When I was nine years old I had a tree fort. It was pimp. In a sense, it was within those four wooden walls where the thought of this very website was conceived. Amongst those trees late in the summer of 1996 I stumbled upon a revelation that would forever alter the direction of my life.
I'm tempted to say I never knew back then, but that would be a lie. After unwrapping one particular pack of UD3 basketball cards (an overpriced by-product of Upper Deck's monopoly on the trading card market) my world would change forever.
Though I'd long been familiar with the NBA on NBC and had a special place in my heart for Dennis Rodman and the Chicago Bulls, my allegiance as a sports fan had yet to be declared. As any youth raised in the clutches of Canada, my relationship with the nation's frozen past-time had subtly flourished. Whether young Austin Kent would succumb to the throes of the hockey-obsessed or escape into the comparatively untraditional realm of basketball fanhood was still very much up for debate.
I'm wearing an oversized t-shirt in my memories of that fateful day, with a perfectly-crafted mushroom cut hidden beneath a backwards cap and the sounds of Alanis Morissette echoing in the background. I'm not alone as I seat myself on a balcony extending out towards my tire swing - trading cards in hand - but I may as well have been. As far as moments in time are concerned, this was the one where I discovered Kobe Bryant.
Foil packaging tossed aside, mouth open and transfixed, I pause to survey each artefact like a palaeontologist at work in the Montana plains. Deliberately memorizing each published statistic before flipping from one card to the next, I develop a mind that would go on to hold more needless statistics than Mike Breen's laptop. Latrell Sprewell, Anfernee Hardaway, Gary Payton. These are the figureheads that have come to symbolize my youth, accompanied by the one who would forever change it. I'm speechless when it happens.
Seventeen-year-old Kobe Bryant is leaning back against a brick wall, his knee uncomfortably propped to hold a basketball as he rests. Two more balls lay beside him casting shadows amongst his weight-bearing foot. He's different now than the man you see today; younger, lankier and infinitely more impressionable. He has thin white stripes on the rims of his shorts and a U-neck Lakers jersey. What he lacks in street cred (or his now trademark scowl) he makes up for in child-like approachability. He looks like the type of boy who would take Brandy Norwood to his high school prom. He was that type of boy.
This was a photo opportunity for a series of rookie cards in a 60-card set. Today the lot can be had for less than $50. The card itself has since vanished from my possession, likely misplaced or ruined, but its impact remains. It's a fitting and typical end for any childhood Holy Grail.
In the 13 years since that moment when I was first exposed to Bryant, much has happened. Championships happened. Allegations happened. Even 81 points happened. In my own life, a significantly less exciting transformation happened as well. As kids unfailingly grow up, so too did young Austin Kent, but not without vivid recollection of a mantis-looking rookie out of Lower Merion.
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