So imagine my shock to discover that my life has actually mimicked that of young high-school basketball superstar LeBron James. And, thus, perhaps I am as well-positioned as anybody to reflect on the James scandal and his suspension–for accepting the gift of a couple of way cool retro jerseys from a local merchant–by the Ohio High School Athletic Association.
I grew up in a suburb just outside of Boston, where in the pre-mall era we trolled the village center for treats. There was a drugstore with a fountain, a record store, a clothing store, a toy store and a bakery. I was walking down Center Street one day when, to my amazement, all the shop-owners seemed to be beckoning “You da man!” and then inexplicably showering me with gifts. All gratis! Ice-cream sodas, Kingston Trio records, tiny toy soldiers. (I would have scored some nostalgia jerseys for sure, but nostalgia hadn’t yet been invented yet.) Eventually, I discovered that the reason for all the largesse was the really good grades I was getting in high school. By my senior year, I walked the block with my SAT scores pinned to my Red Sox cap, just to assure that I kept reaping my due.
The similarity between James and me is that LeBron gets really good grades, too, or so he claims repeatedly in interviews. A 3.5 average, he says, which is certainly the academic equivalent of a triple-double. Which makes it even more remarkable that he has come up with what has to be the most lame-brained excuse, one destined to rank with “the dog ate my homework,” in the annals of teenage wrongdoing. In an interview with CBS’s Deion Sanders, who can now aspire to play journalistic lapdog for LeBron, as another ex-NFLer, Ahmad Rashad, did for Michael Jordan, James uttered this classic: “When I went in [the store], you know I was just going there as being, you know, another player and they was trying to reward me for my good grades.”
If you’re the least bit skeptical about that, well shame on you. Why wouldn’t he consider the two throwback shirts, valued at a relatively meager $845, a tribute to his academic prowess? Weren’t his fellow honor-roll students lined up at the door of that very same sporting-goods shop for their own gifts? When the proprietor sought an autographed picture of LeBron, surely James noticed a cluster of photos–past National Honor Society members, debate club presidents, the Ivy League-bound–on the walls. You think not?
OK, you know not. And you believe, too, in your gut that James, while certainly not wanting to jeopardize his eligibility, had to have more than a creeping suspicion that accepting the freebies was against Ohio school rules. He had just had a narrow escape from the same governing body after his mother lavished upon him the dream 18th-birthday gift: a $50,000 Hummer H2, custom-fitted with no less than three video screens. Having dodged a bullet (not to mention, God forbid, a Dodge), he should have been acutely aware of what was forbidden. Instead, I suspect he got the message that anything goes when, come June, you’re destined to be the NBA’s top draft choice, a $40 million basketball baby by summer vacation.
Ever since the state athletic association came down hard on James, sportswriters have been lining up to blame everyone–his mother, his coach, the promoters, the school officials, the shoe companies, the TV folks and, most certainly, themselves–for exploiting, hyping and otherwise encouraging the gravy train that is young LeBron. The original punishment–loss of his remaining eligibility–was excessive, they fretted, while his teammates and the promoters, who’ve already booked outsized arenas for his appearances, would take the heaviest hits. How, they asked, can we possibly expect LeBron to know how to say no when he’s never heard it himself?
That’s a very good question. My answer: you’ve got to start somewhere. Our society has become increasingly intolerant of all kinds of severe hardships that help generate young criminals and gangbangers that populate our communities. Nobody gives much of a damn any more whether they were beaten as a young child, raised without a father, drug-addicted at birth or attended inferior schools. We are no longer very much interested in mitigation. To be called a “bleeding-heart liberal” is one nasty pejorative. America has become a decidedly “if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime” nation.
Yet we still seem to be willing, even eager, to make excuses and exceptions for athletes. If they’ll only apologize with a modicum of humility. If they’ll only fess up with a hint of sincerity to the error of their ways. “I did do it, and now that I’ve been caught I really wish I hadn’t.” We’re practically begging Pete Rose to admit what he’s been lying about forever; in return we’ll make the Hall of Fame his eternal resting place. And did you see O. J. Simpson at the Orange Bowl playing the glad-handing alum with the USC football team? One suspects that if O. J. would just go on “Oprah” and say, “You gotta understand. I was having a really bad day and …,” he could be back in the “Monday Night” booth by next season.
When LeBron debuted on ESPN, the announcers took pains to lavish praise on his intelligence and sterling character as well as his prodigious basketball skills. Certainly at the time I had no reason to quarrel with their generous assessment, though it was apparent that it emanated from folks who were hugely vested in the LeBron James saga. Since then, even allowing for how treacherous the fame game can be for a young man, it hasn’t been a pretty picture. The Hummer (and his first Hummer accident, too), the jerseys and a little-noted, petulant pronouncement, delivered through associates, that he was outraged when the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers fired coach John Lucas and, as a result, would refuse to play for his “home” franchise.
By now it’s impossible to get a glimpse of the real James through the phalanx of lawyers and security guards. And we must watch as LeBron’s legal team demonstrates its prowess in the other court game, one that is an increasingly essential part of any superstar’s repertoire. James’s expulsion has been stayed, at least temporarily, with the issue to be revisited in a couple of weeks. Though James seems destined to prevail, I fear it is a Pyrrhic victory. (And if you remember the victories of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, over the Romans in 280 and 279 B.C., run, don’t walk to your nearest sporting-goods store for your reward.) What young Mr. James needs, it appears, is a swift kick in the butt, a wakeup call that might spare this probably quite decent and bright young man further and greater misadventures. It would be a blessing in disguise.
