10:10):
But I would have to say from my era it
was Earle Pearl Monroe and Joe Bryant grew up in
the same neighborhood and it was a pretty rough neighborhood.
There was crime, there were gangs. Joe once got stabbed
in the leg with a knife during a fight. But
his father, Joe Sr. Was tough and protective, and Joe
found solace in sports, football, track, and especially basketball. If
(10:34):
you could play on the playground courts of Philadelphia, you
could play just about anywhere. It was a lesson Joe's
son would learn too, because at that time he had
to understand there was gangs and there was a lot
of negative things going on in the community, and so
this was a way for kids to express themselves. And
a matter of fact, when I first started covering high
(10:57):
school sports in Philadelphia, there were no night games allowed
in the public League. Everything had to be on Tuesday
afternoon and on Thursday afternoon, and you had to have security.
Fans were not allowed. They gradually they brought the fans
come to the game, but it was kind of difficult era.
But then when the athletics started really exploding and people
(11:21):
started to get interest, there was a lot more people
going to the games, and the Polester with just the
ultimately you played the Polester. That was an incredible, incredible experience.
(11:57):
When Joe Bryant was a kid, Earl the Pearl was
his hero, his biggest basketball influence, which made Joe different
from just about every Philly high school star who had
come before. And see the Pearl was six ft three.
Joe wanted to play just like it. And he could,
and he did. Joe put the ball behind his back.
He worked on his spin moves. He aspired to be
(12:19):
as creative and flashy as the pearl. There was one
big difference though Joe wasn't six ft three, he was
six ft nine, and six ft nine players didn't do
the kinds of things that Joe could do. I'd like
to do stories and do picture stories, and so I
went and brought them, uh and I and I saw
(12:39):
him playing. I was just amazed at the agility and
did quickness, and the size and talent and multiple of
the personality, the great personality. He could just charm anybody
with the smile. As a senior in nineteen seventy two,
Joe average more than twenty seven points at seventeen rebounds
a game. He scored fifty seven points in one game
(12:59):
and had forty points and twenty one rebounds in another.
The newspapers in Philly, The Daily News, The Inquirer, the
Bulletin covered him like he played in the NBA already.
When Joe was in high school, they played a team
called Germantown High School with Mike Sojoona. Germantown was the
biggest team i've ever seen the high school basketball we
(13:22):
called the Johnny Green Giants. The shortest guy was six ft,
the only six points six five six seven six nine
seven seven one their only botch of had Joe and
another kid to call Maddy dog a rebound. Joe want
to term to win the game, and people said, they bought,
you can't win botcham can't do they botch of just
two Freeland. It was that's old McDonald's hall pat house.
(13:43):
Joe scored over forty points, took over the game, took
over the game. And that's that same determination to steely
when he had to be and I see that moreent.
Kobe Thompson is getting at something really important here, the
difference between Joe and b b between father and son.
Joe ratcheted up his competitiveness, his will to win only
(14:06):
sometimes when he absolutely had to. But of course this
is the quality that Kobe is probably most well known for.
He was at that peak level all the time, so
that steely kind of attitude, I'm gonna be the best.
Joe didn't have that all the time, but when he
did get it, like a net game. That's why he's
publicly champion. Because she said this is mine. I'm gonna
(14:29):
We're gonna win this, and he's stunned the Philadelphia basketball
I'm he absolutely stunned it. That's how fame worked back then.
There was no sports center, no Twitter, no social media
scuttle butt. There was just one newspaper headline after another
(14:49):
proclaiming that Joe Bryant was the next great Philly player.
The guys on the playgrounds gave him the nickname based
in an old Big band lyric, must bid love Ja,
That's who Joe was now jelly Beans. He even brad
to a reporter that he ate four pounds of jelly
beans a day. Was it true, didn't matter, It just
(15:11):
added to the legend I knew of Joe. Brody was
the same high school classes of me. And the only
game I really saw as the City championship came that
year and I went down to the Fluster to see it.
It was just it was just so exciting. It was
a packhouse. That's aren't tell Him, a native of West
Philadelphia and one of the most powerful sports agents of
(15:34):
the last half century. NBA stars Tracy McGrady, Anthony Davis, Russell, Westbrook,
Derek Rose, tell him represented all of them during his career.
He was also Kobe Bryant's first age tell Him and
Joe Bryant grew up not far from each other. Tell
Him had read about Joe in the local papers, had
heard about this kid who could play anywhere on the floor,
(15:58):
and he just had to see him for himself. When
Bartram met St. Thomas Moore in ninety two for Philly
High School Hoops Supremacy, tell him and moved out of
the city by then to Lower Merion Township, but he
made sure he was at the Palestra that day for
that game. And even though Joe and Bartram lost, tell
(16:19):
Him was fascinated by him. I just remember watching Joe.
The thing that struck me about Joe was that he
was a player that with his size, that could play
from any team, and I've never really seen that before.
Usually the the tallest guy on the team are one
of the biggest guy team was not bringing the ball
off the part. And what struck me about Joe orgists
as unbelieable skill level as a player from guy that size.
(16:43):
He know, he was a guy that was actually playing
point guard, you know, for his team. Joe was such
a brilliant high school player that he was selected to
play in the Dapper Dan round Ball Classic, an all
star game in Pittsburgh that pitted the best prospects from
Pencil Vania against high school standouts from the rest of
the country. It was the McDonald's All American Game before
(17:06):
the McDonald's All American Game, and it was founded and
organized by a former school teacher from Western Pennsylvania who
had turned himself into a basketball recruiter and promoter, Sonny Vacaro.
We'll hear more about Sonny later in Kobe's Story. Hey,
(17:33):
this is Mike Selsky, host and writer of I Am Kobe.
This podcast project came out of my work on a
related book called The Rise Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit
of Immortality. If you want to explore other parts of
Kobe's story, check out The Rise. It's not just a
book version of the podcast. I dive deeper into some
of the topics covered in this series, and even some
(17:55):
that we don't cover at all. Kobe's upbringing, his family,
his identity, his effect on his friends and teammates, his
journey into the n b A, and his earliest days
with the Lakers. The Rise Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit
of Immortality is out now. Just head over to the
Rise of Kobe book dot Com and you can buy
(18:16):
it from any of your favorite retailers. That's the rise
of Kobe book dot Com. Thanks. Nowadays, high school superstars
(18:45):
leave their hometowns for big national college programs all the
time Duke Kansas, North Carolina, Kentucky. That didn't happen as
much in the seventies. A great player was more likely
to stay local, which is exactly what Joe wanted to
do and exactly what he did do. He decided to
go to Lasau College. It would be comfortable, his family
(19:07):
would be able to see him play all his home games,
and the Lossale Explorers coach Paul west Head had his
team play a wide open style that suited Joe's game.
It wasn't quite as open as Barge from his running
gun style, but it was close. Here's west Head well,
Joe Briant was a multifaceted basketball party. He was, you know,
(19:29):
in modern terms, he was the six ten point guard
Jose Slemma was. When you were six ten back in
the seventies, no one saw you as a point guard.
But but Joe could handle the ball. Joe was a
great pass or a great shooter. He had vision for
the game. So his biggest asset was just give him
(19:51):
the ball and leave him alone and he will create
for you. He fought his whole career. I think you
not so much with me, but his whole career. People
didn't want to give him the ball. They wanted them
the position up either in the posts or down on
the baseline and then hopefully score for you. But he
wanted to be a handler. He was. He was a
(20:12):
player way ahead of his times. What were some of
the negatives, drawbacks, shortcomings he might have had as a player. Yeah,
he need to have a lot of shortcomings. I mean,
when when you can score it well, when you can
drive and jump over top of people, when you can
hit the outside shot, I mean he had some drawbacks.
(20:34):
I mean the years Ico show, the sal they banned
dunking because they were ruining brims that stopping games. So
the s C Double as a note, said no dunkings. Well,
Joe had a propensity to dunk the basketball. So his
shortcoming was he just couldn't resist a good dunk once
(20:54):
in a while. And and uh, but you can't call
them for that. Who was personality like Joe was about
as outgoing and as gregarious as you could finding a
basketball player. He was friendly, courteous, engaging. He easily put
his arm around team Mason. Hey, don't worry about that, Chad.
(21:18):
You okay, Maybe next time get me the ball and
I'll make the shot for a game. So so, Joe
always had a smile on his face. I don't ever
remember seeing Joe uh in an unhappy or unpleasant mode.
Joe didn't qualify academically to play as a freshman, so
he sat out a year to pull his grades up.
