Notebook: Vermont coach keeps on talking, winning

AKRON, Ohio -- There is an episode of MTV's Cribs on the television, and this time it's Babyface's place they are touring. Not that it matters. Eddie Jackson has seen a lot of episodes of this show, seen the huge homes of Master P, of Destiny's Child, of even Penny Hardaway. Spectacular houses. Ridiculous opulence.

"Just unbelievable," says Eddie Jackson. "You could take my place and put it in there 20 times. Their bedrooms are as big as my whole house."

Only a junior, LeBron James has towered over the competition on his team's way to two state titles.(AP)

When Cribs comes on, showing the ultimate in excess -- gold-plated bathtubs, multiple-Bentley garages -- you can hardly fault Jackson for dreaming of something bigger, something bolder for LeBron James, his surrogate son, a 16-year-old hoop prodigy and would-be multimillionaire.

The featured celebrities usually aren't much older than LeBron, but they are a heck of a lot wealthier. At least until March 23, 2003, the day after LeBron James presumably wins his fourth state high school championship, the day he can declare for the NBA Draft, the day the floodgates of wealth can open, the day the lines of credit can be established, the day corporate America can start showering millions on a family that will finally be able to go from nothing to everything quicker than a crossover.

Which leaves 14 months and one week to wait, to watch and to pray it doesn't all disappear under a crumbled knee.

LeBron James is a 6-foot-7 gift from the basketball heavens, the undisputed finest high school player in America despite being just a junior. He is the one NBA scouts drool over, corporations dream of, event promoters beg for.

There hasn't been a better high school basketball player since kids started turning pro before prom, before the millions were guaranteed. Not Kobe. Not Garnett. Not T-Mac.

"Give me the No. 1 pick right now, and I don't hesitate," said one director of player personnel for an NBA team, who'd be fined if he spoke publicly about a high school kid. "I think Jason Williams is going to a special player, and the big guy in China, Yao Ming, he's 7-foot-4 and that's significant. But LeBron is that good and going to be that great."

LeBron James is a walking lottery ticket waiting to be cashed. If you include the fourth-year option, the first pick of the 2002 NBA Draft is guaranteed about $16 million. In James' case, there is an estimated $20 million shoe and apparel contract, a record for a preps-to-pro player, waiting for him, not to mention other national and local endorsement deals.

It adds up to a fortune as tantalizingly big as Babyface's 800-square foot bathroom, right there for the taking.

But the NBA prohibits him from entering the draft until the spring of 2003, when his high school class graduates. And the Ohio High School Athletic Association doesn't allow players to earn more than $100 in "awards." So until March 23, 2003, the big money will remain nothing more than a big, beautiful dream.

This is the story of a willing employee being kept from would-be employers by system and circumstance. This is a person who is targeted by global companies to attain fabulous wealth but who isn't yet allowed to grab it. This is a kid worth both $36 million and nothing at the same time; ready for a Crib but living in a small, snow-covered Ohio home with his mom.

"His life," says Adidas consultant Sonny Vaccaro, "is stalled. It's been put in a holding cell."

And that is where -- if you are willing to reconsider the way the system works -- the whole thing starts getting interesting.

"If you do that," says James, nodding his head because he has considered the way the system works, "then this is an odd situation. It's just odd."

A star since eighth grade

The Sunday night snow was falling fast, piling up at a rate that gives Frank Jessie pause as he scans the still-filling Rhodes Arena bleachers on the campus of the University of Akron.

"Might keep people home," he says. "It might."

It probably did, although that's difficult to judge. About 4,000 slid and skidded here to watch St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, where Jessie is athletic director, easily handle University High 60-38. That's a startling attendance figure for a high school game, especially for the Catholic school on North Maple, but not unexpected considering the drawing power of No. 23, LeBron James.

St. Vincent-St. Mary has become Akron's team, its wintertime attraction. The school moved all of its games to this 5,500-seat arena, where the average attendance is about 4,800; season tickets are sold out, and the high school draws nearly 2½ times that of the college team.

