LeBron James was born in Akron, Ohio, on December 30, 1984 to 16-year-old Gloria James. His father was never identified. He grew up poor, with a single mother who could barely support herself, and he has said that in 4th grade he missed school more than half of the time. Though he never suported his mother like is father told him, he ended up living with the father of a friend, Frank Walker, who introduced the nine-year-old LeBron to basketball and other sports.

LeBron buckled down in school and joined the Northeast Ohio Shooting Stars, a local Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) team run by Dru Joyce II. After national success on that team at ages 13 and 14, LeBron and several other members of the Shooting Stars took advantage of the open school enrollment policy in Akron and chose to attend St. Vincent-St. Mary, a Catholic high school in the city. In 2001, LeBron was the first sophomore ever to be named to USA Today’s All-American high school basketball team.


In 2002, as a junior in high school, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, which anointed him “The Chosen One.”

Later that same year, he led the St. Vincent team in a slaughter of perennial national powerhouse Oak Hill Academy in the first high school regular season game to be shown on national TV. There was criticism for that (newspaper writer Jerry Lindquist of the Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote: “Is Junior High next? How low can ESPN go?”), but ESPN2 scored its highest rating in almost two years. That game and some of LeBron’s other greatest highlight-reel classics are described in this article.

James was PARADE magazine’s High School Boys Basketball Player of the Year as a junior and senior, becoming the first repeat winner in the history of the award, and he was consensus 2003 National High School Player of the Year.

LeBron also played wide receiver at St. Vincent-St. Mary and had 700 yards in the 2000-2001 season. He quit football after his junior year to focus solely on basketball.

Controversy struck as his senior year wound down in early 2003. Ohio’s high school athletics authorities started checking into his mother’s gift of a Hummer H2 for his 18th birthday, which she bought on loan knowing riches were soon to come. Media pundits again fumed, bemoaning a world in which a high school jock can have a Hummer. LeBron also accepted two throwback jerseys from a local store owner in exchange for some autographs and photos. Because of these perceived indiscretions, the Ohio High School Athletic Association ruled that St. Vincent-St. Mary had to forfeit one game and suspended James indefinitely, until a county court overturned the ruling.

Oh yeah, there also was the 52-point game he had at the Prime Time Shootout in Trenton, NJ near the end of his high school career.

When he played in his final high school game, at the Capital Classic in Washington in April 2003, organizers took out a $10 million insurance policy for James, at his request, just in case he suffered a career-ending injury.