In his first college game in the fall of three,
(21:41):
he established himself immediately as the team's best player. His
debut was incredible. He had nineteen points and fifteen rebounds
and made three behind the back passes. He did a
little bit of everything, and LaSalle won by fifty. But
that game, the first of a double header at the Palestra,
(22:02):
was significant to Joe for another more lasting reason. Villanova
was playing in the doubleheader's nightcap and had a freshman
guard named John Cox who had grown up near Joe's neighborhood.
And John Cox had a sister, Pam Joe had had
a crush on Pam when they were younger, and when
they said hello to each other again in the palestra
(22:24):
that night, that was that they got married the following summer,
as they were entering their junior years of college. Their
personalities complimented each other. Joe was fun, loving and carefree.
Pam was strong will protective of Joe and her family.
She had been raised a devout Catholic. Those polarities would
(22:44):
to a great degree, come to define their son's life.
Joe and Pam's plan was to have Joe finish up
at LaSalle then entered the NBA after graduating. He had
pretty much proved by now that he was the best,
most talent player in the Big Five, and some people
believed that if Joe stayed in school through his senior year,
(23:06):
he would be the top pick in the nineteen NBA draft.
Here's writer Julius Thompson again, Joe was like poetry, emotion,
and he could hold the ball. He he was before
his era. Joe should have been the era and there
(23:26):
where you could have people, even the big guys, hand
the ball. At that time, you were told to take
you a big lankey behind get down on the block,
you know, put your back to the bad catch the ball.
But Joe said, Joe was a rebel. Joe could hound
the ball, he could run the offense, he could free land,
he could shoot, but only being Joe didn't like to do.
(23:50):
Joe did not like to rebound. He didn't like to
get down there and ball the big guys. He want
to be outside. He wanted to be pretty boy. And
everybody's lap at Joe being the pretty boy because he
he would just but he was absolutely fantastic to watch.
I cannot think of a player today that big and
that quick. I just came with a different era. He
(24:10):
had been ruling today. Everybody would have thought, he wow,
big man, can handle the ball, could do all kinds
of things. But Joe's dad, Joe Bryant, Sr. Fell and
broke a bone in his back, which many couldn't work anymore,
(24:33):
which meant Joe and Pam's plans had to change. After
LaSalle lost in the n c A Tournament, Joe withdrew
from several of his classes and lost interest in the
other ones. He got approval from the NBA to enter
the draft early. It didn't take much. He had to
show that he was what the league called an economic hardship,
(24:55):
which was pretty much a rubber stamp. The Golden State Warriors,
who had just won their first championship, took Joe with
the fourteenth pick in the first round. He was off
to the West Coast. He was going going gone, or
so he thought. The Warriors had a problem. They had
neglected to tender Joe a contract by the league's September
(25:16):
one deadline. It was a clerical error, but it was
a costly They had lost his rights. He could sign
with any team he wanted, and he wanted to sign
with the Sixers and stay in phil so he did.
The Sixers had been a pretty good team the year before,
and Joe figured he'd come in and play right away.
(25:37):
It didn't quite work out that way. Before the season began,
the team spent six million dollars a fortune at the
time to sign superstar Julius Irving, and Dr Jay's arrival
pushed Joe down on the depth chart, and when the
season did start, Joe kept shooting, even though he couldn't
make any of his shots. He missed thirty of his
(25:58):
first thirty six shots from the field. In time, Joe
got his Barracks. He played about sixteen minutes a game,
average seven or eight points in the not up to
his own expectations, but not bad for a rookie. Here's
longtime NBA executive Pat Williams, who was the Sixers general
manager at the time. He was multi talented, very colorful, flamboyant, exciting,
(26:23):
free willed big. He was a legitimate six nine athletic.
Could do things with the ball that were astounding. He
could handle it, and he could pass it, and he
was a showman. I can still see him up and
down the court. He could run. He he was not
a consistent shooter, and that's probably what limited him. You know,
(26:47):
he could score in spurts, but you would never call
him a consistent offensive force. So Joe would have moments
like that, you know, where he could he could churn
up an awful lot of offense ahead of following, you know,
Philly Kid, very popular with the Philadelphia fans. Hometown kid.
(27:08):
It worked in theory. But to have a first round
pick fall into your lap, you know, without without giving
up anything because of a clerical mistake, that was a
no brainer. On Christmas Eve, Joe and Pam bought a
house a five bedroom colonial on Remington Road in Winwood,
(27:29):
a neighborhood in Lower Merion Township just outside Philadelphia. Joe
also bought himself a sports car, a white dots and
two eight es. Everything seemed to be set up perfectly
for him. As the clock neared midnight on Wednesday, May five,
(27:52):
to Philadelphia police officers were patrolling the area around Fairmount
Park West, a huge burden pub look a park near
West Hilling. They noticed a car a white dots and
two eight z with one of its tail lights out.
When they approached the car, they saw a familiar face
inside Joe Bryant's. He was with a twenty one year
(28:16):
old woman who had been his girlfriend in high school.
The combustible nature and context of this situation cannot be
over emphasized. Here was Joe, a local celebrity, a young
man instantly recognizable to anyone with a passing interest in
the city sports scene, in a car late at night
(28:37):
with a woman who was not his wife. Here was
Philadelphia in the mid nineties seventies, crime ridden gang lead.
The city had experienced a one rise in violent crime
since the previous decade. Here were two white members of
the police department approaching a car driven by a black man.
(29:01):
Just a year earlier, a Pulitzer Prize winning series of
investigative articles in The Philadelphia Inquiry had revealed that several
cops had been engaged in coercive and illegal interrogation practices
that included handcuffing suspects chairs and beating them with blackjacks,
brass knuckles, and lead pipes. Each one of the people
(29:26):
in Fairmount Park that night had cause to be on guard.
Glands were pumping adrenaline and cortisol. Palms and brows were
wet with sweat. Joe got out of the car. The
officers asked him for his license and registration. Joe got
(29:46):
back in the car, but instead of handing over the documents,
he turned the key and sped off, heading south. He
didn't even bother to turn the headlights on. The chase
lasted three miles until Joe crashed his dots and into
a stop sign, a no parking sign, and finally a wall.
(30:11):
He jumped out of the car and tried to run.
Officer Robert Lombardi grabbed him. He raised his fist, Lombardi
said later, and I struck him. I subdued and handcuffed him,
subdued and handcuffed. It was soft language for a hard encounter.
Joe ended up in the hospital with six stitches. Inside
(30:34):
the car, police found two vials of cocaine. We did
our best to track down a contemporary TV or radio
news report about the incident to play for you, but
there weren't any out there. It just goes to show
you how different the media landscape was back in the
(30:55):
mid nineteen seventies. Joe was a big deal in Philadelphia,
a local hero. This story would have been all over
Twitter and social media if they had existed back then.
I was able to dig up several newspaper articles from
that time, all of which treated the incident like the
major news story that it was. Here's how the Philadelphia
Inquirer covered it. After a high speed chase, which ended
(31:18):
only after his car struck three parked vehicles and rammed
into a wall. Seventy six ers forward, Joe Bryant was
arrested on a charge of possession of cocaine. Police originally
approached the nineteen seventy two model Dotson in which he
was parked because one tail light was out. Bryant was
a Philadelphia basketball star, at Bartram High before entering LaSalle,
(31:42):
where he led the Big Five in scoring his junior season.
Joe was charged with drug possession, reckless driving, and two
counts of resisting arrest. At the trial a month later,
Joe's attorney, Richie Phillips, had twenty character witnesses testify on
his behalf, including several of his teammates. Joe's wife, father,
(32:06):
and baby daughter Shariah were all there too as a
united front. The judge ruled that the police's search of
Joe's car was illegal, and he dismissed the remaining charges.
Even though Joe's race had almost certainly played a role
in how he was treated by the police, he was
afraid that his actions had embarrassed the Sixers. The incident
(32:29):
happened during what was already a hectic year for the franchise.
Three weeks after Joe's arrest, the Sixers owner RV. Koslov
sold the team, and according to Pat Williams, Joe thought
that his mistake had led to Koslov's decision, And I
remember his reaction was that these actions of his had
(32:52):
prompted cause to sell the team. I remember he took
that seriously. That was not the case at all. That
sale was in the works and what's going to happen.
But Joe did feel guilty. You know that this might
have prompted cause to sell the team. It was all
new stuff. You know, nobody knew anything had drugs. Then
(33:14):
you've never heard anything. I do remember going to court
and speaking on his behalf. This is a fine young
man with a bright future, and he made a mistake.
