Shooting Stars: The Story of Young LeBron James

Shooting Stars: The Story of Young LeBron James

LeBron James is one of the greatest basketball players and greatest athletes of all time. But as long as he has had the professional spotlight he has been more about his team and community’s success than any of his individual accomplishments. Many have wondered what makes him such a team first star.

(from left), Willie McGee (Avery S. Wills, Jr.), LeBron James (Marquis “Mookie” Cook), Lil Dru Joyce III (Caleb McLaughlin), Sian Cotton (Khalil Everage) and Romeo Travis (Sterling “Scoot” Henderson), in Shooting Stars, directed by Chris Robinson.

Well it started with his first team as a young kid turned high school phenomenon from Akron, Ohio. Shooting Stars is a new film on NBCUniversal’s peacock platform that tells the story of LeBron James’ first team and formation into the superstar we know today. UrbanFaith sat down with the director of Shooting Stars, Chris Robinson to talk about what it was like to tell the story of the young LeBron James and his teammates. The full interview is above, more on the film is below.

The film is rated PG-13 for strong language suggestive and alcohol references . The film does not necessarily reflect the views of UrbanFaith. Viewer discretion is advised.

 

 

 

It’s not how you start the game. It’s how you finish.
Based on the book by LeBron James and the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Friday Night Lights, Buzz Bissinger, Shooting Stars is the inspiring origin story of a basketball superhero, revealing how LeBron James and his childhood friends become the #1 high school team in the country, launching James’s breathtaking career as a four-time NBA Champion, two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and the NBA’s all-time leading scorer.

Starring: Marquis “Mookie” Cook, Wood Harris, Caleb McLaughlin, Khalil Everage, Avery S. Willis, Jr., Sterling “Scoot” Henderson, Dermot Mulroney, Natalie Paul, Diane Howard, Algee Smith, Katlyn Nichol
Director: Chris Robinson
Executive Producer: Gretel Twombly
Producers: Rachel Winter, p.g.a., Spencer Beighley p.g.a, LeBron James, Maverick Carter, Jamal Henderson, Terence Winter
Screenplay by: Frank E. Flowers and Tony Rettenmaier & Juel Taylor, based on the book by LeBron James & Buzz Bissinger

Could black philanthropy help solve the black student debt crisis?

Could black philanthropy help solve the black student debt crisis?

Left: Robert Smith. Right (clockwise from left): Beyonce Knowles-Carter, Jay-Z, LeBron James and Nicki Minaj.
Reuters, USA Today

When billionaire Robert E. Smith decided to pay off the student loans of the graduating class of 2019 at Morehouse College, he suggested that others follow his lead.

“Let’s make sure every class has the same opportunity going forward, because we are enough to take care of our own community,” Smith declared in his commencement speech.

But is there even enough black private wealth in the United States to pay off all black student loan debt?

As a scholar in social transformation and African American studies, I’m intrigued by this question. It provides an opportunity to examine black wealth, higher education and the possibilities for alleviating debt, which in turn opens the door to new economic opportunities.

Black celebrities give to higher education

Smith’s gift is estimated to be worth US$40 million and will benefit 396 students.

That’s a lot of money, and he’s done it before. Before his gift to Morehouse, Smith donated $50 million to Cornell University, his alma mater, in part to support African American and female students at Cornell University’s College of Engineering.

Other black celebrities have also stepped up to fund education. Powerhouse couple Beyonce and Jay Z gave more than $1 million in scholarships to students who lived in cities they were touring in 2018.

Rapper Nicki Minaj gave 37 “Student of the Game” scholarships. LeBron James, through his foundation, promised to pay for 2,300 students to attend the University of Akron – at an estimated price tag of $100 million. Oprah Winfrey has donated more than $400 million to educational causes.

But with just five black billionaires in the United States – Smith, Winfrey, David Steward, Michael Jordan and Jay-Z – monumental gifts like the one that Smith made will likely be few and far between.

Is Smith’s claim that “we are enough to take care of our own community” true of all the black wealth in the U.S.?

Philanthropy among African Americans

A strong heritage of black philanthropy dates back to mutual aid societies of the 1700s and 1800s in which free blacks sought to help fellow blacks facing hardships or distress and, in later years, in need of education and job training.

Black charitable giving also arose from the black church and fraternal organizations throughout the 1800s and 1900s with movements such as abolitionism, the Black Women’s Club Movement and the civil rights movement.

