Listen to The More Than a Fan Podcast: Welcome Home LeBron
A few hours ago, I was angry. I was laying out a column about the three-ring circus that LeBron James was ring-leading in Las Vegas, Miami, and Cleveland. In fact, the first line was merely, “This is damned ridiculous.”
I was angry. I was angry at fans, reporters, and – most of all – LeBron.
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Four years ago, I sat on the couch in a Strongsville, Ohio apartment I shared with my future wife. I was drinking a Great Lakes Brewing Company Dortmunder Gold and really couldn’t concentrate on any sort of conversation outside of hemming and hawing about how exactly LeBron was going to announce that he was staying in Cleveland to play for the Cavs.
The moment came… and went. I was in a state of disbelief. I was disappointed, angry, shocked, speechless… I was a lot of things. Even now, after the years have tumbled away at my memories and worn off the sharp edges, I cannot remember exactly what I said in those moments. Or, if I even spoke. I know that I changed the channel immediately after the words “South Beach” so callously tumbled out of our city’s hero’s mouth. I changed the channel again. And again. I couldn’t escape the echoes of that sentence.
If that sentence about an NBA free agent decision seems melodramatic, that’s because I am a sports fan born in Cleveland, Ohio. A lot of people denigrate the idea of being a fan of teams based on geography, but when a sports loving child is born in a region as tightly knit – and tightly wound – as Northeast Ohio, choosing to root for another team seems more sacrilegious than sensible.
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The week after LeBron roasted Detroit, he was on the cover of SI. Today, LeBron tells his story through SI.com
Three years before four years ago, I sat in a different apartment, watching an entirely different television program. Game five of the 2007 Eastern Conference Finals hung in the balance. The series was tied at two games apiece, and Cleveland was on the road in Detroit. It was close. It was nerve-wracking. It was intense. It was LeBron James’ coronation. In scoring 29 of the Cavaliers last 30 points to close out Game 5 in overtime, LeBron became his legend.
The near triple-double in the series clinching Game 6 against the Pistons left me, in that same chair, watching that same TV, practically in tears. The Cavs – MY CAVS – were going to the NBA Finals. I remember that feeling at this moment, seven years later, as if it were happening to me right now. I smiled like I probably hadn’t smiled up to that point in my life. I sat in that room alone with goose bumps, chills, and a smile that Jack Nicholson would have measured against his Joker grin and been disappointed.
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Mark Price was a Cav, so I couldn’t have been a Cavalier. Not yet.
Seventeen years before seven years ago, I was a nine-year old kid shooting hoops on a basketball hoop attached to our old garage. The gravel driveway made it hard to dribble like the players I saw on TV, and sometimes I had to run through the plays I was setting up in my head around my mom’s car, but I was a Cav out there. I was a nine-year old kid dribbling around puddles and cars and my little brother on that gravel driveway, but Goddamn it, I was Mark Price.
You see, I always rooted for the name on the front of the jersey. I was always a Cleveland Cavalier. But I was also Mark Price. The young love of my hometown team led me down a path paved golden bricks - Brad Daugherty, Terrell Brandon, Zydrunas Illgauskas - and rough stones - Smush Parker, Carlos Boozer, Ricky Davis – but those days in that old driveway kept the fire burning for every minute of every game.
When LeBron James went to Miami four years ago, the nine-year old pretending to be Mark Price went with him. I have tried to explain why more times than I can count, but I cannot. The closest I can get to the truth is that, after all those years pining for a championship for my teams – I was also Kevin Mack, Bernie Kosar, Albert Belle, and Pedro Cerrano during those years – the chance to give that hopeful boy a championship winning shot to recreate for hours on a lazy summer evening flew away on a private jet to South Beach.
When LeBron James left the Cleveland Cavaliers, a crass young man taught us a lesson that, no matter how many tears were shed in childhood homes over lost games and heartbreak, sports is nothing but a business.
When LeBron James announced he was going to come back to the Cleveland Cavaliers, an adult remembered what it was like to be that nine-year old boy. And now I remember, too.