It will never happen again. Please don't let anything damage
his career. Here. We need to uh, you know, keep
going the street and narrow. We'll keep an eye on him.
(33:35):
I think that was a wake up call to him,
and I think he took it very seriously that he
had been caught doing something that was embarrassing to him
into his family. It probably did affect his career in
his life. I don't think he ever got near anything
like that again, if you think about it. The aftermath
(34:10):
Joe's arrest wasn't all that different from the aftermath of
Kobe's arrest for sexual assault all those years later. The
charges and alleged crimes were different. Of course, Kobe's more
severe than Joe's, but just like with Kobe, there was
public shock over Joe's incident with the police, disbelief that
he could do something so dumb that he could put
(34:33):
his career at risk. His actions had threatened his marriage,
or seemed to anyway, and led the speculation that the
scandal would tarnish him forever. For some people. That's certainly
still the case with Kode. The difference was nothing much
about Kobe's career changed once the public interest in the
(34:53):
scandal started to fade. The Lakers didn't trade him, He
didn't decide to play somewhere else, though there were time
hims he considered it. He was a Laker, and he
remained a Laker. But even though Joe stayed out of
legal trouble from then on, he was never able to
establish a specific role with the Sixers or with any
(35:14):
other NBA team for the rest of his career. The
(35:38):
Sixers were a good team. They reached the finals in
nineteen seventy seven and were contenders for years thereafter, and
Joe had hoped he'd stay with them for a long time.
In August of ninety eight, Joe and Pam had their
third child, a boy. They named him Kobe, after the
famous beef of Kobe Japan. It was part of the
(36:00):
name of their favorite restaurant. His middle name was being
derived from his father's nickname, Jelly Beam. But Joe never
really justified all the hoopla around him in Philadelphia. He
was never anything more than a bench player for the Sixers.
In nineteen seventy nine, they traded him to one of
the NBA's worst teams, the San Diego Clippers, who in
(36:23):
turn traded him in two to another of the league's
worst teams, the Houston Rockets. That season was so bad
for Joe and the team that the Rockets owner offered
him a job afterwards as a salesman at one of
the Guys Car franchises. Joe was just twenty eight, He
had a wife and three kids. Where was his basketball
(36:47):
career headed? As it turned out, he was headed to Italy.
A friend of Joe's suggested he go play in Europe.
He could make good money there, He could play the
way he wanted to play. There, he could shoot whenever
he wanted. The Italian people would embrace him, they would
love him. So he and Pam decided that they and
(37:08):
their three kids, Shariah, Shaya, and Kobe, would go to Italy.
Kobe was five years old. Here he is talking to
Jeremy Treatment about the move. I didnt know, just because
we were going to that's what did. Joe signed with
(37:34):
a basketball club in Rea, a town on a hilltop
an hour north of Rome. It was a much more
relaxed style of life than in America. The team played
games once a week on Sundays. Kobe and his sisters
went to school six days a week, but just four
hours a day. The family didn't really know anybody there
and couldn't communicate clearly with many people. At first, the
(37:58):
isolation bonded them. It brought them closer together. Over there
were really by ourselves because we couldn't speak to the
Italian language and didn't have a lot of friends with it. Friends.
I had a bunch of sisters. There are my sholders.
I went to them playing trouble. Maybe something in school.
(38:20):
I had a problem school. I may company me. She
had a great good time to Gavin. That's that boy experience,
and that boy time experience gave me. I like thinking
about the past a lot. I like thinking about Italy
and all my friends down there. With a long way
I came to get to where I'm at now. That
(38:40):
keeps me going. I think it's always a motivating you
go back to your roots and see me you came
from Italy a whole in session. Yeah. Leon Douglas was
another American playing pro in Italy at the time. Douglas
and Joe Bryant had met in high school and then
reconnected in Europe. They eventually became teammates in another town, Thestoria,
(39:03):
and their families became friendly. My wife and his wife,
they participating things together. Covid and sister used to babysit
my daughter and whenever the birthday, they would all be
together during the birthday situation. But the families was cold
because who was in a situation way with us against
(39:24):
them more or less. And uh then to Apafrican American
families were finished family in structures that we sort of
looked out for each other. Great. You know. Covid idolized
his father. One wing was his whole basketball game was
basically Joe when Joe was young. You know, the way
(39:48):
he played in the NBA was similar to the ways
that his father played when I played with the offensively,
especially because during Cole I get there in the fourth year,
but I was watching him. I would always see him
do some of the things that his father did, like
a jump shot, like his drive and uh, a lot
(40:12):
of old guys that was in Europe, they all called
him a little Jim because of some of the things
that he did, similar to his sponsor. One day, Kobe
accompanied his dad on a long bus trip to a game.
The two of them sat with Douglas for the ride.
That didn't happen often because the fact that we didn't
(40:32):
allow him young people to travel with, especially if it
was over night game and this was the day game.
And why when while he was traveling, Joe started talking
about his grandparents and I think one of his grandparents
who was a minister, and she prompt sized that that
was going to be someone in the family that was
(40:54):
going to change the whole family structure, that was going
to do things but then family that had never been
done before, and there was going to be a legacy
and in itself. And uh, Joe and I were talking
and Joe made his coming. He said, well, he said,
I know it's not gonna be mean because I'm in
un and uh, looking around, it's hard to figure out
(41:17):
who it's going to be. And uh and Coba was
on the bus, and you know, he said, well, maybe
his him. But Joe was unshum. But he did prophesize
someone that prophesized him that this person was coming that
was going to change the family. Because of the pandemic,
(41:38):
I wasn't able to travel to Italy to visit Kobe's
old stomping grounds, but what I did do was by
a copy of Italiano Dinome Kobe, a book by Italian
journalist Andrea Barocci. The title in English means an Italian
named Kobe. Not too many people in the United States
have read the book, mostly because it's written in Italian,
(42:01):
but I have a longtime family friend who speaks the language,
and she translated the whole thing for me. One thing
that comes through clearly in the book is the manner
in which Joe and Pam raised their kids. Kobe in particular,
They disciplined him when it came to certain things, academics
(42:23):
being the big one. They sent him to private schools
while they lived abroad, but they indulged him when it
came to basketball. One day, when Kobe was nine, Joe
brought his son to practice with him, and Kobe got
up and started dribbling and shooting at the far end
of the court the coach. Joe's coach kind of laughed
(42:44):
at and said stay seated. Kobe's response was four words,
fuck you, fuck you. When he played organized basketball himself,
Kobe shot the ball more frequently than Joe did. He
shot at every time he had it. He might make
ten in a row, but the other kids wouldn't exactly
be thrilled with His grandfather back in the States would
(43:06):
mail in videos of basketball pros like Magic Johnson and
Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Michael Jordan's, and Kobe would study
them with his dad, picking up moves that he would
practice himself. Away from basketball, though, Kobe bonded not only
with his family but with some of his peers in Italy,
especially with the children of his father's friends and teammates.
(43:29):
Maybe the best example was Tamika Catchings, whose father, Harvey,
had played with Joe on the Sixers. Tamika, her sister Tauja,
and Kobe became fast friends, walking around town squares, sharing
slices of pizza, playing soccer together, and as to mek Up,
her breasted in her own basketball career as she went
(43:49):
on to win four Olympic gold medals, a w NBA Championship,
and a w n B A m v P Award.
She and Kobe stayed in touch. It's crazy to think,
and a lot of people were asked, just as far
as Kobe goes, a lot of people will ask what
was it like when we were growing up? And I'm like,
(44:10):
we were just kids. I don't think either one of
us at that point in time, what have ever dreamed
about the role that we were in and just the
opportunity that we had, both of our father's playing being
in a foreign country. I mean, it's not necessarily a
typical life of any child, and definitely not for us.
But at the time, we're on and you know, my
(44:32):
father only played for a year, we moved back to
the States, and then after that he moved back and
I just remember at that point in time when he
got drafted, calling my parents like, this is the Kobe
that we were just in Italy was right? And yeah,
it was. So he went to the pros. I went
to college four years after that, went to the w
(44:52):
n B A and the rest of his history lives intertwined.
The thing about it, when you look at it is
it's almost like a book. When you see the book
and you start filling it with the words and the chapters,
you've come just what's gonna be the storybook? In the
close one book, you start a new book. And that's
(45:13):
really for me. That's what I imagine. On Saturday May
two thousand twenty one, about a year and a half
after Kobe died, he and Tamika were inducted together into
(45:37):
the Nay Smith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. At the
end of the ceremony, Michael Jordan's held the hand of
Kobe's widow, Vanessa as he escorted her to the stage
to deliver a speech that her husband would have given.
