Finding the Real Bryant Was Never Easy Search

To much of the world -- especially to basketball fans -- Kobe Bryant’s life looked like a straight line, a rocket shot to stardom.

A prodigy who jumped from high school to the Lakers, Bryant performed with confidence beyond his years. By the time his peers were getting out of college, he was a perennial All-Star and potential Hall of Famer.

He had the looks and the money. He even spoke Italian.

But the truth about him never was that simple.

Even as he helped the Lakers to three consecutive National Basketball Assn. championships, Bryant demanded a bigger role in the offense, feuding with fellow superstar Shaquille O’Neal and Coach Phil Jackson.

His face was plastered across television and magazines, the heir apparent to Michael Jordan. At the same time, he remained aloof from teammates, huddling near the back of the team bus, a cell phone pressed to his ear.

Now another facet has been added to this complex portrait: the announcement Friday that Bryant will be charged in the alleged rape of a hotel employee in Colorado.

Bryant, who is married and has a young daughter, acknowledged having sex with the alleged victim, though he said it was consensual.

No longer can Bryant, 24, be considered squeaky clean, too wholesome for some basketball shoe companies that prefer edgier stars, streetwise guys.

A trial pending, his popularity with fans and corporate sponsors in jeopardy, people who know him suspect Bryant must rely on yet another aspect of his personality that belies the grin and casual grace.

Jackson calls it his “headstrong nature.” This quality dates to his days at Lower Merion High in Pennsylvania.

“I could see him drawing on his internal fortitude in this situation,” said Gregg Downer, the school’s coach for 13 seasons. “There’s no person I’d rather be in a foxhole with.”

Unlike many stars in the league who emerged from the inner city, Bryant was a child of relative privilege.

The son of a former NBA player, Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, he spent much of his youth in Italy where his father finished a long professional career. He became fluent in the language and learned the NBA game through videotapes sent from Philadelphia by his grandfather, John Cox.

The Bryants returned to Philadelphia in the early 1990s and Kobe became a star at Lower Merion High.

“He was kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity from a coaching standpoint,” Downer said.

“He had an unbelievable work ethic. Often, your best players are your hardest-working players, but I’ve never seen it happen to the extent that it did with him.”

As a team leader, Bryant spoke up only occasionally.

“He would call you on things if you weren’t doing it right,” his coach said.

Otherwise, classmates remember him as quiet, someone who kept to a select crowd.

“He had his teammates, his small group of friends, and people that were attached to his meteoric rise,” said John Farber, a Lower Merion alumnus.

“I think he preferred having a group of people around him that he knew were truly his friends, and didn’t trust other students as much.”

On court, his skills were dazzling, the way he accelerated past opponents and launched himself for dunks.

When he decided to forgo college, the Charlotte Hornets selected him with the 13th pick in the 1996 draft, and the Lakers quickly acquired him by trading away center Vlade Divac.

That summer, Jerry West, the former Laker general manager, signed O’Neal as a free agent. The veteran center promised to act as Bryant’s big brother.

But in a sign of things to come, Bryant politely announced that no such help would be necessary.

His new teammates learned not to ask questions of him lest they be perceived as prying, said people close to the team. They learned that with Bryant, there was little wiggle room. The relationship with O’Neal turned from distant to nasty. Bryant demanded more of the spotlight, then bristled at suggestions he was selfish.

There were fights with opponents Chris Childs and Reggie Miller on the court. A tussle with teammate Samaki Walker erupted on a bus.

In the midst of the 2001-02 season, Bryant tried to explain that his life wasn’t nearly as easy as fans might have imagined.

“If you were to walk in my shoes last season, and then go through the ups and downs, to play well, to be criticized, the stuff with Shaq, the playoffs, it’s like an emotional roller coaster,” he told The Times.

Amid all this came changes in Bryant’s personal life. He had a falling out with his father. He was courting his soon-to-be wife, Vanessa.

Jackson, who arrived in 1999, understood his player’s frustration.

“There are many events that go into a young person’s life, especially when you’re 22 and making big decisions, like getting married, when to get married, your basketball team and how you’re going to play,” Jackson said after the 2001 championship. “And, your coach is attacking you half the damned time when you’re playing the way you want to play.”

Last season, the coach also talked about Bryant’s seemingly contradictory traits.

“Willfulness and stubbornness are both in the same characteristics,” Jackson said . “So, when you’re willful, that’s what gets you here in the NBA, and that’s what makes you a great player sometimes. When you’re stubborn, that can delay your progress.”

But all these bumps and hiccups were overshadowed by Bryant’s success.

He had become a perennial All-Star, cementing his status as one of the greatest in the game.

He was a fan favorite too, going out of his way to sign autographs and embrace children who came to see him play.

The national media doted and companies such as McDonald’s, Adidas and then Nike paid him millions to be their spokesman.

Even the rough spots seemed to smooth out, the young star maturing in recent seasons, finding a middle ground in his relationships with O’Neal and Jackson.

“I’m not going to say he’s turned 180 degrees,” Jackson said after the Lakers won their second title in 2001. “But there’s certainly been a 90-degree swing of character, from his receptivity to his communication with his teammates and the working people in the organization.”

He had the looks of a team player and a family man -- he and Vanessa had a daughter, Natalia Diamante, on Jan. 19.

All of which made it easier to see him in that squeaky-clean light. And made the events in Colorado more startling.

Downer, the Lower Merion coach, called the situation “extremely out of character for him.”

A former teammate expected “that it would turn out [the alleged victim] was lying or something, and it would just go away.”

“Now it’s happening,” said Guy Stewart, who played beside Bryant in 1995. “And I just can’t believe it.”