In the Fall of 2003, during my stint on the pro basketball beat for Sports Illustrated, I was assigned to do the first LeBron James cover story. I've forgotten a lot of pieces I've done over the years, but I remember this one like it was yesterday.
LeBron was an 18-year-old rookie who looked about 28. I was a 54-year-old man who looked 64. I was accustomed to being around physical marvels, but no athlete I had ever seen looked like LeBron—6'8" or 6'9", 230 pounds or so, which would become 250 pounds. The pressure on him was enormous. He had been on a Sports Illustrated cover when he was in high school. He already had $100 million in endorsements. An Ohio native, he was being looked upon to save not only the Cleveland Cavaliers, his team, but the whole damn city of Cleveland, not to mention propping up the whole damn NBA, which had just lost Michael Jordan to retirement.
I talked to super fan Spike Lee and Spike said this: "It's a crucial time for African American athletes, who are taking such an image beating. LeBron has got to perform on the court and, just as important, he's got to perform off of it." I don't care how tall you are, how high you can jump, or how much you can bench press, that's a lot of pressure.
And, frankly, I can say now, I wasn't sure he could pull it off. LeBron came from a background that seemed to bode failure; that suggested he would not nail the off-the-court part. He never knew his biological father. The man he referred to as his dad did time for fraud and drug trafficking. His mother struggled to give him a stable home. Further, LeBron was insistent that some of his friends would continue to be involved in his business aspects of his career, specifically a guy named Maverick Carter.
"He's probably gonna mess this up," I thought to myself as I wrote this first piece, even though I was impressed by his maturity. Except LeBron never messed it up. He stayed out of trouble, never got flagged for drinking and drugs, not a strip club guy, not a knucklehead; the NBA term for a young player who can't seem to stay out of trouble. He became a husband and a father. He started a foundation. Sure, he had a couple public relations faux pas—"I'm taking my talents to South Beach," he said when he decided to go to the Miami Heat in free agency—but so does any athlete who's been in the public eye for 25 years. Or even presidents, by the way.
When LeBron started to speak out on social issues, he became the scourge of the right. He rarely took the bait; just kept on talking about what he believed. He realized that there was power in the gifts he had as a player, and he harnessed them as much as any athlete ever.
My best gauge of the appeal of LeBron is through my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Carol and Mike Bonstein. They had no particular affinity for pro basketball before LeBron—Mike and I had discussions about the game because I covered the sport—but LeBron became their guy. They watched all of his games, usually while wearing LeBron jerseys, and they even journeyed out to Cleveland to watch him play live after he returned to his home state after his four-year stint in South Beach. "Watching him win games at the last second was one thing," Carol said, "but hearing about him starting a school in Akron speaks volumes about him."
I could go on for ten minutes about LeBron as a player (if he's not in, say, your top ten ever, you're just not thinking) but this is more about what he taught me. The sins of the father and mother are not necessarily visited upon the son. You can overcome, you can figure it out, you can enjoy the trappings of fame and money and utilize them to their fullest, while also staying away from the fatal temptations that often come with them.
LeBron is 41 years old and this might be his last go-round. We are not likely to see his equal for a while.