If my husband were here tonight, he would have a
long list of people's saying that it helps inspire him
(46:00):
and equip him to be in the Hall of Fame.
Family friends, mentors, the Lakers, teammates, muses and opponents. This
is one of the many hard parts about not having
him here. At the risk of leaving anyone out, I
(46:20):
can only say thank you to all those who helped
him get here. You know who you are, and I
thank you on his behalf. It was supposed to be
the perfect coda to Kobe's life, to all the choices
that Joe and Pam Bryant had made that had led
(46:41):
to this moment. It was supposed to be the perfect
capstone to the Bryant family's basketball legacy. Instead, it was
bitter sweet. Kobe was gone, and the people who knew him,
who cheered for him, who admired him, all they could
do was remember him as he was, remember the journey
he had taken that was supposed to lead to that night,
(47:04):
to that moment. That journey had begun across an ocean,
in another country, in the place where he had first
embraced basketball, and where basketball embraced him when he first
realized what he was born to do. He was so
young then, but he carried that understanding and knowledge with
him through every stage of his life. In a way
(47:26):
that is so rare, so impressive. He was able to
reach the kind of heights and to be the kind
of figure we see only once every few generations. Joe
Bryant had been bitter about his career in the NBA.
He felt he got a raw deal. The team should
have recognized his talent and given him more of an
opportunity to put it on display, and he brought this
(47:48):
up to his son throughout Kobe's early life. That was
fuel to feed Kobe's fire. He wanted to restore his
father's reputation, his good name within basketball. He would do
what Joe hadn't done. He would bring it every practice,
every game, every day, every night. Kobe was determined to
(48:11):
be the player that his father should have been. In
the next episode, Kobe returns stateside and begins to conceive
of what he wants to do with his life. And
I'm going to tell you the story of how he
learned what he needed to do to get there. Who say, yeah,
you guys are not gonna win, and right, not gonna
(48:35):
win it like it's a big deal. I can's money
with the mouth. That's next week on I Am Kobe.
(48:58):
I Am Kobe is a product action of the Version
Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio. This season is
written and hosted by me Mike Sealsky. It's produced by
Jacob Bronstein and directed by Mark Francis. Story editing by
Jacob Bronstein, with editorial direction from Scott Waxman, Editing, mixing
and sound design by Mark Francis. Stephen Tompkins is our
(49:21):
production assistant Our theme music is Create Yourself by Grover
Brown featuring Justin Starling. Find Create Yourself wherever you stream music.
Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freesan Sink. Executive producers
are Mark Francis and Scott Waxman. Join the conversation about
(49:41):
I Am Kobe on social media on Twitter and Instagram.
It's at diversion Pods thanks to Orin Rosenbaum, Susan Cannavan
and Jeremy Treatment the Bob Flaw the Son. They don't
want to stand when I said to Brian is fun.
Never clack you out even where my work is done.
If they trying to block me, I might hurt someone
(50:02):
through the blood sweat and says we persefit, stay tilling it,
let it keep the hurses. And then if they don't
believe in themselves, they revert to find that the champion's heads.
So I'm telling them, ask my am, this the reason
why my work so damn different. Cert the negatives. I
can't mist see me at the time, you can't listen
for where I'm gonna vote to play like cash is
(50:23):
see I pay my dudes because of taxes, gotta work.
I think can grind ahead of his time. So I'm
saying that they made you. Don't tell them you create
yourself the besh you fin or watch us by this
by that time you gotta stay clock then break clock
break we create ourselves. Watch me Qua watch watch to
(50:43):
create myself. Exacli signs up. Create yourself, stay nice and
ain't go hard create yourself. You gotta learn from the
great minds that we ain't lying. To tell them that
anytime this town I wasn't giving it was d the future.
Any time I could change better tell them that I
(51:05):
made it back home. As I walked through the hearts
of the fame, I came from the valley of the Shadow,
with death waiting for us. Some spoons don't hold your breath,
sat Town sat trains. But I did it with less
I know one that to be so there's nothing to guess. Yeah,
there's nothing to guess. It's our times. Something we up next.
We don't got any regrests. I did it with my
soon hands, and we never forgets my a bit. The
(51:28):
reason why my work so damn different to the negatives.
I can't listen see me at the time. You can't
listen for where, rebuild, reshape, give me your eye. You
got to risk take do it now. When I'm saying
why waits, I was saying that they may you don't
tell them. You create yourself, then you Finn watch us
(51:49):
by it's by that time. You gotta snake clock, then
break clock, break we create ourselves. Watch me watch the
create my self exac client that clients I'm sell about
to create yourself. May nice and nays, go on, create yourself.
(52:10):
Gotta line for the great minds. But we ain't lying
telling next anytime, ye. Diversion podcasts
Diversion podcasts were welcome to the Quest of Palestrium. When
we first walked into the gym, we saw them people
outside waiting for takes, and I got I got chills
because it's starting to know that you came such a
long way and people are all here to watch you
play and watch you show your skills. And they gave
(00:26):
a lot of jilling and but I got I couldn't
really think about it. I just had to calm myself
down because if I came out with too much energy, job,
you're messing up. And turned the ball to narrable and
and then like that. At the intersection of thirty third
(00:47):
and South Streets in West Philadelphia, on the campus of
the University of Pennsylvania, stands a rectangular brick building that
is one of the most famous and revered sports arenas
in the world. It's the build in that Kobe Bryant
was talking about in that tape you just heard. The
building is called the Plestra. It was named appropriately by
(01:07):
a professor who taught Greek. It opened ninety four years ago,
and depending on what religious terminology you prefer, it is
usually referred to as the cathedral or the temple or
the mecca of college basketball and especially of Philadelphia a
basketball actually, by the standards of modern sports arenas, the
(01:32):
Polester is pretty tiny. It holds fewer than ten thousand
spectators eight thousand, seven dred and twenty two to be exact.
That's regarded as a magical and unforgettable number in Philly hoops.
Because the Polester is so small, Because everyone's on top
of each other, the building can get humid and it
can get loud. It's an electric place to see a game.
(01:54):
It's the home of the Penn Quakers. It's the home
of Philadelphia. Is Big five, all of them Division One
basketball teams in or around the city with storied local rivalries, Penn, Villanova, Temple, St. Joseph's,
and LaSalle. This tape from a seven matchup between Temple
and Saint Joe's paints a vivid image of the heat
(02:16):
and energized crowd at the Polestra could generate again. You're
looking live but the Plestra, a freezing rain has been
falling all day outside of Philadelphia. But they may not
need any money for great magnus. There may be enough
peat generated right there in the Plestra day to melt
all the ice and Philadelphia please devolved, whether they're ready
to get after one another again? Temple coming again, five
(02:38):
minity of an ay ten Saint jos to the four
and one who up the battle for the spot in
the leg race at the Rage the midway one of
the season, they are jammed in there. That remodels the
Palestra this year that now see that, I don't think
there's an MP seat end the place. The Polestra became
a very special place for Kobe, and we'll get into
(02:58):
why it was so special to whom in later episodes.
But the Briant family's connection to the Polestra actually started
a generation before Kobe. It started with Kobe's dad Joe,
I'm might seal see and from diversion podcasts, this is
I am Kobe. I write Wright State, create myself up,
(03:28):
Create yourself, say nice on, create yourself. You gotta learn
from the great minds. No, we ain't tell them that's
getting time. Episode two. The Bryant Family Legacy. If you
(03:51):
want to get to the heart of the Kobe Bryant story,
you have to start with the Joe Brian story, and
that means you have to start in the city where
Joe grew up, Piladelphia. One of the pieces of Kobe
story that tends to get glossed over is that his
dad also played in the NBA. It's treated as trivia.
It's true Joe Bryant spent eight years in the league,
(04:12):
but throwing out that fact and then moving on doesn't
capture the full picture of Joe's career because long before
Kobe Bryant was a high school legend around Philadelphia, Joe
Bryant was a high school legend in Philadelphia, and his
legend was every bit as grand as his sons. We
(04:35):
always thought that Joe was um. He was a one off, right.
He was a six nine guy who could dribble and
shoot it and pass. That's Mo Howard. He and Joe
have been friends for years. They've known each other since
high school when they were maybe the two best teenage
(04:57):
basketball players in Philadelphia. Mo on to play college ball
at Maryland and have a brief career in the NBA.
