Before Kobe Bryant was an NBA super star, a basketball legend, he was a Lower Merion High School Ace.

This basketball season, Kobe’s last season as an NBA player, marks 20 years since Kobe became a legend in a different term. Kobe lead Lower Merion High School in Philadelphia, PA to the 1995-96 Pennsylvania state championship and months later began playing in the NBA as a proud alum of LMHS.

“You know Kobe went to my high school”

“He paid for our basketball gym”

“His coach was my gym teacher”

“Yeah we have a shrine to him in the front entrance”

Not one student, former or current, of LMHS has ever let Kobe’s name be dropped into a conversation without spurting out some sort of fun fact that draws the attention away from Kobe and more towards the fact that we’re only so many degrees from knowing him personally. Which basically means we know him personally.

If you ask us where we’re from you better bet that we’ll say “Lower Merion, you know, where Kobe went,” just to slip it into the conversation somehow.

I mean it’s all-true, Kobe did rep the number 33 on an LM jersey way before he became the icon he is today, why shouldn’t we mention it?

With Kobe’s final game as an NBA player, leaving the Los Angeles Lakers as a basketball idol, LMHS has never been more relevant, and we as native-LM Aces love it.

The night of Kobe’s last game, Instagram was flooded with posts of current students and recent alums throwing back to pictures taken in the infamous Kobe Bryant Gymnasium, with the school’s mascots, with Kobe’s coach, Coach Downer, who still teaches gym and coaches the LM aces to this day.

It helps that Kobe constantly refers back to LMHS in interviews and articles. Including entire articles dedicated to Coach Downer, the basketball program that “brought him greatness,” and Mrs. Mastriano – his favorite teacher during his time at LMHS who still works there and Kobe calls “his muse,” giving the school entire credit for his accomplishments and making him who he is today.

Worse comes to worst, if no one brings up basketball, asks where we’re from, shouts “Kobe!” as they throw something into the trashcan, us LM-ers will just resort to wearing our retro Kobe jerseys that we ordered online from China. No problem, our claim to fame will still be publicized.

So thank you, Kobe, for putting my high school on the map and making my hometown relevant, without you all I’d have is my vicinity to the city and weird Philadelphian lingo.