Shooting Stars by LeBron James

Author:LeBron James [James, LeBron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-04-04T14:37:02+00:00

II.

The Slam Dunk to the Beach tournament in Lewes, Delaware, which took place over the Christmas break in 2001, was the mother of all high school basketball tournaments. The promoter, Bobby Jacobs, paid out over $100,000 in transportation costs, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. He also paid another six figures in hotel and meal expenses to attract thirty-four teams from twelve states, eight of which were ranked in the top twenty-five. In return Jacobs got dozens of major sponsors, including $75,000 from the state of Delaware, so I’m guessing he made a nice profit off of all of us. The economic impact on the Lewes area, a Delaware shore town normally sound asleep in the winter, was said to be about $3.5 million.

Such tournaments were becoming the national rage, making high school basketball feel far more professional than it should have been. Athletic directors and coaches of top-ranked programs spent hours on the phone with tournament organizers discussing promotional fees and expenses. Looking back on those negotiations, I think they were too much. Coaches should be coaching, and athletic directors should be athletic-directing. The interest of promoters was self-interest—their goal was to make money off of us. For all the hype enveloping us, we were still just high school kids.

But since we were still in high school (I actually turned seventeen during the tournament), we didn’t give any thought to these excesses at the time. I just knew that more than thirty of the nation’s top one hundred seniors were slated to be at the tournament, which meant that dozens of college and pro scouts would be there as well. It was a great place for St. V to showcase its skills, particularly if we were going to make our push toward a national championship in the USA Today poll. A strong showing here would probably move us up a couple of notches, energize us after a string of lackluster games in which the Fab Four Plus One all knew we could have played better. Intensity was missing. Our defense was porous. We hadn’t heeded Coach Dru’s warnings. He continually told us that if we kept it up, somebody would come along and smack us down when we weren’t expecting it. But we were also 6 and 0.

Our first game of the tournament was against St. Benedict’s, yet another ugly win. It was clear that we were still seeking our rhythm, just as it was clear that we were still hungering for Coach Dambrot. If we had to practice defense all night, that’s what he would have somehow made us do, because that’s the kind of coach he was. Coach Dru was more benevolent.

And then in our next game of the tournament we played Amityville High School from Long Island.

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