LeBron James lives in West Akron, one of the poorest neighborhoods of this aged Northeast Ohio factory town. But throughout the city, he is more than a high school star; he is a cultural phenomenon, the local icon. He is already the most famous resident of this city of 217,000. It was once known as "the Rubber Capital of the World" but now is not too proud to admit, in actual government literature, that it is "one of the cloudiest cities in America."

The interest in James is phenomenal. Both of the local newspapers, the Akron Beacon-Journal and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, have beat writers assigned to the team. Local television stations staff virtually every game, lining up after each Fighting Irish win for a one-on-one with the star. LeBron is known by his first name from the suburban outskirts where the polymer scientists live to the Dollar Stores that line North Main Street in the downtown that has seen more prosperous days.

He has been huge here since eighth grade, when he led a local team to the finals of the national AAU tournament in Florida. Since then, everyone has been watching. And he knows it.

"Sometimes it feels like I have the whole world on my shoulders," James says. "The whole City of Akron. I know I'm under a microscope with everything I do."

Scouts have been unable to spot a weakness in LeBron James' game.(AP)

James is an immensely gifted player, big, fast and strong. There is truly no aspect of the game that he is not extremely advanced for his age -- his handle tight, his jumper true, his speed blinding. What sets him above the rest, however, is his ability to see plays develop in slow motion. His passing, his movement without the ball, his defensive help make him a remarkable talent.

Named first-team All-American by USA Today after his sophomore season, he answered any doubts about his ability last summer at the Adidas ABCD Camp in New Jersey.

In front of a standing-room-only crowd of college coaches and professional scouts, James' camp team matched up with one featuring Lenny Cooke, a 6-6 New Yorker who at 19 is three years older and a future lottery pick in his own right.

James toyed with Cooke, outscoring his elder 25-9 and won the game on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer.

Which only brightened his star back home and increased the intensity of the "what if?"

'Why not LeBron?'

To the young and talented in the world of entertainment comes almost incomparable wealth. In music, movies and many sports, there is no delay. There is no incubation period. If you can sell it, they'll buy it. There is young Hollywood, there are boy bands. There are 13-year-old tennis pros, 16-year-old skating stars. There is MTV Cribs ... O-Town.

"Look at Lil' Bow Wow," said Jackson. "Look at Lil' Romeo. Christina Aguilera. Look at the tennis players, the skaters, the actors. Why is this the rule in basketball? I've never even asked that of anyone, I've never put that question to someone, but I think about it. Why not LeBron?"

Why not LeBron? Jackson isn't bitter. He isn't upset with how James has developed as a person. But he also knows James is a blown knee, a bad car accident from it all going away. "If the doc says, 'You'll never play again,' then it's on to the next kid, just like that," he says. So why not? What if?

The young man's selling power cannot be challenged, and it has brought arguments over shared revenue that have long existed at the collegiate level down to high schools. St. Vincent-St. Mary turns a nice profit, an estimated $40,000 per, for home contests. In return, James gets financial aid and grants at the academically strong school, but that's because his family, led by 33-year-old mother Gloria, is poor. And it doesn't cover everything.

"I paid for his books out of my own pocket," said Jackson, a 35-year-old concert promoter and real estate investor.

James' team is a coveted attraction for prep tournament promoters around the country, a sure draw, which is why the St. V-M schedule includes trips to Delaware and New Jersey. He is also why the state championship game sold out the Schottenstein Center in Columbus last March for the first time and why the Ohio High School Athletic Association is in the process of moving the Northeast regional semifinals to 19,000-seat Gund Arena in Cleveland to allow more of the masses to watch James.

"You see all these promoters who at the end of the day walk away with money in their pocket," said Jackson. "But the actual individuals such as LeBron James, Lenny Cooke, Sebastian Telfair, at the end of their day, they go back to the ghetto, the projects."

James has the ability to play in the NBA, but Section 5 (a) of the league's collective bargaining agreement mandates that no American player can enter the draft unless his "high school class has graduated."

James has decided against challenging that in court this spring, after his junior year, in part because it would be difficult to beat.

