Engaging Young Man Meets His Match

Just because you’ve become a young man now/ There’s still some things that you don’t

understand now/Before you ask some girl for her hand now/Keep your freedom for as long as you can now.

From “Shop Around,” by the Miracles

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Kobe Bryant may take sage advice from lots of people--his parents, Laker coach Phil Jackson, L.A. Times sportswriters--but he obviously doesn’t pay any mind to Smokey Robinson.

Forty years ago, Robinson crooned this bit of advice for young people contemplating marriage: “My mama told me, you better shop around.”

So what does the 21-year-old Bryant do? Not only does he refuse to shop around, he announces his engagement to an 18-year-old senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach.

Kids. You can’t tell ‘em anything.

Like everyone else in the office, I couldn’t think of anything else last Friday but the impending nuptials of Bryant and Vanessa Laine. And like everyone else in the office, I didn’t know why we’re talking about it.

It just seemed like the thing to do.

We sent a reporter out to Ms. Laine’s high school, and he joined the other reporters out there and, once they got there, what do you ask a bunch of high schoolers about one of their classmates’ decision to marry a basketball superstar?

Uh. Well. What’s her favorite subject?

I wouldn’t be able to think of anything, either.

But that is not to suggest that Ms. Laine and Bryant have nothing in common: at this very moment, both should be preparing for finals. I don’t know what subjects Ms. Laine is up against at Marina, but I doubt they’re as tough as Scottie Pippen and Rasheed Wallace.

A Real Breadwinner

As a caring adult, my only fear is that young Ms. Laine has no idea what she’s in for. I don’t know if she can spell “paparazzi” (I had to look it up too) but she will suddenly become their prey. I presume she and Bryant have discussed all this, and they’ve decided to soldier on. But it was almost quaint how Kobe didn’t want to identify her on the air the other night.

As if he plans to conceal her identity.

In the same story in which he wouldn’t name her, her name appeared--thanks to her classmates at Marina. Not that it took any real sleuthing on the media’s part: We just asked around as to which girl on campus was sporting a 7-carat diamond ring.

Like a lot of young couples (Kobe and Vanessa are the same ages as my parents when they married in 1944), they’ll face some adjustment problems.

Unlike my parents, however, they will be doing it with $70 million in the bank, which is the size of the contract Bryant signed last year. Who knows, maybe that’ll make their lives easier.

I hope I’m not talking out of school by mentioning to Ms. Laine that the contract is only for six years. After that, it’s start-over time for Kobe. And does she know that her husband will be spending much of his life in the triangle offense?

When he signed the new contract, Kid Kobe told The Times that he was in no hurry to move out of his parents’ home in Pacific Palisades. “There’s a lot of things I want to learn, as far as like taking care of the house and getting in habits of cleaning up the house, cooking . . . that I’m really not doing right now.”

That was Kobe in January 1999. And now, just 16 months later, our little man wants to get married.

If I’m coming across as less than joyous, my apologies. I’m genuinely happy, if for no other reason that it gives Orange County a celebrity not named Dennis Rodman.

Besides, Bryant has always struck me as mature beyond his years. To give up groupies at age 21 is laudable, and one hopes he can pick a bride as well as hit a game-winner.

As for you, Ms. Laine, get ready for the biggest exam of your life. If you’re lucky, it’ll stretch out over the next 60 or 70 years and you’ll be able to look back and laugh at all the hubbub the day everyone learned you were going to marry that young guy that reminded people of Michael Jordan.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com