The meteoric rise of the teenage Kobe Bryant made him a nationwide high school sensation in the early 1990s. His talents even made a university hire his father, Joe Bryant, as an assistant coach. The move occurred solely to improve their chances of recruiting the shooting guard somewhere down the line. Jeff Pearlman shed light on that period as he revealed the intricate details in his book, Three Ring Circus.
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Kobe joined the Lower Merion High School in Pennsylvania in 1992, ahead of taking the basketball circuit by storm. Thus, by the fall of 1995, the teenager had received offers from several prestigious colleges to join them as a freshman the following year. Institutions such as Duke, North Carolina, UCLA, USC, Delaware, Drexel, Villanova, and Temple were allegedly interested in recruiting him.
Amidst the intense competition over securing his services, a local university La Salle had started to plan ahead long ago. In 1993, their basketball head coach Speedy Morris hired the institution’s alumnus, Joe, as his assistant coach. Despite officially citing that his inclusion resulted from the departure of the previous assistant coach, Randy Monroe, the reality was something else.
Decades since then, Morris candidly admitted the ulterior motives, raising the question, “Did I think it’d help us get Kobe? Yes. Of course. Joe was not a good assistant coach. He didn’t work hard, he didn’t actually know that much. Nice guy. But he was there so we’d get his son,” the Philadelphia-born mentioned.
This further proved the nationwide obsession of the universities in recruiting Kobe to their program. While the established institutions attempted to persuade the teenager, the underdogs took a seemingly unethical approach to fulfill their goals. So, it’s fair to say that both sides met with equal disappointment as after scoring 2883 points in high school, the 6ft 6″ guard pushed his limit beyond their imagination.
Kobe Bryant went to the NBA
A few months before the 1996 NBA draft, a 17-year-old Kobe had called for a press conference to declare his future. He walked out to the table in front of the room, embracing an oversized suit with designer sunglasses perched on his head. “Kobe Bryant has decided to skip college and take his talents to the NBA,” he announced with a smile while leaning into the microphone.
The entire instance left everyone in disbelief as ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap once mentioned, “He wore sunglasses. Sunglasses! And they may well have been drugstore shades, but they looked Armani on him. It was hard to accept the total lack of humility and the sort of Hollywood quality to it. I’d been around Michael Jordan, I’d been around Charles Barkley, but I’d never seen anything so showoffish”.
Two decades since then, the resistance turned into appreciation as Kobe left the league with five titles amongst various other achievements. At the time, it was undoubtedly a decision that raised many eyebrows. However, over time, it bore incredible results and only inspired fans more as time went on.
Thus, the months leading to that moment changed the perception of college basketball and the NBA. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the rule that disallowed athletes in high school to declare for the NBA draft, there’d likely be many more players today who would try to go pro right after graduating as well.