"It is an ironclad rule," said NBA spokesman Brian McIntyre. "It was collectively agreed upon, you can't take it to court and overturn it. It's binding. Someone can take it to court, but they won't be successful."

Then there are the multinationals, panting at the chance to get James to hawk their products. The family is well-acquainted with executives of Nike, Adidas and And 1.

Not surprisingly, the St. V-M team doesn't just wear the latest Kobes, it's outfitted in custom uniforms and warmups designed by Adidas. James has played the past two summers on an Adidas traveling team out of Oakland, Calif. He and his family maintain a close relationship with Vaccaro.

That doesn't mean Nike is out of the equation. The family says it paid its own way this fall to fly to Beaverton, Ore., in order to tour its campus and meet with company officials, including CEO Phil Knight.

"More or less I thought we needed to weigh our options," said Jackson, who is neither James' biological father nor legally married to James' mother, Gloria, but who has helped raise LeBron since childhood. "See who offers what. I've heard what Adidas is saying, I've heard what And 1 is saying. I wanted to hear what Nike was saying.

"I've got to look for my kid's best interests. If that means I don't pay my rent so I can buy a plane ticket to go there or to a basketball game and protect his eligibility or see what is out there, then I am going to do it. You sacrifice for those things."

Whatever 'it' is, James has it

Vaccaro has a long track record of identifying not just future superstar players but invaluable pitchmen. In 1984, when he worked at Nike, he bet his job that the company wouldn't regret developing and marketing a signature shoe for a then-unproven shooting guard out of North Carolina named Michael Jordan.

In the late 1990s, after switching to Adidas, he signed players such as Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady to multimillion-dollar deals after they turned pro directly out of high school.

He says there is a certain charisma, a certain something, that makes a select few ideal endorsers. Whatever "it" is, Vaccaro and many others are sure James has it.

"I knew in five minutes," said Vaccaro, "It's not so much his presence, it's just a feeling for what he is going to be. There was no obvious glare on Kobe or Tracy either. It is just something you see that you know he has upside. LeBron has a chance for everything."

That is why James will get huge shoe money even if the industry hasn't dropped a significant contract on any newcomer since Adidas signed McGrady to a six-year, $12 million deal in 1997. With an expected multiparty bidding war, James will almost assuredly exceed that.

Only OHSAA eligibility rules and the NBA entry policy prevent him from getting that money now.

James isn't complaining. The family, especially Gloria, feels a sense of loyalty to St. V-M, and LeBron is both smart and savvy enough to avoid bad public relations fights. Despite a swirl of agents and their promises, the family says it is focused on steering clear of corruption and waiting patiently for their day to come.

"It's a good thing really," James says of the attention. "It's a sign I'm doing the right thing. If everyone wants me, that shows I'm doing something right."

James even says he is still interested in playing collegiate basketball. While that remains unlikely considering the finances involved, it can't be completely ruled out. The family is unpredictable.

Last fall, James risked it all to play wide receiver for the St. V-M football team because he enjoys the sport, seemingly daring some linebacker to take the $36 million, take the promise of March 23, 2003, away as he caught passes over the middle.

Another season of football hasn't been ruled out either, and Gloria James says she is willing to let him play again, if only because she wants him to remain a child for as long as possible. She had LeBron when she was just 17. She calls him "my best friend" but remains steadfast that he is still just a kid.

"That's my dude, you know," she said. "That's my dude."

He is so developed on the court, so well-spoken and acutely aware people are watching off of it, it is easy to forget he is just 16 or that just this morning his mother was on him about a messy room.

If he had a crushing forehand instead of a face-up game, he'd have a maid. If he could sing and dance, he'd have one of those gold-plated bathtubs. If he could act, there'd be a custom Bentley outside.

But he plays basketball and all the money, all the excess, all the trappings he is worth, the tens of millions in contracts, are still a minimum of 15, 16 months away. Still another summer. Still another year of English Lit. Still so many days until March 23, 2003.

His episode of Cribs might come one day. West Akron will have to do for right now.