John Linehan and Kobe Bryant used to talk. A lot. This would not have been unusual for other AAU teammates, but these two were fierce high school rivals.<\/p>\n
Linehan was a scrappy point guard for the Chester Clippers. Bryant was a relentless shooting guard for the Lower Merion<\/a> Aces. Both were competitive, almost to a fault, and in the days leading up to big games, they\u2019d get chippy.<\/p>\n The week before the 1996 PIAA Class AAAA District 1 title game, for example, the two players talked every day on bulky landline phones, with Bryant often calling Linehan at his home in Chester.<\/p>\n \u201cI just said, \u2018You know, John, I haven\u2019t won a championship yet, and you have,\u2019\u201d Bryant told The Inquirer in 1996.<\/p>\n Linehan knew what his friend was doing. The future NBA star did the same thing a few weeks later, on March 19, a day before the teams met again in the state semifinal.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was trying to get me to trash talk,\u201d Linehan said. \u201cI think he needed a little edge. I didn\u2019t want to give him too much. I was like, \u2018Man, you crazy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Lower Merion wasn\u2019t a basketball school when Bryant arrived in the fall of 1992. It paled in comparison to the local powerhouses like Simon Gratz, Coatesville<\/a>, and Chester.<\/p>\n But Bryant changed that. Even in his freshman year, a season in which the Aces went 4-20, he brought a new standard, working out before class and introducing a level of toughness that was foreign to his teammates.<\/p>\n By the mid-1990s, Lower Merion was among the best high school teams in the Philadelphia area. Its players were more confident, celebrating after big shots, and talking loud on the court.<\/p>\n The Aces didn\u2019t play as many games against Coatesville, a rising power led by Rip Hamilton. They couldn\u2019t consistently measure themselves against Gratz, which didn\u2019t participate in the PIAA playoffs until 2004.<\/p>\n But they could against Chester. And so, a decades-long rivalry was born.<\/p>\n From 1996 through the mid-2010s, Chester and Lower Merion put on some of the greatest high school basketball games in the area. They\u2019d often sell out venues like the Palestra and Villanova<\/a>\u2019s Pavilion. Some fans would even scalp tickets.<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: To the Eagles, Vic Fangio is a savvy defensive mind. To Dunmore, he\u2019s a former umpire, bartender, and much more<\/a><\/p>\n Their communities were almost diametrically opposed. Chester was predominantly Black; Lower Merion was predominantly white. Chester was plagued by poverty<\/a>; Lower Merion was considered affluent<\/a>.<\/p>\n Chester, with its Biddy League, had a legacy of basketball greatness, and a steady pipeline of talent. Lower Merion had nothing comparable. But these differences melted away on the court.<\/p>\n And while the rivalry is not what it once was, it still lives on today.<\/p>\n \u201cThe pride and the intensity and the history will never fade,\u201d said Lower Merion coach Gregg Downer. \u201cI mean, if we played them tomorrow night, that would be an intense game.\u201d<\/p>\n The Bryant-Linehan era <\/p>\n When Downer was named head coach in 1990, he was already well aware of Chester\u2019s tradition. He\u2019d grown up in Media, playing youth basketball, and had heard about the stars who\u2019d come out of the Biddy League.<\/p>\n It was obvious that his team would have to go through the Clippers to win any sort of accolade. But it wasn\u2019t until Bryant\u2019s arrival that Downer\u2019s aspirations became a real possibility.<\/p>\n The shooting guard, who was the son of former 76er Joe \u201cJelly Bean\u201d Bryant, was mature for his age. He\u2019d demand more of older teammates, mentally and physically. Doug Young, a former Lower Merion forward, remembered seeing Bryant leaving the locker room at 7 o\u2019clock one September morning in 1993.<\/p>\n He\u2019d been at the high school gym since 5 a.m., working out by himself. To the Lower Merion basketball team, this was a \u201ccrazy\u201d concept, so Young and his cohorts decided to join him.<\/p>\n They arrived the next day at 5:06 a.m. The players knocked on the door. Bryant didn\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n \u201cHe wouldn\u2019t open it,\u201d said Young, who graduated in 1995. \u201cYou\u2019re either there or you\u2019re not. We were six minutes late.\u201d<\/p>\n His teammates waited outside until 6:30 a.m., when the school opened. They made sure to show up before 5 a.m. from that day on.<\/p>\n Downer was wired the same way. The coach \u2014 and his NBA-bound pupil \u2014 would push the team in practice. Losses were particularly tough. The players would go through endless sprints and rebounding drills that sent them running to the trash can.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t fun. But over time, the method created a newfound tenacity.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one walked into high school saying, \u2018Oh, yeah, I want to win a state championship,\u2019\u201d Young said. \u201cBut [Kobe] knew what that was. He was like, \u2018I don\u2019t know any other way. If we\u2019re not going to win a championship, what the heck are we playing for?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Chester was always going to be an obstacle to that goal, so Downer tried to play into the battle. He\u2019d use analogies for the tough, hard-nosed team, comparing it to an animal stalking its prey.<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: A Cobbs Creek man taped basketball broadcasts for five decades. His grieving family wants to find a home for his life\u2019s work.