You Still Can’t Tear Down Lebron

By: Tom Alexander

It’s pretty rare that I write a column that I regret having written immediately.
It’s happened before, for sure, but it’s rare. More likely, however, is that I regret the timing of the publication of a specific column, or an event takes place ex post facto that makes me wish I hadn’t written the column.
It is with this in mind that I can firmly say that I regret the publication of my column about Lebron James on Friday morning.

Not that I regret what I said; I don’t. (In a nutshell, it was that Lebron behaves with more maturity and aplomb than most at age 18, or at any age, and that he should be cut some slack). I simply regret the timing of the column, because some will see Lebron’s suspension for accepting clothing as a gift as evidence that I was wrong. I see it, however, as evidence that I was right.

Ultimately it took the Ohio High School Athletic Association to find Lebron guilty for accepting some clothing from a local shopkeep who admired the kid. That’s it, that’s the best they could do. Their witch-hunt reached a successful conclusion and they ruined the end of this kid’s season. At the very least they cluttered the legal system a little bit more.

I was so angry upon hearing about the decision on Friday that I made myself a promise that I would not write about this until Monday morning, so I’d have a chance to collect my thoughts a little bit. I’ve managed to narrow it down to one word: hypocrisy.


The level of hypocrisy as it relates to the Lebron James saga is so out of control that it is alarming. Here we have a high school athletic association that has seen its games on national television several times this season. Here we have a body that is intended to promote athletics among high school students, biting the arm off of not only the best athlete they have right now but quite possibly one of the best athletes that they’ll ever govern.

I understand why the rules are in place; people don’t want to have kids taking money or gifts from recruiters or colleges, and that’s fine. But a kid who could have a million bucks in his pocket as soon as he wanted it shouldn’t end up getting suspended for accepting $800 in jerseys from someone who just wants to do him a favor. You have beef with it, fine. Give it back. Don’t sit there and bite the hand that feeds you. It’s cut and dried.

The tide of hypocrisy and sanctimonious behavior extends outside of the realm of governing bodies, to the media. One member of the media in particular will draw my ire, though I’m sure many deserve it. However, my qualm today is with Dick Vitale.

Let me preface this by saying that I’m an enormous Dick Vitale fan. I think he’s an excellent commentator and his passion for college basketball and sports in general is downright contagious. His ability to talk about all sports and all issues regarding sports is untapped, in my opinion - he’s on sports radio a couple of times a week, though he could have his own show.

Further, I honestly believe that Vitale truly has the best interests of the athletes whom he covers in his heart. I once heard him give an interview saying that he couldn’t be a coach because he physically could not handle losing, and the way things turned out, he basically gets to enjoy every game he sees to its fullest. He’s a smart guy and a great sports fan.

So Dicky V goes on ESPN and says Lebron has been a pro for a couple of years now, and that the people around him are doing him an injustice by not telling him “No” when he says, “I want a Hummer.” He says that Lebron has got to stop with this behavior and start being an 18-year-old kid. And I want to grab Dicky V and say, “Man, I love you, but you gotta remember what it was like to be an 18-year-old kid.”

Everyone has benefitted from the rise of Lebron, except for Lebron. The NBA is chomping at the bit. The media is having a field day. ESPN, the company that employs Dick Vitale, sold commercial advertisements around a Lebron James high school basketball game. The company profited from this kid.

Fine, that’s the rub. Amateur athletes have to wait to become professional before they can make money. They have to wait on the cars and stuff and everyone knows that Lebron could have waited one more month or maybe even two before beginning to cash in on a level of talent that will have him set for life before the first day of summer.

Lebron made a mistake, and he’ll have to live with the consequences. But for the Ohio athletic association and Dick Vitale and me and everyone else, we should take a step back and see just what we’re doing.


We have all benefitted from the rise of Lebron. It’s a national news story, this “New Jordan”. The Hummer and the clothing and the comments about John Lucas, they are just stoking the fire that was lit when Lebron almost went to the NBA last year or was offered $9 million to go to Italy and play.

But Lebron didn’t go to the NBA, or even sue the NBA for the right to go. He probably would have been the number one pick, or maybe number two behind Yao, but he didn’t go. Lebron didn’t take the $9 million and go to Italy for a year and then head to the league. You know what Lebron did? He stayed in school, to finish high school, and to play a little more hoops and get ready for the spotlight.

All of us who are involved with sports one way or the other are hoping that Lebron becomes the Tiger Woods of the hardwood; a new talent that defies our expectations and rocks the norms that we have set over the years. But, like with Tiger Woods, we have to remember that if we benefit from his success we can’t begrudge it at once. The golfing community has accepted Tiger’s dominance in two ways. First, they’ve realized that they are making a lot more money due to his abilities, accomlishments, and presence, and by and large they seem to be thankful. Second, they have raised their games. Tiger gets challenged, sometimes. More than he used to. It’s not because he’s getting worse; it’s because he set a new standard and now the rest of the game will try desperately to catch up.

My hope is that the sporting world and Lebron James are able to reach some sort of middle ground, a modicum of appropriate behavior, before it’s too late.

Because in the end, I know that I speak for myself and Dicky V and a lot of other people out there when I say that I desperately want to see what this guy can do on the court.

Tom Alexander founded the Chicago Sports Review in 2003, and currently serves the publication as its co-publisher. Alexander's media career has spanned a variety of interests, including newspaper reporting with the Times of Northwest Indiana, online reporting with ePrairie.com, and a two-plus year stint as a professor in Columbia College Chicago's journalism department. Outside of journalism, Alexander works to redevelop communities that have been struck by natural disasters. Alexander, a 2000 graduate of the University of Chicago, currently lives with his wife Tiffany and their black lab mix, Johnny Cash, in Arlington, Va.

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