Kobe Bryant greets students at Boston College. (Photo via @RyanDontas)
The Los Angeles Lakers renew their decades-old rivalry with the Boston Celtics on Friday night
in a matchup of longtime NBA royals laid low (for the moment, at least)
by the passage of time and the ravages of injury. There's a bit more
excitement than one would expect in a matchup between two teams with a
combined record of 28-51, thanks to the impending return
of long-injured Boston point guard Rajon Rondo. However, the contest
will still lack the injection of star power that typically accompanies a
visit from Hall of Fame L.A. guard Kobe Bryant, who continues to work
his way back from a left knee fracture.
While
the Lakers legend and venerable Celtics nemesis can't yet suit up for
Mike D'Antoni's team, he can travel with the squad and show his support.
There's only so much time you can spend rehabbing, though, and Bryant's
search for something to do during his downtime led him to a little
Catholic campus in Chestnut Hill:Kobe Bryant just casually sat in on my marketing class
— MaryKate (@mhartttt) January 17, 2014
So Kobe Bryant just kind of interrupted my Product Management class tonight -- a welcome break, @bostoncollege #mbalife #thatsafirst
— Hally Pinaud (@Hallypino) January 17, 2014
Yep — with some time to kill the night before Lakers-Celtics, Kobe decided to take in an international marketing class at Boston College. (If you hadn't heard, Kobe's a pretty big deal overseas — especially in China.)
Boston Magazine's Steve Annear has more:
Kobe,
of course, entered the NBA straight out of Lower Merion High School in
1996, so any opportunity to get a taste of college life offers a unique
experience worth checking out. (Granted, he's previously said he
would've gone to Duke or North Carolina,
but hey, at least this visit keeps the Mamba in the ACC.) This isn't
the first time Bryant's gone to check out college course work, though,
as author Peter Richmond detailed in his book, "Lord of the Rings," an
excerpt of which was recently featured at Deadspin:
That wasn't a problem on Thursday. Bryant had quite an audience, and a stunned one at that, at B.C.:
Kobe Bryant was just at Boston College and 5 feet from me #livinglegend pic.twitter.com/sJWulGwtTa— Ryan Dontas (@RyanDontas) January 17, 2014
So Kobe Bryant stopped by my brother's International Marketing class at BC tonight... pic.twitter.com/pI9wJ569ZA
— Nick Ironside (@nironside) January 17, 2014@kobebryant thank you for representing @BostonCollege #amazing pic.twitter.com/gDxsAHs0Z6
— Josh Reed (@jreed0614) January 17, 2014
Learn. Learn. Learn. thank you #BC #internationalmarketing Education never stops.
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) January 17, 2014
On
one hand, you might chalk up Bryant's surprisingly warm welcome to the
likelihood that the students with whom he interacted at B.C. weren't
exactly leather-lunged Lakers-hating Boston sports die-hards weaned on
repeat viewings of McHale clotheslining Rambis; Kobe probably wouldn't
have received quite as kind a reception had he, say, dropped into The
Harp to watch a Bruins game.
Still,
though, familiarity breeding contempt is something of a two-way street,
and after all these years of being an integral figure in the
Lakers-Celtics rivalry, Kobe's developed something a soft spot for the
Hub. From Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald:
It'd
be better if Bryant was playing, of course, but if his B.C. visit's any
indication, that "interaction with the crowd" should be pretty fun in
its own right.
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