Hey, everyone, welcome into another edition of the WogePod here with my friend Mike Sealski,

the author of a remarkable new book, The Rise, Kobe Bryant, and The Pursuit of Immortality,

published by St. Martin Press this week. Mike, congrats on the book.

How are you, man?

I'm great, Woj. Thank you so much.

It is really cool to be with you.

And I want to shout out that one of the best decisions I've made in my personal and professional

lives is stalking you at the 2002 U.S. Open at Beth Page Black to

say hello.

And you've been a good friend for a long time, and I really appreciate this.

No, of course, Mike.

So of you.

And this is a remarkable book.

And a book about a time and a place in Kobe Bryant's life that, in a life that has

been well chronicled, the time in which Kobe came from Italy, the son of Joe Bryant,

a professional basketball, player, an NBA player, European player, and then moves into the suburbs

of Philly. and that is we're

the setting for the rise. Mike, what pulled you to the book and kind of walk me through

your decision to tell the story of Kobe Bryant at Lower Marion High School, you know, in these

formative years between Europe as a teenager and then going into the NBA draft at 17 years

old? So after Kobe died in January of 2020, I ended up writing a lot of columns about him

for the Philadelphia Inquirer, where I'm a full-time columnist.

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