There is so much to be learned from the Lebron James phenomenon. Since my world is the world of inspiration, Lebron James is to me as many politicians are to cartoonists, “the gift that keeps on giving.”
It’s hard not to digress, expand or hyperbolize. It is difficult to avoid following all of the paths Lebron has offered at once….and make the classic Stephen Leacock mistake, to “ride off in all directions,” thereby splitting horse, rider and metaphor.
But I’ll saddle up and try to pick my way—carefully—up the trail of inspiration. Today’s notes are strictly contextual…later this week, I’ll really get serious!
We have here a 25-year-old basketball player, previously of modest means who is now a multi-millionaire. He was raised in Cleveland, Ohio by his mother and is now without adult supervision. He has matured physically beyond any gladiator comparison. He has been the symbol and performance leader of his NBA basketball team for seven years, in a city besieged by the recession, by the movement of manufacturing jobs and by a demoralized and devalued populace.
Certainly Cleveland is not Detroit, but neither is it Shanghai. It is in the process of re-invention, of re-building industrially, in its infrastructure, and certainly psychically—not unlike the United States as a whole. Cleveland has an unemployment rate of just north of 17%. Inspiration is hard to come by.
With James leading the way on the court, The Cleveland Cavaliers have won more basketball games during the regular season than any other team for the past two seasons, but even with James’ considerable talent, they have not be able to reach the finals of the NBA playoffs.
James reached the end of his first contract and became a free agent…meaning that this time, the choice of where he is to play is totally his—it is not dictated by a pre-determined draft. He is free to make an unrestricted choice—to show his character.
Now I simply have to digress, because everyone who reads this blog doesn’t follow professional basketball. But to many citizens of many cities, professional sports teams are a symbol of success in the masculine (not necessarily male) world of competition—a world that largely currently defines America.
So when personal jobs are lost, when personal failure drags the day-to-day world into a psychological sink-hole, the game is still on, and your team can vindicate your day, if not your year. If they win, you win. You face your own failures and your own difficult times with a little more courage. There is something positive to talk about at the unemployment office, in the bar or even at the book club.
Stick with me here.
James not only decides to leave Cleveland, but he makes two other proclamations, one by format, and the other by rhetoric. He takes an hour of prime-time television to tell the city that worshipped him that he is leaving. Then he pours heavy astringent on that gaping wound by telling these citizens that it is because he, Lebron, wants to win championships, and that it can’t be done in Cleveland.
Doesn’t that remind you of all of the heroes and heroines that we cherish? Doesn’t it bring forth memories of Sadat, Mandela, King and Kennedy? In the world of sports, does it not call up the words of Lou Gehrig, dying of ALS and declaring that he considered himself “the luckiest person on the face of the earth?” Isn’t Lebron’s gratitude and sense of awe staggering? Isn’t he a great model for your children?
I’m sure some of you are railing right now about those “unfair” comparisons, about Lebron’s right to do what he wants, to make as much money as he can, and to join his two friends to come out of the smoke in Miami to the adoration of fans who now have the most expensive team that money can buy. After all, it’s the American Way.
Or is it? I think not. I think the real American Way is much different from this clown circus. I think this is just the latest in a multi-year and multi-institutional series of miss-guided and shallow decisions made by people without thought about what a human being really is or whether the blessings of freedom and prosperity carry burdens of responsibility.
At least in mythology, Jesse James was a bit of a folk hero, a Western American Robin Hood. He was a theif, but he had a bond with the reality of those who were not rich, who needed a spokesman., who needed the story of him as one of them. And, he knew he was a theif.
Lebron James is only 25 years old and must be advised by idiots…certainly his personal culpability can be mitigated by his physical youth…he could still grow into a man. There are others who have made the same move much older, and much more consciously.
Inspired yet?
More later this week
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