Tom Keegan: Center-of-attention Kobe Buffalomeat enjoying his 15 minutes

Kobe Buffalomeat tries to muscle his way into the paint against Blue Valley on Thursday at Blue Valley.

As practice wound to a close late Thursday afternoon, the center for Lawrence High’s undefeated-in-league basketball team buried three consecutive 3-pointers from the left corner and did as most teenagers would do. He lapsed into announcer mode and belted, “He’s on fire!”

Yes, he is.

Day Three of Kobe Buffalomeat’s national-celebrity status is scheduled to begin with a 7:30 a.m. Skype interview on ESPN today, roughly 12 hours after he taped a Skype interview with Jimmy Kimmel for the ABC show that would air three hours later.

The Sports Illustrated interview came a day earlier.

Tonight, the center of attention will line up for the center jump at 7 p.m. at Shawnee Mission South, where his game and not his name will be the focus.

“He’s handling it great,” Lawrence High basketball coach Mike Lewis said. “He’s having fun with it.”

A day after Illinois State’s announcement of its football signing class triggered a social media firestorm because of a name that fascinated the masses, Buffalomeat chuckled at his fame over a name.

His mother, Paula, named him after Kobe Bryant, the basketball player, not after the Japanese steak.

He can’t answer which he prefers between Kobe steak and buffalo meat. Not that he won’t, he can’t. He said he never has sampled either.

“Believe it or not, I’m not a big fan of steak,” Buffalomeat said. “I’m mainly a chicken or hamburger kind of guy. I’ve never had buffalo meat, but I’ve heard it’s really good and really good for you, so I might try it some time.”

He said the family is unaware of any story behind the Buffalomeat name and added, “I’m definitely proud to be a part of Native American culture.”

Lewis calls him by the same name as he called older brother Anthony, an Emporia State graduate who played football for the Hornets: “Buff.”

Kobe did not play football as a sophomore or junior and said that he decided to give it a try his senior year after Lions coach Dirk Wedd told his mother, father, grandfather and brother he thought that he could land a college scholarship.

“Once he decided to come out for football, he showed up for every 7 a.m. conditioning session, all 24 of them, and every practice,” Wedd said. “His hard work got him this opportunity.”

Which in turn made him a celebrity, truly a signing-day surprise for all involved.

A 6-foot-7, 273-pound senior, Buffalomeat will enroll second semester of the 2017-18 school year as a gray-shirt, which means his five-year eligibility clock won’t start ticking until the following school year, giving him five-and-a-half years to build his big frame, perhaps enough time for him to land an advanced degree without paying for room, board, tuition and books.

He said he does not yet know what he wants to study and listed his creative-writing class taught by assistant basketball coach Matt Stiles as his most enjoyable.

“He comes into class with a topic and we get to sit down and write for about 15 or 20 minutes,” Buffalomeat said and then supplied an example. “One time we had to write about something we lost and found. So I was in medieval times and I lost a dragon behind the mountain and I found him one day walking in the trails.”

What next?

“He cut us off at that point,” Buffalomeat said. “I never finished the story.”

It appears he has a fertile imagination, but even at that there is no way he ever could have dreamed he would become a celebrity overnight for something about him that hasn’t changed since the day he was born, Jan. 8, 1999.

“Crazy ride, kind of hard to wrap my head around right now,” he said. “It happened so fast. I’m enjoying all of it. I like all the attention. I think it’s fun. I’m definitely going to ride the wave while it lasts because it’s not going to be here my whole life. It’ll probably be a week or so, so I’m having fun with it while I can.”