Mary Church Terrell, the first president of the National Association of Colored Women, described how charitable organizations had “a keen sense of the responsibility” to secure economic and educational resources, “lifting as we climb” up the ladder of social mobility. This ethic of giving was also present among the early black economic elite such as Thomy Lafon, Madame C.J. Walker and James Forten.

Black giving remains strong to this day. Despite racial wealth gaps, black families contribute larger portions of their wealth than any other racial and ethnic group. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation reports that two-thirds of all black households donate to charitable causes. This giving amounts to about $11 billion annually, most of which goes to religious organizations.

But how much of it goes to higher education? African Americans across the socioeconomic spectrum report donating 17% to education – both K-12 and post-secondary institutions and scholarship funds. That adds up to about $1.8 billion donated annually.

Counting black millionaires

The percentage of black households worth over $1 million has remained at or below 2% since 1992, or about 877,000 based on 2018 population estimates.

Among black high net worth households – those with a net worth of more than $1 million (not counting the value of their primary home) or with an annual household income of $200,000 – 49% report giving to higher education. This is significant since across all racial groups, the share of dollars donated by high net worth individuals to higher education was only 4%.

Black student loan debt

Student loan debt in the U.S. reached an all-time high in 2019, making it the second-highest consumer debt category behind mortgage debt. Over 44 million borrowers owe roughly $1.5 trillion in student loan debt.

Looking at 2016 data, 86.4% of blacks completing a bachelor’s degree had some form of student loan debt, and the average amount borrowed was $34,010. If we multiply the total number of blacks that graduated with some form of debt – roughly 168,000 – by the average amount borrowed per individual, the average cumulative debt for this one graduating class was roughly $5.7 billion. This includes graduates from all colleges – public as well as private – but not community colleges.

Of course, looking at it at the most basic level, the collective wealth among America’s black billionaires – which totals $13.4 billion with the recent addition of Jay-Z – can easily subsidize the debt of a single graduating class.

And while a more sophisticated calculation is undoubtedly warranted, a rough estimate shows that the $5.7 billion in black student debt could be covered by America’s black millionaire households if each one chose to devote $6,500 toward eliminating the overall debt.

Of course, the debt load for black students goes far beyond one graduating class. The majority of blacks in the labor force that hold a bachelor’s degree or higher have some form of student loan debt. This means that the figures for the entire black population with outstanding student loan debt across generations are significantly higher than $5.7 billion.

Robert Smith’s gift to the class of 2019 at Morehouse provoked an interesting discussion about whether black philanthropy can alleviate black student loan debt. However, one-off philanthropic efforts that help a small group of beneficiaries can’t compete with the kind of large-scale change needed to alter the course of an entire community.The Conversation

Mako Fitts Ward, Clinical Assistant Professor, African and African American Studies & Women and Gender Studies, School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Will LeBron James’ I Promise School defy the odds?

Will LeBron James’ I Promise School defy the odds?

File 20190411 44790 jjwa3s.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1
LeBron James speaks at the opening ceremony for the I Promise School in Akron, Ohio. Phil Long/AP

When it comes to dealing with issues of race and social justice, LeBron James has never been shy to speak his mind.

For instance, in a recent HBO series, “The Shop,” LeBron laments how in the NFL, “they got a bunch of old white men owning teams and they got that slave mentality.”

At a time when issues of race continue to play a prominent role in American society – from police killings of unarmed black men to racial disparities in America’s criminal courts – we find LeBron’s boldness and willingness to speak out on these issues commendable.

Which made it surprising to us that plans for a public elementary school in Akron, Ohio that four-time NBA MVP LeBron launched in 2018, to help students who are struggling to stay on track academically, largely ignored how important race is in educational attainment.

While we can appreciate the NBA great using his star power and considerable wealth to open a school for children in his hometown who are struggling academically, much like LeBron once was himself, we levy this criticism from our vantage point as scholars and students who study race in education. One of us – Kevin O’Neal Cokley – is an education scholar who has studied and written a book about the psychological and environmental factors that impact black student achievement. Two of us – Nolan Krueger and Marlon L. Bailey – are doctoral students in an educational psychology department.

Before we explain why we believe the I Promise School should deal with race more boldly and more explicitly, let us first identify the areas where we believe the school is getting things right.