We always thought like, as we got older, we would
compare j b to sort of like Magic Johnson, right,
because at that time, big guys played near the basket.
But Joe had a very unique skill set because again
(05:21):
he was six and nine does a very very proficient
dribbler and passer, and he could shoot the ball, so
he was he was extraordinary as a high school player
because there were not many six nine guys like him.
(05:42):
To learn the full story of Kobe Bryant's father, you
can't just pop the name Joe Bryant into Google and
then wait half a second for the Internet to spit
some links and post set. You have to do what
I did one day during the summer. You have to
go to the library at Temple University in North Philadelphia
and its urban Archives. The library has hundreds of articles
(06:04):
from the Philadelphia Bulletin, which back in the nineteen sixties
and seventies had the largest circulation of any afternoon daily
newspaper in the country. The library had these newspaper clippings
and tiny Manila envelopes, and they were yellowed and fading
in brittle. I had to handle them gently because I
was afraid they would fall apart in my hands. But
(06:25):
in those clippings were details that showed just how much
Joe and Kobe had in common. There were some foreshadowing, there,
some connections and similarities. If you were willing to look
hard enough. I thought Kobe was a little more hard
and Joe, Joe were more of the smiling of canna
(06:48):
basketball player. This is Julius Thompson. He writes amazing novels
about basketball and basketball players now, but he started out
as a sportswriter. He spent ten years covering high school
sports at the Philadelphia Bolton in the nineteen seventies and eighties,
which means he covered Joe Bryant's entire career at Bartram
High School in southwest Philadelphia. I can see the one thing,
(07:11):
the agility and the quickness and the size. Now I
only the call I tell Kobe Joe Joe's sixtent. I
know that he was he plut six tent. Kobe made
a little smaller. But you can see the same talent.
You can see the same we'll want to be excellent.
You can see the same quickness, and you can see
the same move So so sometimes I watched Kobe, I
(07:34):
could almost see Joe, a little shorter virgin of Joe
on the on the on the court. Um shoot if
you can't wait to shoot the shoot, can shoot it
from going to the basket, hard, play strong. When he
had to and one thing I should people realized determination.
That's the thing I think, and that that will is
(07:54):
to be the best. And I saw that in the vote.
Philadelphia has had a share of young groups phenots. Of course,
before he scored a hundred points in one NBA game,
Wilt Chamberlain scored ninety in a game for Overbrooke High.
(08:18):
Tom Gola was the king of the city at Lassal
High School and at Las South College, where he won
a national championship. Into Golda still holds the n c
A record for most rebounds in a career. Earl top
of the gig road, right, what hey, what a player.
(08:43):
And then there's the legendary Hall of Famer Earl Monroe,
who proceeded Joe Bryant and far from high he could
have handled the ball like it was on a string.
Monroe became one of the most skilled guards the NBA
has ever seen. That clip of the pearl on MSG
net was just one of many highlights he would have
on a nightly basis. He was part of a generation
(09:05):
of players who brought the flare of street basketball to
the pros who made it mainstream. He also had maybe
the two coolest nicknames in basketball History, Black Jesus and
the poem. Here's Mo Howard. Back at that time, the
men who played on the seventies sixers and the pros
(09:27):
from Philadelphia played in the Baker League, and uh, prior
to any of the Baker League games, we had sunny
year games and were very approachable, right, I mean at
everybody in Philadelphia wanted to be any played basketball anyway,
wanted to have at least Earl spin move, right, you know.
(09:48):
I mean those guys influenced all of us, not just
in the basketball part, but you know as being part
of our community as well. You know, these guys, as
I said, with very approachable. They were very visible and
present in our community. So there were a few guys
that you know, we sort of kind of looked up to.
(10:10):
But I would have to say from my era it
was Earle Pearl Monroe and Joe Bryant grew up in
the same neighborhood and it was a pretty rough neighborhood.
There was crime, there were gangs. Joe once got stabbed
in the leg with a knife during a fight. But
his father, Joe Sr. Was tough and protective, and Joe
found solace in sports, football, track, and especially basketball. If
(10:34):
you could play on the playground courts of Philadelphia, you
could play just about anywhere. It was a lesson Joe's
son would learn too, because at that time he had
to understand there was gangs and there was a lot
of negative things going on in the community, and so
this was a way for kids to express themselves. And
a matter of fact, when I first started covering high
(10:57):
school sports in Philadelphia, there were no night games allowed
in the public League. Everything had to be on Tuesday
afternoon and on Thursday afternoon, and you had to have security.
Fans were not allowed. They gradually they brought the fans
come to the game, but it was kind of difficult era.
But then when the athletics started really exploding and people
(11:21):
started to get interest, there was a lot more people
going to the games, and the Polester with just the
ultimately you played the Polester. That was an incredible, incredible experience.
(11:57):
When Joe Bryant was a kid, Earl the Pearl was
his hero, his biggest basketball influence, which made Joe different
from just about every Philly high school star who had
come before. And see the Pearl was six ft three.
Joe wanted to play just like it. And he could,
and he did. Joe put the ball behind his back.
He worked on his spin moves. He aspired to be
(12:19):
as creative and flashy as the pearl. There was one
big difference though Joe wasn't six ft three, he was
six ft nine, and six ft nine players didn't do
the kinds of things that Joe could do. I'd like
to do stories and do picture stories, and so I
went and brought them, uh and I and I saw
(12:39):
him playing. I was just amazed at the agility and
did quickness, and the size and talent and multiple of
the personality, the great personality. He could just charm anybody
with the smile. As a senior in nineteen seventy two,
Joe average more than twenty seven points at seventeen rebounds
a game. He scored fifty seven points in one game
(12:59):
and had forty points and twenty one rebounds in another.
The newspapers in Philly, The Daily News, The Inquirer, the
Bulletin covered him like he played in the NBA already.
When Joe was in high school, they played a team
called Germantown High School with Mike Sojoona. Germantown was the
biggest team i've ever seen the high school basketball we
(13:22):
called the Johnny Green Giants. The shortest guy was six ft,
the only six points six five six seven six nine
seven seven one their only botch of had Joe and
another kid to call Maddy dog a rebound. Joe want
to term to win the game, and people said, they bought,
you can't win botcham can't do they botch of just
two Freeland. It was that's old McDonald's hall pat house.
(13:43):
Joe scored over forty points, took over the game, took
over the game. And that's that same determination to steely
when he had to be and I see that moreent.
Kobe Thompson is getting at something really important here, the
difference between Joe and b b between father and son.
Joe ratcheted up his competitiveness, his will to win only
(14:06):
sometimes when he absolutely had to. But of course this
is the quality that Kobe is probably most well known for.
He was at that peak level all the time, so
that steely kind of attitude, I'm gonna be the best.
Joe didn't have that all the time, but when he
did get it, like a net game. That's why he's
publicly champion. Because she said this is mine. I'm gonna
(14:29):
We're gonna win this, and he's stunned the Philadelphia basketball
I'm he absolutely stunned it. That's how fame worked back then.
There was no sports center, no Twitter, no social media
scuttle butt. There was just one newspaper headline after another
(14:49):
proclaiming that Joe Bryant was the next great Philly player.
The guys on the playgrounds gave him the nickname based
in an old Big band lyric, must bid love Ja,
That's who Joe was now jelly Beans. He even brad
to a reporter that he ate four pounds of jelly
beans a day. Was it true, didn't matter, It just
(15:11):
added to the legend I knew of Joe. Brody was
the same high school classes of me. And the only
game I really saw as the City championship came that
year and I went down to the Fluster to see it.
It was just it was just so exciting. It was
a packhouse. That's aren't tell Him, a native of West
Philadelphia and one of the most powerful sports agents of
(15:34):
the last half century. NBA stars Tracy McGrady, Anthony Davis, Russell, Westbrook,
Derek Rose, tell him represented all of them during his career.
He was also Kobe Bryant's first age tell Him and
Joe Bryant grew up not far from each other. Tell
Him had read about Joe in the local papers, had
heard about this kid who could play anywhere on the floor,
(15:58):
and he just had to see him for himself. When
Bartram met St. Thomas Moore in ninety two for Philly
High School Hoops Supremacy, tell him and moved out of
the city by then to Lower Merion Township, but he
made sure he was at the Palestra that day for
that game. And even though Joe and Bartram lost, tell
(16:19):
Him was fascinated by him. I just remember watching Joe.
The thing that struck me about Joe was that he
was a player that with his size, that could play
from any team, and I've never really seen that before.
