Kobe Bryant is proving himself to be a multi-faceted individual. The celebrity father tells SLAM that he is proud to be a former basketball player as well as a content producer.
“A friend asked me the other day, ‘Does it bother you that when Bianka [his 30-month-old daughter] grows up she will know you as a creator and producer and not a basketball player,'” Kobe says of the notion of his youngest daughter, Bianka, arriving on the tail-end of his epic basketball career, which spanned across two decades.
“I thought about it for a bit and said, ‘Yeah, that’s true. She won’t know that part of my life,'” Kobe says of Bianka growing up with little knowledge of his NBA past. “But that doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, it excites me.”
Another thing that excites Kobe Bryant is his new book, The Wizenard Series: Training Camp. The book centers around Professor Rolabi Wizenard who works to turn a team of amateur athletes into incredible ball players. Bryant is the imaginative force behind the story that Young Adult (YA) fiction writer Wesley King put to words.
“What clicked for me was taking sports and making it something magical,” Kobe says of his brainstorming and creation process. “Within that, we try to teach kids through Wizenard how to process their inner emotions—good, bad, indifferent. We teach them compassion and empathy, work ethic and attention to detail. That is how I believe we should tell stories.”
Even with awards that speak of his brilliance when it comes to creating content, Kobe Bryant is still sometimes viewed as nothing more than a basketball player. The NBA champion wants the critics to reconsider their stand when it comes to The Wizenard Series.
“There will always be a little [stigma] because I’m known for basketball,” Bryant shares with SLAM. “If you look at the quality of the book, you’ll know I’m not playing around. If you look at the people I’ve hired for our publishing division, the writers, the editors, they are all heavyweights. When you look at that, you understand how serious we are.”
The Wizenard Series: Training Camp is available in bookstores nationwide. Get your copy today!
Photo: SLAM