Emphasis on teamwork

The I Promise School employs “rigorous problem-based, inquiry-oriented learning” that involves having students work together to solve problems. This is good because research has found that black students from low-income families prefer a more communal and collectivist approach to school work, not individualistic competition.

Positive disciplinary practices

Instead of relying on suspensions and expulsions, which tend to disproportionately impact black children, the I Promise School relies on what the school’s leaders refer to as the five “habits of promise.” Those are: problem-solving, perspective, partnership, perseverance and perpetual learning. This is especially important given how school suspensions and expulsions lead to higher dropout rates.

Values and supports families

One of the things that stands out most about the school is its “I Promise Family Plan.” This plan offers a range of supports and resources for students and families. The resources include a food pantry, a barbershop and hair salon, and help for parents to improve English comprehension and earn their GED.

This family plan is also designed to help remove barriers to graduation. For example, providing free uniforms, a free bicycle and helmet, a computer to every student and an onsite laundry facility may help families who are short on cash get the things they need. This lessens the likelihood that children will be teased and bullied in school, which would create a negative school climate.

Especially noteworthy is the school’s treatment of fathers. Instead of assuming that fathers are not involved in the lives of their kids, the I Promise School has a Father’s Walk Day in which fathers are formally welcomed to the school.

A student at the I Promise School shows school pride by getting an ‘IPS’ design in his haircut. The school provided nearly 70 IPS students free haircuts from local Akron and Cleveland barbers on site as part of IPS’s celebration of Black History Month. I Promise School

Extended school year

The I Promise School is praised as being the first of its kind because it will have an extended school year that lasts from July to May. It also features longer school days from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Longer school days have been shown to promote attendance and positive academic outcomes.

The school also features a seven-week summer session focused on STEM designed to help prevent the “summer slide” – that is, the loss of learning students suffer during summer vacation.

Questions about race

Despite the many things to like about the I Promise School, we question whether and to what extent the school deals directly with issues of race. Scholars such as Richard Milner suggest that schools must confront both poverty and race in the classroom in order to create optimal learning.

Educators with a critical understanding of how race and poverty manifest in the classroom might rely less on an one-size-fits-all curriculum and instead ground learning in an understanding of the lived experiences of their students.

Renowned educational scholar Gloria Ladson-Billings has stressed the importance of culturally conscious education. She also promotes culturally relevant teaching – which she defines as a “pedagogy of opposition” – especially if schools are to be successful with African American students.

Since the I Promise School has students from diverse backgrounds, some might ask why we think the I Promise School should confront race and poverty.

It is true that students are selected for the school based on their test scores and how behind they are in reading, not on race or any other demographic characteristic. However, the reality is the I Promise School is located in Akron, where the student population is disproportionately black – 46.1% – compared to 13.8% of national K-12 enrollment. Furthermore, Ohio has a staggering “achievement” gap between black and white students, with only 37% of black children in Ohio reading at grade level compared with 70% of white children.

The I Promise School’s 20-page master plan document does not focus on issues of race or race-equity despite research that shows some of the most vexing issues facing students – such as disparities in graduation rate, literacy and higher education admissions – are linked to race and poverty.

Prominent educational scholars such as Tyrone Howard have asserted that when educators ignore race or adopt colorblind approaches, they fail to realize that avoiding the topic denies students an essential part of their being. This in turn only increases the likelihood of race becoming an explosive topic.

Research has also shown that priming students of color to believe race is a social construct, as opposed to biologically based, can actually improve educational outcomes by mitigating the risk of confirming negative racial stereotypes about academic performance.

Teacher diversity

One critical factor to consider is the racial composition of the school’s staff, administrators and, in particular, teachers. Research suggests that students do better when their teachers look like them and can relate to their experiences. For example, it has been shown that black children are assessed more harshly for disruptive behavior when their teacher is white as opposed to black. Research has also shown that exposure to just one black teacher between grades 3 and 5 reduces the rate of dropout for black male high-schoolers.

Based on the school’s staff directory, the I Promise School appears to be lacking in teacher diversity – something we believe that the school should be more mindful of in the future.

Will the school defy the odds?

To be clear, we are celebrating LeBron James for fulfilling his dream and creating the I Promise School. He deserves praise for caring enough to give back to the community where he grew up.

