Kobe Bryant High School Story & Photo

The following is a high school memory from Evan Monsky, a teammate of Kobe Bryant’s at Lower Merion from 1993-1995. While Kobe went on to stardom in the NBA, Evan was cut when he attempted to walk-on at the University of Maryland. Years later, Evan would redeem himself by leading the Milwaukee Bucks to the championship in NBA Live ’08 against former Terrapin Juan Dixon and the Portland Trailblazers. Evan currently writes a blog called TV My Wife Watches where he writes about just that.

During Kobe’s junior year, I got a fresh, new pair of Nike Uptempos for the playoffs. They were sweet. And when Kobe saw them, he too said that he wanted a pair. “Some girl told me she was gonna buy me some sneaks,” Kobe said. “Where can she get ‘em?”

“What?” I replied. “Some girl is gonna buy you sneaks?”

“Yup.”

This made no sense to me. What teenage girl buys a guy sneakers? Just earlier that day in the cafeteria, I had asked a girl to lend me 5 cents so I could get a chocolate milk. She ignored me. When I asked her friend if she had a nickel, she took her nickel, waved it in front of my face and threw it in a trash can.

The next day at lunch, while I pined for some chocolate milk, Kobe strutted in with a brand new pair of Uptempos. It was then that I realized that Kobe Bryant was a very special basketball player.

And he could probably help me get some chocolate milk.

Kobe fans can check out numerous other behind the scenes stories via this link. 

Picture at top: From right to left: Evan, Kobe and Ursinus College basketball star, Jesse Federman.