![]() ![]() In my junior year, we played Worthing High, a conference rival, and Dwight Davis, who would become the number-three pick in the 1972 NBA draft, dunked on me. I played two years of varsity basketball at Bellaire High School in Houston. It’s not as if I’d never shared the court with a great baller. “I’ve got a deal with Sprite.”Ī minute later, there I was on the court, shooting with Kobe. “Amazing,” I said and, to change the subject, “Hey, Kobe, shoot you from midcourt for a Coke?” ![]() I couldn’t bear to tell him the truth - they were uglier than bowling shoes. I was talking to a superstar and a millionaire, but at that moment I understood that Kobe was also a gleeful teen not much older than my students and so proud of those sneakers. “Hey, how do you like my shoes? I’ve got a deal with Adidas.” “They’re going to kick themselves for not hanging around.” “Oh, man,” Kobe said, “I’d have loved that.” So, I uncharacteristically walked over and introduced myself, letting him know that the guys on the Pali High varsity basketball team had hoped he would run with them at practice. I feel at home in a classroom and on a basketball court but shy just about everywhere else. I should welcome him to the Pali High gym. ![]() But despite these differences, the thought that ran through my brain was: We’re both ballers. I had a son who had recently been bar mitzvahed. Kobe Bryant was 6 feet 6 inches, 215 pounds. He exchanged a few words with Margot, the journalist from Life, and then stood back and watched. I hadn’t eaten since noon, and, just as I was contemplating going to the table for a doughnut, Kobe, dressed ready to ball, walked in. I moved to the sidelines to watch as they pulled yards of cable across the court, erected a platform to cover the three-second zone, and set up a table with Gatorade, orange slices, and doughnuts. I was shooting hoops in the gym when, at 6:15, a camera crew appeared and began to mount light stands high above the backboard. I felt a deep need to check out Kobe’s game - up close.īy 5:45, only the maintenance crew and I remained. I was one of the stalwarts, a die-hard fan willing to wait hours to see a star - a basketball obsessive. ![]() By 5 p.m., only the boys’ and girls’ varsity basketball teams and a few others remained. So, that day, after the last bell rang at 3, I hung around with 30 basketball lovers and Laker fans to check out this young phenom.īy 4 p.m., the crowd had thinned. The Showtime Lakers of Kareem, Magic, Coop, and Big Game James were a thing of the past, but, with Kobe and Shaquille O’Neal on board, Angelenos were dreaming of another dynasty, and even I, who prided myself on not falling for hype, couldn’t resist being curious. In the village, where we teachers regularly strolled to grab lunch at Gelson’s Market, we were likely to cross paths with someone who had won an Oscar, an Emmy, or a Grammy.īut that day just felt plain different. Now, on most school campuses, the presence of any celebrity visit causes a stir, but at Pali High famous actors dropped off their kids daily, and schedules often were rearranged to accommodate a movie shoot. Colleagues were buzzing about a Life magazine photoshoot. Lakers rookie, was on his way to our campus. In 1996, I was an English teacher at Palisades Charter High in Pacific Palisades, a Westside neighborhood in Los Angeles, when I heard a rumor that Kobe Bryant, the 18-year-old L.A. Best shooting guard build 2k22 current gen.Like a lot of guys, I know I’ve spent more time in my life playing, watching, and thinking about basketball than doing almost anything else. ![]()
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