The Kobe Bryant story.

All right, so when I was 10 years old my mom and I were going on a trip for the weekend. I was a huge Knicks fan growing up. It was the 90s and they were actually good and that was exciting. I fell asleep the night before during the game and the internet didn’t exist yet so I didn’t have a cell phone i could check. The only option was a newspaper and we didn’t have one. So my mom fell asleep on the train and as I was sitting there kind of bored. I could see these two men sitting – I don’t know, maybe eight or so rows ahead of me – and they both had newspapers. I could tell because they were both really tall so you could kind of just see the back of their head and then this big newspaper and i decided that i was going to go ask them to borrow sports pages. I was kind of nervous about it because I was 10, but my mom was asleep so it also felt like this dangerous little activity I was going to go pursue. I think I decided that they must be athletes because they were tall ,so part of me thought ‘I’ll just tell them that I’m an athlete ,too, and then this will be fine.’ So I walked between the two of them and, uh, I think i did tap his hand um and say, ” Excuse me can I borrow the sports pages?”, and the guy on the left said to me, “Why do you want the sports pages?” And I said, ” Well because I’m a basketball player”. I’m pretty sure he laughed at that point because I was this like scrawny little girl at that point so he kind of fumbled through the newspaper and gave me the sports section. I was starting to thank him and turning to walk away and he said , “Wait, would you mind if I ask you a question?” And I said ‘ “Sure.” He said, ” Do you know who Kobe Bryant is?” I remember feeling embarrassed because I didn’t know who that is. And then he said, ” Well, come sit down sit with us for a minute, he’s going to ask you a question.” And that’s when I sat down next to Kobe Bryant! I remember he was kind of half leaning against the window, half facing me. I was between the two of them kind of looking back and forth trying to figure out what was going on. Eventually Kobe asked me if I thought that all high school athletes should go to college as opposed to going directly to the Pros. He didn’t come across as cocky and self-assured, he came across as a kid who was asking another kid what to do. I was a pretty precocious little kid so I immediately started lecturing him that everyone should go to college and that it was important for his future and his career and what if it doesn’t work out in the NBA? Then Kobe said to me that he had to decide tomorrow whether he was going to sign with the Los Angeles Lakers or not ,and then I told him that i still thought he should go to college. He takes the newspaper from me and offers to sign it and i have a copy of the picture here. It says ‘to Amy best wishes Kobe Bryant number 33 ‘and I proudly took it back to the schoolyard and showed all of my 10 year old friends who were duly impressed. This happened almost 20 years ago now and you might think that it was just some random story that happened to me at this point, but i’m now a middle school teacher and this story is like the coolest thing that’s ever happened. Whenever I retell it kids get really excited and say, ” Tell me the Kobe story again,” and it gives me a lot of credit with my students. So thanks, Kobe.