Code: SL42801
Dates: April 3, 2025
Meets: 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
Sessions: 1
Course Fee: $39.00
There are still openings remaining at this time.
Michael Sielski
A star in the sports journalism world, Mike Sielski is a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer and the author of three books. His latest, The Rise: Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality, drew on never-before-heard interview tapes with Bryant and was published in January 2022 to universal praise from readers and reviewers. Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal all gave The Rise starred reviews, and Library Journal called it “a landmark account of Kobe Bryant’s early life [that] will stand as the most objective, definitive record of his youth.” An accompanying podcast, I Am Kobe, which Sielski wrote and narrated, was released in November 2021 through iHeartRadio and is a 2022 finalist for the Webby Award, for “excellence on the Internet,” in the Best Sports Podcast category. Within weeks of The Rise’s publication, Sielski had reached an option agreement with Mark Ciardi—the producer of more than a dozen movies, including Miracle, Invincible, The Rookie, and Secretariat—for the book’s feature film and documentary rights. Ciardi immediately hired Jonathan Hock, who is responsible for five films in ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, to direct a documentary based on the book and the podcast. Published in 2009, Sielski’s book Fading Echoes: A True Story of Rivalry and Brotherhood from the Football Field to the Fields of Honor told the tale of two high school football players from a small Pennsylvania town who went on to serve in the Iraq War. Fading Echoes received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, and Booklist called it “an emotionally charged book that offers a profound understanding of American life in the first years of the twenty-first century.” Sielski’s first book—How to Be like Jackie Robinson: Life Lessons from Baseball’s Greatest Hero, which he co-authored with longtime NBA executive Pat Williams—was published in 2005.