<\/a><\/p>\n The coach began to screen movies to underscore this point. Together, in a Lower Merion classroom, Downer\u2019s players watched Jaws and other tales of survival, like The Edge, a 1997 thriller about a plane that crashes in the Alaskan wilderness.<\/p>\n \u201cThis bear is stalking them, and the couple is saying, \u2019What are we gonna do about this bear?\u2019\u201d Downer said. \u201cAnd one of them says, \u2018The only thing we can do is kill the bear.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I remember being like, \u2018We can do this.\u2019 But the only solution is to \u2014 not to be overly graphic \u2014 but to kill them.\u201d<\/p>\n (The bear in this analogy was Chester.)<\/p>\n He added: \u201cWe tried everything humanly possible to get through to this team.\u201d<\/p>\n The first few games were ugly. In 1995, Lower Merion met the Clippers in the District 1 championship, only to lose by 27 points. But they came back with a renewed focus the following year, in 1995-96, going 25-3 in the regular season to earn a district final rematch against Chester.<\/p>\n The Aces showed up at the arena with \u201c27\u2033 printed on their warmup shirts. Bryant, armed with fresh bulletin board material from Linehan, dropped 34 points against the Clippers, en route to a 60-53 Aces win.<\/p>\n The shooting guard scored 39 points later that month \u2014 with a broken nose \u2014 in a 77-69 state semifinal win over Chester. Lower Merion went on to collect its first state championship since 1943 with a 48-43 victory against Erie Cathedral Prep.<\/p>\n To Linehan, the difference Bryant made was obvious. He joked that he\u2019d \u201cnever heard of Lower Merion\u201d before his friend arrived. But once he did, Chester realized it would have to go to great lengths to prepare for the phenom.<\/p>\n Ahead of a big game against Lower Merion in the mid-1990s, the coaching staff reached out to Clippers alumnus Zain Shaw. He went on to play at West Virginia and in Europe, and possessed some of the same characteristics as Bryant \u2014 a tall frame and an athletic build, with strong ballhandling skills.<\/p>\n The Clippers invited Shaw to practice, where he played the role of Bryant (to the best of his ability).<\/p>\n \u201cKobe was so special, we had to bring in a pro to help us prepare,\u201d said Linehan, who went on to star at Providence.<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Inside the Big 5 coaching fraternity: From wanting to \u2018kill each other\u2019 to being \u2018brothers\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n But there was another impact the future Lakers star had, one that had nothing to do with his own prowess. Linehan noticed that Bryant\u2019s Lower Merion teammates started to take on some of his qualities. All of a sudden, they were playing brash, confident basketball.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t have reason to believe, until Kobe got there, that we belonged on the court with Chester,\u201d Young said. \u201cThe fear was real. Teams were afraid of Chester, because they\u2019d run you out of the building.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea of Lower Merion being on the court in a meaningful game against [them] was such a crazy thought. But then, you started to believe.\u201d<\/p>\n The buzzer-beater heard \u2019round Chester<\/p>\n Bryant never got over the rivalry, even after he embarked on his Hall of Fame NBA career in 1996. Sometimes, he\u2019d call the coaching staff before big games against Chester, leaving expletive-laden voicemails to use as motivation.<\/p>\n The Lakers shooting guard also created an incentive structure for his former team.<\/p>\n \u201cYou couldn\u2019t get a pair of Nike sneakers unless you qualified for the playoffs,\u201d Young said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t earn it, you don\u2019t get it.\u201d<\/p>\n He became especially involved in 2005-06. After a lull in the early 2000s, Chester and Lower Merion found themselves neck-and-neck again. The Aces were led by the duo of Ryan Brooks and Garrett Williamson, and the Clippers boasted a deep roster, headlined by Darrin Govens, all of whom eventually played in the Big 5.<\/p>\n (Chester was so stacked that it brought a 1,000-point scorer off the bench in Noel Wilmore).<\/p>\n The rivals met in the state championship on March 19, 2005. Despite strong performances from Williamson and Brooks, the Clippers pulled away in the second half thanks to a dominant third quarter from Govens. Chester won, 74-61.<\/p>\n The two teams reconvened the following season, with their competitive spark fully reignited. They faced each other three times that year. Chester took round one, a one-point regular-season victory on Dec. 27.<\/p>\n Round two was in the district final on March 3. Before the game, in front of a packed crowd at the Pavilion, Chester sophomore Karon Burton walked up to the layup line.<\/p>\n Lower Merion\u2019s student section caught his ear with a chant about Coach Fred Pickett\u2019s stout stature.<\/p>\n \u201cHey Karon,\u201d said one group.<\/p>\n \u201cHey Karon,\u201d responded the other.<\/p>\n \u201cFred\u2019s gonna eat you! Fred\u2019s gonna eat you! Fred\u2019s gonna eat you!\u201d <\/p>\n The dig didn\u2019t intimidate Burton. If anything, it fueled him. He grew up playing street ball in Chester, and always loved trash talk.<\/p>\n Instead of cowering, like the crowd hoped, the sophomore delivered an unforgettable outing. The game went into overtime, and was tied at 80 with only a few seconds remaining. During a timeout, assistant coach Keith Taylor pulled Burton aside. <\/p>\n