At the end of high school and into my first few years of college, I had a subscription to SLAM magazine – this great monthly basketball magazine full of articles and images of players and the shoes they wore. Looking back, I enjoyed their KICKS ON COURT and SLAM A DA MONTH features the most.
At the very end of the issue, there was a section called PUNKS which featured young up-and-coming players. Within that section, they featured a high school player who wrote a short diary entry. Back in 2001, a young man named LeBron James was the monthly writer for this diary.
James was a multi-sport phenom in both football and basketball all four years of high school at St Vincent-St Mary’s in Akron, Ohio. He could have gone pro in football if he wanted, and he could’ve gone to the NBA after his junior year of high school.
In these diary entries, James talks about his love of both football and basketball, about his teammates and friends, and about all the NBA players he was meeting (including Michael Jordan, Michael Finley, Penny Hardaway, and Juwan Howard). The entries were unpolished, but gave great insight into the dynamic star James would quickly become.
LeBron has been in the spotlight for over 20 years now. I remember watching his high school basketball games on ESPN. Over the years, he of course has been compared to the greatest players of all time, and it’s hard to argue against him being one of them at this point.
