Last night, though I was asleep when it happened, LeBron James won his first NBA title. You'd need to be under a rock if you care about that fact but just learned it from me. Sorry if you had it DVR'd and actually did manage to avoid the news thus far.
Though LeBron doesn't know I exist, he's one of the top 10 characters in my life, were my life a novel- at least in recurrences and impact. I'm still processing the fact that a guy I saw and knew about while he was in high school just won an NBA title. A guy my middle-of-nowhere, Putnam County, Ohio basketball team was beating by ten at half time in 2003.
Honestly, it's hard to believe he's the same guy.
Looking back though, it's hard to believe I'm the same guy either.
I've grown a lot, I've changed a lot. To say the same has happened to LeBron is an understatement.
But as I sit here, still processing what it all means, trying to wrap my Cavaliers-obsessed brain around it and get past the bitterness that that ring could have been ours, I keep coming back to a fact that scares me and should make all of the vitriol around Cleveland toward LeBron take a step back, especially amongst people in my own generation.
I'll never be pleased with how LeBron left Cleveland. I'll never be convinced that he, playing like he did this past month, would have been denied a title no matter the supporting cast. He could have stayed in Cleveland and done the same. I know it. Deep down, from Avon to Mentor, we all know it.
But LeBron didn't do anything hundreds of kids who grew up in Ohio do every single year, maybe every day: grow up somewhere in the state, stay in Cleveland and love that it's close to home, then leave and experience great success.
It's the storyline of athletes for generations: The Ravens, Sabathia, Cliff Lee, Manny Ramirez, Brandon Phillips, etc.
But it's the story of our state and the story of the past 40 years or more.
People have been moving to Cleveland to get their life started, then leaving Cleveland when greater horizons beckon. Indeed, that's what Scott Raab, author of the Lebron hate-piece "The Whore of Akron" did. Raab couldn't make it as a writer in Cleveland so he had to move to New Jersey. That's not even a real upgrade- it's just a proximity thing. At least Miami has an ocean and 365 days of summer.
That's how Cleveland and Ohio have been for generations- a sort of minor leagues for life.
It is possible to stay in Cleveland and carve out a career- but it's easier to go somewhere bigger and better, that much is certain. Yes, LeBron took the easy way out, but that's only infuriating because of Cleveland's sports history and the fact that media outlets write about what basketball players do. At the end of the day, LeBron just made a move in his industry to be more successful than staying in Cleveland (at least in his mind) would allow.
If it weren't for the Cleveland Clinic, there'd be nothing holding the best and the brightest in northeast Ohio, and even less drawing them in.
It's just the way things work because there's an internalized perception that, staying in Cleveland, you'll never make it to the top.
I don't know; maybe it's true. I'm not to the top yet.
I wonder if so much of the LeBron hate in Cleveland stems from a belief that he got out when so many of us wish we could. It's certainly unfair to say that because so many people really do love Cleveland, but the fact remains that we don't have half the population we did in the sixties. It's not just LeBron who's leaving Cleveland for the perceived bigger and better.
I'm not leaving Cleveland as a matter of principal. It might be wholly irrational, but I'd rather forgo perceived success elsewhere in an effort to make progress in the city I love. That's the attitude everyone wanted LeBron to have but never really required it of their own children. Cleveland's never going to be what it could if we expect more out of our athletes than we do ourselves.
At the end of the day, LeBron's just like us, but his job gets media attention. He's always been human and that's our biggest problem with him. We wanted a savior and we got a 18 year old kid who grew up in Akron. Why did we expect him to be anything more than all of the other 18 year old kids from Akron who moved to Cleveland in 2003? Most of them have probably left in search of more success too.
-Zack
"Pair of forgivers let go before it's too late"
-The Naked and Famous
No comments:
Post a Comment