IT TAKES a village to
raise a child, a chestnut
made abundantly clear in
The Rise: Kobe Bryant and
the Pursuit of Immortality.
In researching the book, longtime
Philadelphia sportswriter Mike Sielski
spoke with dozens of people who knew
Bryant in his formative years—which he
spent mostly in the Philly area but also
in Europe, where his father was a pro
basketball player—nearly all of whom
inf luenced Kobe’s growth from gangly
kid to NBA legend to entertainment
mogul. There’s the Lower Merion
High coach, Gregg Downer, who gave
Bryant a chance to thrive after his
middle school coach, who insisted
that everyone get plenty of touches,
held him back. There’s the high school
English teacher, Mrs. Mastriano, for
whom Kobe obviously had affection;
he would trill the r when he said her
name, as he would have when he lived
in Italy. There’s the cousin, John Cox IV,
who would play hoops with Kobe only
if he would spend an equal amount of
time playing superheroes, which, along
with Mrs. Mastriano’s guidance, helps
explain the fanciful kids’ books that
Bryant wrote later in his life.A NEW BOOK DELVES
INTO A SUPERSTAR
ORIGIN STORY: HOW
KOBE BECAME KOBEMAKING
MAMBA
READ16 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | SI.COM
SCORECARDSielski doesn’t just mine these
inf luencers for a catchy quote or
amusing anecdote. He allows them to
become characters in their own right,
describing how Downer, for instance,
would place basketballs on a radiator
while he shoveled his driveway, because
warm balls bounce truer in the cold.
The one person Sielski couldn’t talk
to, of course, was Bryant. But instead of
an interview with the subject years after
the fact, Sielski found something more
revelatory: hours of never-before-heard,
contemporaneous interviews recorded
by a Lower Merion assistant coach for
an abandoned book project. Sielski deftly
uses the material to craft a fascinating
look at the making of a complex man
who, almost two years after his death,
still resonates fiercely. —Mark BechtelGAMEPLAN:
THE SMART FAN’S GUIDE TO RIGHT NOWUPPER
HAND
Bryant’s time
at Lower
Merion High is
well chronicled
in Sielski’s
deep dive.AL(^) TI
EL
EM
AN
S