Baby LeBron
The year was 1984, the date was December 30th, and 16-year-old Gloria Marie James from Akron, Ohio, had a baby boy whom she named LeBron. With a criminal record and complete lack of involvement in the baby’s life, Anthony McClelland, LeBron’s father, was hardly a model parent.
Other than the help of her own mother, Gloria raised LeBron as a single mother. The first crisis came when Gloria was 19, and her mother passed away from a sudden heart attack.
Struggling Through
The small family struggled quite a bit and moved from one slum to the next in Akron. Obviously, finding a steady job for a woman in Gloria's position was next to impossible.
Supporting her own son was becoming harder and harder. She realized that for both of their sakes, he had to grow up somewhere else. She eventually had to make the difficult decision of moving her son somewhere more stable.
The Walkers
The stable environment LeBron ended up in was the home of Frank Walker and his family. Walker was the coach of a youth football team and little LeBron's first doorway into sports. When James was just nine years old, it was Walker who introduced him to basketball — an introduction that would surely change his life.
From then on, James played basketball regularly. Most notably, in the Northeast Ohio Shooting Stars (which played for the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU)). The team was both a local and national success.
The Fast and Fabulous
When he was still playing for the Shooting Stars, he was one of the self-proclaimed "Fab Four" — four teammates who led the group with a strong bond between them: Willie McGee, Dru Joyce III, and Sian Cotton.
Their bond extended past the basketball court, and they made a mutual decision to move on to the same high school. The establishment they chose? A private Catholic school called St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, which had a vast majority of white students.
Rising Star
The first thing on LeBron's agenda when attending St. Vincent-St. Mary High School was joining the sports teams. Dominating any kind of ball on any kind of field. He was a prominent player in the school's basketball team as well as the football team. In fact, if it wasn't for the wrist injury that made him quit football, sports analysts say he could have made it to the NFL!
His basketball talent couldn't be ignored, and his team relied on it when crushing rival teams left and right. Little did James know, one of those rival schools was where he would find the love of his life.