Usually the the tallest guy on the team are one
of the biggest guy team was not bringing the ball
off the part. And what struck me about Joe orgists
as unbelieable skill level as a player from guy that size.
(16:43):
He know, he was a guy that was actually playing
point guard, you know, for his team. Joe was such
a brilliant high school player that he was selected to
play in the Dapper Dan round Ball Classic, an all
star game in Pittsburgh that pitted the best prospects from
Pencil Vania against high school standouts from the rest of
the country. It was the McDonald's All American Game before
(17:06):
the McDonald's All American Game, and it was founded and
organized by a former school teacher from Western Pennsylvania who
had turned himself into a basketball recruiter and promoter, Sonny Vacaro.
We'll hear more about Sonny later in Kobe's Story. Hey,
(17:33):
this is Mike Selsky, host and writer of I Am Kobe.
This podcast project came out of my work on a
related book called The Rise Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit
of Immortality. If you want to explore other parts of
Kobe's story, check out The Rise. It's not just a
book version of the podcast. I dive deeper into some
of the topics covered in this series, and even some
(17:55):
that we don't cover at all. Kobe's upbringing, his family,
his identity, his effect on his friends and teammates, his
journey into the n b A, and his earliest days
with the Lakers. The Rise Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit
of Immortality is out now. Just head over to the
Rise of Kobe book dot Com and you can buy
(18:16):
it from any of your favorite retailers. That's the rise
of Kobe book dot Com. Thanks. Nowadays, high school superstars
(18:45):
leave their hometowns for big national college programs all the
time Duke Kansas, North Carolina, Kentucky. That didn't happen as
much in the seventies. A great player was more likely
to stay local, which is exactly what Joe wanted to
do and exactly what he did do. He decided to
go to Lasau College. It would be comfortable, his family
(19:07):
would be able to see him play all his home games,
and the Lossale Explorers coach Paul west Head had his
team play a wide open style that suited Joe's game.
It wasn't quite as open as Barge from his running
gun style, but it was close. Here's west Head well,
Joe Briant was a multifaceted basketball party. He was, you know,
(19:29):
in modern terms, he was the six ten point guard
Jose Slemma was. When you were six ten back in
the seventies, no one saw you as a point guard.
But but Joe could handle the ball. Joe was a
great pass or a great shooter. He had vision for
the game. So his biggest asset was just give him
(19:51):
the ball and leave him alone and he will create
for you. He fought his whole career. I think you
not so much with me, but his whole career. People
didn't want to give him the ball. They wanted them
the position up either in the posts or down on
the baseline and then hopefully score for you. But he
wanted to be a handler. He was. He was a
(20:12):
player way ahead of his times. What were some of
the negatives, drawbacks, shortcomings he might have had as a player. Yeah,
he need to have a lot of shortcomings. I mean,
when when you can score it well, when you can
drive and jump over top of people, when you can
hit the outside shot, I mean he had some drawbacks.
(20:34):
I mean the years Ico show, the sal they banned
dunking because they were ruining brims that stopping games. So
the s C Double as a note, said no dunkings. Well,
Joe had a propensity to dunk the basketball. So his
shortcoming was he just couldn't resist a good dunk once
(20:54):
in a while. And and uh, but you can't call
them for that. Who was personality like Joe was about
as outgoing and as gregarious as you could finding a
basketball player. He was friendly, courteous, engaging. He easily put
his arm around team Mason. Hey, don't worry about that, Chad.
(21:18):
You okay, Maybe next time get me the ball and
I'll make the shot for a game. So so, Joe
always had a smile on his face. I don't ever
remember seeing Joe uh in an unhappy or unpleasant mode.
Joe didn't qualify academically to play as a freshman, so
he sat out a year to pull his grades up.
In his first college game in the fall of three,
(21:41):
he established himself immediately as the team's best player. His
debut was incredible. He had nineteen points and fifteen rebounds
and made three behind the back passes. He did a
little bit of everything, and LaSalle won by fifty. But
that game, the first of a double header at the Palestra,
(22:02):
was significant to Joe for another more lasting reason. Villanova
was playing in the doubleheader's nightcap and had a freshman
guard named John Cox who had grown up near Joe's neighborhood.
And John Cox had a sister, Pam Joe had had
a crush on Pam when they were younger, and when
they said hello to each other again in the palestra
(22:24):
that night, that was that they got married the following summer,
as they were entering their junior years of college. Their
personalities complimented each other. Joe was fun, loving and carefree.
Pam was strong will protective of Joe and her family.
She had been raised a devout Catholic. Those polarities would
(22:44):
to a great degree, come to define their son's life.
Joe and Pam's plan was to have Joe finish up
at LaSalle then entered the NBA after graduating. He had
pretty much proved by now that he was the best,
most talent player in the Big Five, and some people
believed that if Joe stayed in school through his senior year,
(23:06):
he would be the top pick in the nineteen NBA draft.
Here's writer Julius Thompson again, Joe was like poetry, emotion,
and he could hold the ball. He he was before
his era. Joe should have been the era and there
(23:26):
where you could have people, even the big guys, hand
the ball. At that time, you were told to take
you a big lankey behind get down on the block,
you know, put your back to the bad catch the ball.
But Joe said, Joe was a rebel. Joe could hound
the ball, he could run the offense, he could free land,
he could shoot, but only being Joe didn't like to do.
(23:50):
Joe did not like to rebound. He didn't like to
get down there and ball the big guys. He want
to be outside. He wanted to be pretty boy. And
everybody's lap at Joe being the pretty boy because he
he would just but he was absolutely fantastic to watch.
I cannot think of a player today that big and
that quick. I just came with a different era. He
(24:10):
had been ruling today. Everybody would have thought, he wow,
big man, can handle the ball, could do all kinds
of things. But Joe's dad, Joe Bryant, Sr. Fell and
broke a bone in his back, which many couldn't work anymore,
(24:33):
which meant Joe and Pam's plans had to change. After
LaSalle lost in the n c A Tournament, Joe withdrew
from several of his classes and lost interest in the
other ones. He got approval from the NBA to enter
the draft early. It didn't take much. He had to
show that he was what the league called an economic hardship,
(24:55):
which was pretty much a rubber stamp. The Golden State Warriors,
who had just won their first championship, took Joe with
the fourteenth pick in the first round. He was off
to the West Coast. He was going going gone, or
so he thought. The Warriors had a problem. They had
neglected to tender Joe a contract by the league's September
(25:16):
one deadline. It was a clerical error, but it was
a costly They had lost his rights. He could sign
with any team he wanted, and he wanted to sign
with the Sixers and stay in phil so he did.
The Sixers had been a pretty good team the year before,
and Joe figured he'd come in and play right away.
(25:37):
It didn't quite work out that way. Before the season began,
the team spent six million dollars a fortune at the
time to sign superstar Julius Irving, and Dr Jay's arrival
pushed Joe down on the depth chart, and when the
season did start, Joe kept shooting, even though he couldn't
make any of his shots. He missed thirty of his
(25:58):
first thirty six shots from the field. In time, Joe
got his Barracks. He played about sixteen minutes a game,
average seven or eight points in the not up to
his own expectations, but not bad for a rookie. Here's
longtime NBA executive Pat Williams, who was the Sixers general
manager at the time. He was multi talented, very colorful, flamboyant, exciting,
(26:23):
free willed big. He was a legitimate six nine athletic.
Could do things with the ball that were astounding. He
could handle it, and he could pass it, and he
was a showman. I can still see him up and
down the court. He could run. He he was not
a consistent shooter, and that's probably what limited him. You know,
(26:47):
he could score in spurts, but you would never call
him a consistent offensive force. So Joe would have moments
like that, you know, where he could he could churn
up an awful lot of offense ahead of following, you know,
Philly Kid, very popular with the Philadelphia fans. Hometown kid.
(27:08):
It worked in theory. But to have a first round
pick fall into your lap, you know, without without giving
up anything because of a clerical mistake, that was a
no brainer. On Christmas Eve, Joe and Pam bought a
house a five bedroom colonial on Remington Road in Winwood,
(27:29):
a neighborhood in Lower Merion Township just outside Philadelphia. Joe
also bought himself a sports car, a white dots and
two eight es. Everything seemed to be set up perfectly
for him. As the clock neared midnight on Wednesday, May five,
(27:52):
to Philadelphia police officers were patrolling the area around Fairmount
Park West, a huge burden pub look a park near
West Hilling. They noticed a car a white dots and
two eight z with one of its tail lights out.
