True to His School

Sabotage high school games?

If Laker Coach Phil Jackson had any proof to back up his statement that his superstar guard, Kobe Bryant, might have been the bad seed for the Lower Merion High Aces, he certainly didn’t get it from Lower Merion basketball Coach Gregg Downer, whose two-story apartment is a shrine to Bryant and his teammates on the 1996 state championship team.

Jackson didn’t get it from Lower Merion English teacher John Osipowicz, who is a fan of Kobe Bryant, the writer.

Jackson didn’t get it from former Lower Marion assistant coach Mike Egan, who says, “Watching Kobe in high school, you could see the difference between a good player and a great one. He not only wanted to win every game, but every drill, every practice. He wanted to win scrimmages 11-0. People who know Kobe know he would not tank one trip downcourt. He had such a killer instinct, he wanted to rip your heart out every time down the court.”

Jackson didn’t get it from Lynne Freedland, a Lower Merion teacher whose eyes sparkle at the mention of Bryant’s name.

Nor did Jackson get it from Lower Merion assistant coach Drew Downer, who remembers how Bryant made it a point to call him in Atlanta to let him know he was jumping to the pros before holding a news conference.

Earlier this season, when the Bryant-Shaquille O’Neal feud was an open sore festering on the Laker roster, Jackson told the Chicago Sun-Times, “Someone told me that, in high school, Kobe used to sabotage his own games. So the game could be close. So he could dominate at the end. To sabotage the team process, to be so self-centered in your own process, it’s almost stupefying.”

Bryant and Downer said they were stupefied by the claim, labeling it “ridiculous.”

Jackson has since apologized for the remark.

The only thing that was sabotaged in the eyes of the Lower Merion faithful was Bryant’s good name.

“When Kobe was here, he knew where he was headed,” Freedland said, “but he never held himself up to be a hotshot. He was always a gentleman. He was always respectful. Neither he nor his parents ever asked for anything special.”

Just the opposite.

Amid the euphoria of graduation in 1996, Bryant found the time to make his way to the school cafeteria to give each of the workers a hug.

“He just wanted to thank them for feeding him for four years,” Freedland said.

The Phenom

Sabotage games?

Downer figured he had found someone who was going to win a lot of games for him when he heard about this phenomenal 13-year-old basketball player, an eighth-grader at nearby Balacynwood Middle School.

Freedland remembers her daughter, Susan, walking through a carnival with young Bryant. Susan kept seeing these huge stuffed animals and kept asking Bryant to win them for her by shooting baskets.

Swish, swish, swish, one animal.

Swish, swish, swish, two animals.

Swish, swish, swish, three animals.

At that point, Bryant was politely asked to leave.

Not by Downer. He invited the 6-foot-2, 140-pound Bryant to work out with his varsity, kids who were taller, stronger and up to five years older than the boy wonder.

“After watching him for five minutes,” Downer recalled, “I turned to someone and said, ‘This kid is a pro.’ ”

That’s because he learned from a pro.

Bryant’s father is Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, who played on three NBA teams--the Philadelphia 76ers, San Diego Clippers and Houston Rockets--over eight seasons.

In 1983, the senior Bryant, wishing to prolong his career, went to Europe, taking along his family--wife Pam and daughters Sharia and Shaya, along with 5-year-old Kobe. Over there, the Bryants bonded ever closer, and even learned to speak Italian together.

Coming back to the United States at 13, the younger Bryant ran into culture shock. He needed a translator to understand street slang.

But as long as he had a basketball in his hands and his family to back him, he was comfortable.

While Joe would never step on the toes of his son’s coaches, he was always there in the stands for Kobe, cheering him on, offering a tip or pointing out a bad move. The two spoke loudly and clearly. In Italian.

A Championship Season

Sabotage games?

Bryant made the Lower Merion varsity starting lineup as a freshman and he and the team improved each season.

The Aces went from 4-20 in Bryant’s first season to 20-6, then to 26-5 and the state quarterfinals, and finally to 31-3 and the state championship.

Bryant’s scoring average went from the mid-teens to the 20s to the 30s, according to Downer, who didn’t record the exact figures.

But, said Bryant’s coach, what he remembers more than numbers are the intangibles that made those numbers possible. It might have been tempting for Bryant to play on cruise control and work on his form for dunk contests since he was already clearly the best player at a school located in a plush suburb where the elegant colonial homes in nearby Gladwyne start at half a million dollars.

No playground wars for Bryant, but he found a way to start his own wars.

“He was the hardest-working player I ever had,” Downer said. “He would be in the weight room lifting six or seven days a week. I give a blueprint to my players to follow. Some follow it nicely and some don’t. He followed it precisely.

“We start school here at 7:30. When there is heavy snow, we have what we call a late opener, meaning 9:30. It didn’t matter to Kobe. He’d be here at 6 a.m. to practice.”

It wasn’t all sweetness between the player and his coaches.

“I remember we were putting in a defense where we wanted Kobe on the post,” Egan said, “and he wanted to go behind the post to block shots. I thought, ‘This kid is a pain.’ But when he saw what we wanted to do, he went along with it.

“He’s stubborn and can be hard-headed, but that’s because he’s so knowledgeable about the game. It’s never an ego thing with him. Sometimes it’s misinterpreted, but it’s never about anything other than doing his best for his team to win. I really believe that.”

Lower Merion was defeated by archrival Chester High by 27 points in the district finals in Bryant’s junior season and then was defeated by Chester again a few months later in a summer-league game.

“At Chester,” Downer said, “if the coach doesn’t win every year, he’s considered a bozo and he just might get shot.”

But after two losses to Chester, it was Bryant who took aim at his teammates.

“It was the first time I ever saw Kobe lose it,” Egan said. “He exploded at the team after that summer-league loss. He told them, ‘You have four months to get ready for the season. Bleep, bleep bleep. Be ready by the time practice comes.’ ”

Early in the 1995-96 season, Bryant’s senior year, he fouled out with a minute to go against Jenks High, an Oklahoma school. The game went into overtime where the Aces, without their ace, collapsed, losing by 17.

“That was the only other time I saw Kobe, who was usually not a very vocal guy, explode,” Egan said. “He told his teammates, ‘When you step on the court, you can’t be scared of anybody.’ ”

That loss dropped the Aces to 4-3. They didn’t lose again that season, winning 27 in a row on the way to the state title.

As good as his team was, Downer wasn’t fooling himself into thinking his coaching genius was the key.

“We were one Kobe sprained ankle away from being beaten by anybody we played,” Downer said.

Lower Merion faced hated Chester in the state semifinals. Bryant had broken his nose in practice and was given a face guard. In the locker room before the game, he ripped it off, went out and scored 39 points and Lower Merion won in overtime.

Sabotage games?

Success Story

Bryant is remembered at Lower Merion as a good student, who scored 1,100 of a possible 1,600 on the Scholastic Assessment Test.

Osipowicz remembers a short story Bryant wrote about basketball for his class. In it, the main character has a chance to win a game with two free throws.

He misses both of them.

“I thought that was interesting,” Osipowicz said. “It was the only time I sensed any doubt in him, fleeting as it was. I think he realized it was possible he was not going to succeed every time. Even though everybody was telling him how great he was, he knew he could fail. He was a pretty mature kid in high school.”

Failure wasn’t in the minds of his classmates who voted Bryant Most Likely To Succeed.

And now that he has?

“We are so proud of the way he has handled himself through all of this success with dignity,” Freedland said. “We liked owning him for a few years, but we know we don’t own him anymore.”