Gene,

Hope you had a nice vacation.  Just to let you know, Kobe was selected directly out of highschool but he did graduate.  The thing about Kobe is that academically he was a great student.  He speaks fluent Italian and can even speak english.  Unfortunately he is not smart enough to realize that not much good comes out of bringing a 19 year old girl to your room late at night.  He just recently patched things up with his father, there was a rift between them that was created by his marrying his current wife.  Some people thought that perhaps his dad didn't approve of his marriage because his wife is latin, but I think it may have been because his dad wanted him to live a little before marriage.  You know get the whole groupie thing out of his system before committing his life to one women.  I am sure we all know people that get married young then regret missing out on their wild 20's. Some people can handle it, some cant, he obviously could not.
The truly amazing thing is that this story is more widely reported than the daily attacks vs US troops in Iraq...unbelievable.

Robert