When they approached the car, they saw a familiar face
inside Joe Bryant's. He was with a twenty one year
(28:16):
old woman who had been his girlfriend in high school.
The combustible nature and context of this situation cannot be
over emphasized. Here was Joe, a local celebrity, a young
man instantly recognizable to anyone with a passing interest in
the city sports scene, in a car late at night
(28:37):
with a woman who was not his wife. Here was
Philadelphia in the mid nineties seventies, crime ridden gang lead.
The city had experienced a one rise in violent crime
since the previous decade. Here were two white members of
the police department approaching a car driven by a black man.
(29:01):
Just a year earlier, a Pulitzer Prize winning series of
investigative articles in The Philadelphia Inquiry had revealed that several
cops had been engaged in coercive and illegal interrogation practices
that included handcuffing suspects chairs and beating them with blackjacks,
brass knuckles, and lead pipes. Each one of the people
(29:26):
in Fairmount Park that night had cause to be on guard.
Glands were pumping adrenaline and cortisol. Palms and brows were
wet with sweat. Joe got out of the car. The
officers asked him for his license and registration. Joe got
(29:46):
back in the car, but instead of handing over the documents,
he turned the key and sped off, heading south. He
didn't even bother to turn the headlights on. The chase
lasted three miles until Joe crashed his dots and into
a stop sign, a no parking sign, and finally a wall.
(30:11):
He jumped out of the car and tried to run.
Officer Robert Lombardi grabbed him. He raised his fist, Lombardi
said later, and I struck him. I subdued and handcuffed him,
subdued and handcuffed. It was soft language for a hard encounter.
Joe ended up in the hospital with six stitches. Inside
(30:34):
the car, police found two vials of cocaine. We did
our best to track down a contemporary TV or radio
news report about the incident to play for you, but
there weren't any out there. It just goes to show
you how different the media landscape was back in the
(30:55):
mid nineteen seventies. Joe was a big deal in Philadelphia,
a local hero. This story would have been all over
Twitter and social media if they had existed back then.
I was able to dig up several newspaper articles from
that time, all of which treated the incident like the
major news story that it was. Here's how the Philadelphia
Inquirer covered it. After a high speed chase, which ended
(31:18):
only after his car struck three parked vehicles and rammed
into a wall. Seventy six ers forward, Joe Bryant was
arrested on a charge of possession of cocaine. Police originally
approached the nineteen seventy two model Dotson in which he
was parked because one tail light was out. Bryant was
a Philadelphia basketball star, at Bartram High before entering LaSalle,
(31:42):
where he led the Big Five in scoring his junior season.
Joe was charged with drug possession, reckless driving, and two
counts of resisting arrest. At the trial a month later,
Joe's attorney, Richie Phillips, had twenty character witnesses testify on
his behalf, including several of his teammates. Joe's wife, father,
(32:06):
and baby daughter Shariah were all there too as a
united front. The judge ruled that the police's search of
Joe's car was illegal, and he dismissed the remaining charges.
Even though Joe's race had almost certainly played a role
in how he was treated by the police, he was
afraid that his actions had embarrassed the Sixers. The incident
(32:29):
happened during what was already a hectic year for the franchise.
Three weeks after Joe's arrest, the Sixers owner RV. Koslov
sold the team, and according to Pat Williams, Joe thought
that his mistake had led to Koslov's decision, And I
remember his reaction was that these actions of his had
(32:52):
prompted cause to sell the team. I remember he took
that seriously. That was not the case at all. That
sale was in the works and what's going to happen.
But Joe did feel guilty. You know that this might
have prompted cause to sell the team. It was all
new stuff. You know, nobody knew anything had drugs. Then
(33:14):
you've never heard anything. I do remember going to court
and speaking on his behalf. This is a fine young
man with a bright future, and he made a mistake.
It will never happen again. Please don't let anything damage
his career. Here. We need to uh, you know, keep
going the street and narrow. We'll keep an eye on him.
(33:35):
I think that was a wake up call to him,
and I think he took it very seriously that he
had been caught doing something that was embarrassing to him
into his family. It probably did affect his career in
his life. I don't think he ever got near anything
like that again, if you think about it. The aftermath
(34:10):
Joe's arrest wasn't all that different from the aftermath of
Kobe's arrest for sexual assault all those years later. The
charges and alleged crimes were different. Of course, Kobe's more
severe than Joe's, but just like with Kobe, there was
public shock over Joe's incident with the police, disbelief that
he could do something so dumb that he could put
(34:33):
his career at risk. His actions had threatened his marriage,
or seemed to anyway, and led the speculation that the
scandal would tarnish him forever. For some people. That's certainly
still the case with Kode. The difference was nothing much
about Kobe's career changed once the public interest in the
(34:53):
scandal started to fade. The Lakers didn't trade him, He
didn't decide to play somewhere else, though there were time
hims he considered it. He was a Laker, and he
remained a Laker. But even though Joe stayed out of
legal trouble from then on, he was never able to
establish a specific role with the Sixers or with any
(35:14):
other NBA team for the rest of his career. The
(35:38):
Sixers were a good team. They reached the finals in
nineteen seventy seven and were contenders for years thereafter, and
Joe had hoped he'd stay with them for a long time.
In August of ninety eight, Joe and Pam had their
third child, a boy. They named him Kobe, after the
famous beef of Kobe Japan. It was part of the
(36:00):
name of their favorite restaurant. His middle name was being
derived from his father's nickname, Jelly Beam. But Joe never
really justified all the hoopla around him in Philadelphia. He
was never anything more than a bench player for the Sixers.
In nineteen seventy nine, they traded him to one of
the NBA's worst teams, the San Diego Clippers, who in
(36:23):
turn traded him in two to another of the league's
worst teams, the Houston Rockets. That season was so bad
for Joe and the team that the Rockets owner offered
him a job afterwards as a salesman at one of
the Guys Car franchises. Joe was just twenty eight, He
had a wife and three kids. Where was his basketball
(36:47):
career headed? As it turned out, he was headed to Italy.
A friend of Joe's suggested he go play in Europe.
He could make good money there, He could play the
way he wanted to play. There, he could shoot whenever
he wanted. The Italian people would embrace him, they would
love him. So he and Pam decided that they and
(37:08):
their three kids, Shariah, Shaya, and Kobe, would go to Italy.
Kobe was five years old. Here he is talking to
Jeremy Treatment about the move. I didnt know, just because
we were going to that's what did. Joe signed with
(37:34):
a basketball club in Rea, a town on a hilltop
an hour north of Rome. It was a much more
relaxed style of life than in America. The team played
games once a week on Sundays. Kobe and his sisters
went to school six days a week, but just four
hours a day. The family didn't really know anybody there
and couldn't communicate clearly with many people. At first, the
(37:58):
isolation bonded them. It brought them closer together. Over there
were really by ourselves because we couldn't speak to the
Italian language and didn't have a lot of friends with it. Friends.
I had a bunch of sisters. There are my sholders.
I went to them playing trouble. Maybe something in school.
(38:20):
I had a problem school. I may company me. She
had a great good time to Gavin. That's that boy experience,
and that boy time experience gave me. I like thinking
about the past a lot. I like thinking about Italy
and all my friends down there. With a long way
I came to get to where I'm at now. That
(38:40):
keeps me going. I think it's always a motivating you
go back to your roots and see me you came
from Italy a whole in session. Yeah. Leon Douglas was
another American playing pro in Italy at the time. Douglas
and Joe Bryant had met in high school and then
reconnected in Europe. They eventually became teammates in another town, Thestoria,
(39:03):
and their families became friendly. My wife and his wife,
they participating things together. Covid and sister used to babysit
my daughter and whenever the birthday, they would all be
together during the birthday situation. But the families was cold
because who was in a situation way with us against
(39:24):
them more or less. And uh then to Apafrican American
families were finished family in structures that we sort of
looked out for each other. Great. You know. Covid idolized
his father. One wing was his whole basketball game was
basically Joe when Joe was young. You know, the way
(39:48):
he played in the NBA was similar to the ways
that his father played when I played with the offensively,
especially because during Cole I get there in the fourth year,
but I was watching him. I would always see him
do some of the things that his father did, like
a jump shot, like his drive and uh, a lot
(40:12):
of old guys that was in Europe, they all called
him a little Jim because of some of the things
that he did, similar to his sponsor. One day, Kobe
accompanied his dad on a long bus trip to a game.
The two of them sat with Douglas for the ride.
That didn't happen often because the fact that we didn't
(40:32):
allow him young people to travel with, especially if it
was over night game and this was the day game.
