As a huge sports fan, I totally agree with Chris
Singleton’s editorial sports column about high school
basketball phenom LeBron James.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the clothing store
exploited James because they knew in a short time he
would be making millions of dollars in the NBA. The
clothing store gave James free sports jerseys in
exchange for his signature on pictures in the store. I
believe the store management knew his signature would
evetually be more valuable than the jerseys they were
giving up.
But it was a violation of his state’s high school athletic
asociation’s rules. He became ineligible for a few
games until the he was eventually re-instated to play this
past week – it almost cost his team the Ohio state
championship with his high school team. It wouldn’t have
cost only him, but his whole team.
I agree the rules are the rules, but he just turned 18. I’m
not condoning what he did, but where in the heck are his
advisers – the people that are closest to him? What about
his coach? Or even his mom, she got him a $50,000
Hummer with a loan but can’t advise him about the
rules? This whole situation could have been avoided.
Now the media will be watching his every move. James
is a great player, but more importantly a good person. He
has excellent grades and seems mature for his age on
the interviews I’ve seen. But he’s still a high school kid. I
think the media is blowing him out of propotion during
this season in his life. His skills are defintely
newsworthy, but is the media being wise? I don’t think so.
Kobe Bryant or Kevin Garnett didn’t get this kind of
attention coming out of high school- and they deserved it
as much as James.
James will be a great player in the NBA someday,
maybe one of the greatest of all time by the time he
finishes…I’m sure of it. So, why not let him be a high
school kid for right now, because his time will come
eventually. And he’ll be ready to handle it and keep
himself aware of the rules.
If not for the media attention and lack of counsel by those
who should be advising him, he wouldn’t have taken
those jerseys and would be competing with his team for
the Ohio high school state championship without
missing those games. Kenny Boudreaux
Mass Communication junior from Houma