And why when while he was traveling, Joe started talking
about his grandparents and I think one of his grandparents
who was a minister, and she prompt sized that that
was going to be someone in the family that was
(40:54):
going to change the whole family structure, that was going
to do things but then family that had never been
done before, and there was going to be a legacy
and in itself. And uh, Joe and I were talking
and Joe made his coming. He said, well, he said,
I know it's not gonna be mean because I'm in
un and uh, looking around, it's hard to figure out
(41:17):
who it's going to be. And uh and Coba was
on the bus, and you know, he said, well, maybe
his him. But Joe was unshum. But he did prophesize
someone that prophesized him that this person was coming that
was going to change the family. Because of the pandemic,
(41:38):
I wasn't able to travel to Italy to visit Kobe's
old stomping grounds, but what I did do was by
a copy of Italiano Dinome Kobe, a book by Italian
journalist Andrea Barocci. The title in English means an Italian
named Kobe. Not too many people in the United States
have read the book, mostly because it's written in Italian,
(42:01):
but I have a longtime family friend who speaks the language,
and she translated the whole thing for me. One thing
that comes through clearly in the book is the manner
in which Joe and Pam raised their kids. Kobe in particular,
They disciplined him when it came to certain things, academics
(42:23):
being the big one. They sent him to private schools
while they lived abroad, but they indulged him when it
came to basketball. One day, when Kobe was nine, Joe
brought his son to practice with him, and Kobe got
up and started dribbling and shooting at the far end
of the court the coach. Joe's coach kind of laughed
(42:44):
at and said stay seated. Kobe's response was four words,
fuck you, fuck you. When he played organized basketball himself,
Kobe shot the ball more frequently than Joe did. He
shot at every time he had it. He might make
ten in a row, but the other kids wouldn't exactly
be thrilled with His grandfather back in the States would
(43:06):
mail in videos of basketball pros like Magic Johnson and
Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Michael Jordan's, and Kobe would study
them with his dad, picking up moves that he would
practice himself. Away from basketball, though, Kobe bonded not only
with his family but with some of his peers in Italy,
especially with the children of his father's friends and teammates.
(43:29):
Maybe the best example was Tamika Catchings, whose father, Harvey,
had played with Joe on the Sixers. Tamika, her sister Tauja,
and Kobe became fast friends, walking around town squares, sharing
slices of pizza, playing soccer together, and as to mek Up,
her breasted in her own basketball career as she went
(43:49):
on to win four Olympic gold medals, a w NBA Championship,
and a w n B A m v P Award.
She and Kobe stayed in touch. It's crazy to think,
and a lot of people were asked, just as far
as Kobe goes, a lot of people will ask what
was it like when we were growing up? And I'm like,
(44:10):
we were just kids. I don't think either one of
us at that point in time, what have ever dreamed
about the role that we were in and just the
opportunity that we had, both of our father's playing being
in a foreign country. I mean, it's not necessarily a
typical life of any child, and definitely not for us.
But at the time, we're on and you know, my
(44:32):
father only played for a year, we moved back to
the States, and then after that he moved back and
I just remember at that point in time when he
got drafted, calling my parents like, this is the Kobe
that we were just in Italy was right? And yeah,
it was. So he went to the pros. I went
to college four years after that, went to the w
(44:52):
n B A and the rest of his history lives intertwined.
The thing about it, when you look at it is
it's almost like a book. When you see the book
and you start filling it with the words and the chapters,
you've come just what's gonna be the storybook? In the
close one book, you start a new book. And that's
(45:13):
really for me. That's what I imagine. On Saturday May
two thousand twenty one, about a year and a half
after Kobe died, he and Tamika were inducted together into
(45:37):
the Nay Smith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. At the
end of the ceremony, Michael Jordan's held the hand of
Kobe's widow, Vanessa as he escorted her to the stage
to deliver a speech that her husband would have given.
If my husband were here tonight, he would have a
long list of people's saying that it helps inspire him
(46:00):
and equip him to be in the Hall of Fame.
Family friends, mentors, the Lakers, teammates, muses and opponents. This
is one of the many hard parts about not having
him here. At the risk of leaving anyone out, I
(46:20):
can only say thank you to all those who helped
him get here. You know who you are, and I
thank you on his behalf. It was supposed to be
the perfect coda to Kobe's life, to all the choices
that Joe and Pam Bryant had made that had led
(46:41):
to this moment. It was supposed to be the perfect
capstone to the Bryant family's basketball legacy. Instead, it was
bitter sweet. Kobe was gone, and the people who knew him,
who cheered for him, who admired him, all they could
do was remember him as he was, remember the journey
he had taken that was supposed to lead to that night,
(47:04):
to that moment. That journey had begun across an ocean,
in another country, in the place where he had first
embraced basketball, and where basketball embraced him when he first
realized what he was born to do. He was so
young then, but he carried that understanding and knowledge with
him through every stage of his life. In a way
(47:26):
that is so rare, so impressive. He was able to
reach the kind of heights and to be the kind
of figure we see only once every few generations. Joe
Bryant had been bitter about his career in the NBA.
He felt he got a raw deal. The team should
have recognized his talent and given him more of an
opportunity to put it on display, and he brought this
(47:48):
up to his son throughout Kobe's early life. That was
fuel to feed Kobe's fire. He wanted to restore his
father's reputation, his good name within basketball. He would do
what Joe hadn't done. He would bring it every practice,
every game, every day, every night. Kobe was determined to
(48:11):
be the player that his father should have been. In
the next episode, Kobe returns stateside and begins to conceive
of what he wants to do with his life. And
I'm going to tell you the story of how he
learned what he needed to do to get there. Who say, yeah,
you guys are not gonna win, and right, not gonna
(48:35):
win it like it's a big deal. I can's money
with the mouth. That's next week on I Am Kobe.
(48:58):
I Am Kobe is a product action of the Version
Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio. This season is
written and hosted by me Mike Sealsky. It's produced by
Jacob Bronstein and directed by Mark Francis. Story editing by
Jacob Bronstein, with editorial direction from Scott Waxman, Editing, mixing
and sound design by Mark Francis. Stephen Tompkins is our
(49:21):
production assistant Our theme music is Create Yourself by Grover
Brown featuring Justin Starling. Find Create Yourself wherever you stream music.
Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freesan Sink. Executive producers
are Mark Francis and Scott Waxman. Join the conversation about
(49:41):
I Am Kobe on social media on Twitter and Instagram.
It's at diversion Pods thanks to Orin Rosenbaum, Susan Cannavan
and Jeremy Treatment the Bob Flaw the Son. They don't
want to stand when I said to Brian is fun.
Never clack you out even where my work is done.
If they trying to block me, I might hurt someone
(50:02):
through the blood sweat and says we persefit, stay tilling it,
let it keep the hurses. And then if they don't
believe in themselves, they revert to find that the champion's heads.
So I'm telling them, ask my am, this the reason
why my work so damn different. Cert the negatives. I
can't mist see me at the time, you can't listen
for where I'm gonna vote to play like cash is
(50:23):
see I pay my dudes because of taxes, gotta work.
I think can grind ahead of his time. So I'm
saying that they made you. Don't tell them you create
yourself the besh you fin or watch us by this
by that time you gotta stay clock then break clock
break we create ourselves. Watch me Qua watch watch to
(50:43):
create myself. Exacli signs up. Create yourself, stay nice and
ain't go hard create yourself. You gotta learn from the
great minds that we ain't lying. To tell them that
anytime this town I wasn't giving it was d the future.
Any time I could change better tell them that I
(51:05):
made it back home. As I walked through the hearts
of the fame, I came from the valley of the Shadow,
with death waiting for us. Some spoons don't hold your breath,
sat Town sat trains. But I did it with less
I know one that to be so there's nothing to guess. Yeah,
there's nothing to guess. It's our times. Something we up next.
We don't got any regrests. I did it with my
soon hands, and we never forgets my a bit. The
(51:28):
reason why my work so damn different to the negatives.
I can't listen see me at the time. You can't
listen for where, rebuild, reshape, give me your eye. You
got to risk take do it now. When I'm saying
why waits, I was saying that they may you don't
tell them. You create yourself, then you Finn watch us
(51:49):
by it's by that time. You gotta snake clock, then
break clock, break we create ourselves. Watch me watch the
create my self exac client that clients I'm sell about
to create yourself. May nice and nays, go on, create yourself.
(52:10):
Gotta line for the great minds. But we ain't lying
telling next anytime, ye. Diversion podcasts
Host
Mike Sielski
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