The I Promise School could be a big “win” for students and LeBron James, a man who has dedicated countless hours and millions of dollars toward positively impacting Akron’s youth. We believe if the I Promise School incorporates social justice and the primacy of race into its approach, it could be transformational for its students. If, however, the school fails to address issues of race and equity in its design, the school likely won’t spur the generational change that proponents of the school envision.

Editor’s note: Officials affiliated with the I Promise Academy declined to comment directly for this story but cautioned against judging a school based strictly on publicly available documents.

Nolan Krueger, Doctoral Student Researcher in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin; Kevin O’Neal Cokley, Professor of Educational Psychology and African and African Diaspora Studies, University of Texas at Austin, and Marlon L. Bailey, Doctoral Student in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

UrbanFaith Wins Top Media Award

UrbanFaith.com earned honors in three categories at the 2012 Evangelical Press Association Convention in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The convention was hosted at the Focus on the Family campus, May 9-11.

UF won fourth place in the General Article (medium length) category in the Higher Goals Contest for the submission “Is LeBron the NBA’s Samson?” by Jelani Greenidge. We also won a fourth-place award in the Devotional category for the article “Forgiving Kim Jong-Il” by Helen Lee.

Finally, UrbanFaith earned the top honor in the Awards of Excellence for General Digital Media. This is the EPA’s highest award for general websites. Here’s what the judge had to say about us: “This site simply stands out. Its story selection, writing, and focus on being current gives it the edge over all the other entries.”

The Evangelical Press Association is a professional organization of some 300 Christian magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and content-rich websites in North America. The annual convention in May brings together evangelical journalists, writers, and other media-related professionals for a time of training, networking and encouragement. Each year at the convention awards are given out in various categories.

UrbanFaith is grateful to the EPA for these honors, and we look forward to faithfully pursuing another year of journalistic excellence.

Parables for the NBA Lockout

Fans of the wacky musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords recognize one of their signature hits, a song called “Business Time.” 

Despite being very silly, “Business Time” is not for kids.

It’s about an amorous husband trying to get his wife in the mood. The song (and accompanying video) is funny because of the contrast between the sensuous musical subject matter and the decidedly unsexy, ordinary domestic activities surrounding it. Doing the laundry, separating the recycling … these are not activities normally depicted as foreplay in our modern culture.

Yet, many married women attest to the fact that with the right attitude, many of these can, in fact, set the mood quite nicely.

Which is another example of how many times the truth can be counter-intuitive. 

But if you learn from it and take advantage, you can reap dividends.

How the sausage is made

In the same way, I’m hoping that there are young NBA fans who have been paying close attention to the league during this latest work stoppage.

See, some people think the lockout is a time for basketball fans to tune out and enjoy something else. And I’m sure a lot of us (myself included) could definitely stand to do less watching of physical activity, and more doing of it.

But for young ballplayers who aspire to greatness in the NBA or elsewhere, now is the best time to pay attention to the NBA. If I were 16 and could shoot from distance, I would be digging into as much coverage of the lockout as I could.

It might not be as fun or interesting as the game itself. But there’s the game … and then, there’s the game behind the game.

See, there’s a reason why when LeBron James was discussing his free agent plans in 2010, he kept referring to his team, and he wasn’t talking about his NBA coworkers in Cleveland. He was talking about his management team. He was talking about the team that helps him take care of his business. He was talking about business time … those things that happen behind the scenes that allow him to be the basketball-playing global icon he aspires to be.

And that’s one thing that LeBron deserves credit for. Whereas a lot of young ballers focus only on their game and pay accountants and managers to handle the rest, LeBron has been very hands-on regarding his image and his business matters. He understands that he’s not just managing a basketball career but a business career. And unlike a quick first step, business acumen can last well into one’s later years.

Professional basketball has always been a business, and it’s a testament to the power of flashy marketing that fans aren’t aware of this truth more often. But in a work stoppage, the business of the game is on center stage.

But now Labor Day, an oft-quoted negotiating deadline, has come and gone, the NBA preseason has been effectively canceled, and the traditional start of the regular season is fast approaching. Both the labor and ownership representatives must feel a sense of urgency to get a deal done in order to save the season. In the same way, young aspiring business professionals should also have a sense of urgency in understanding how this particular sausage gets made, before it gets swept back under the rug of marketing hype that will accompany the NBA’s inevitable return.

(Did I just sweep the sausage under the rug? Pardon my mixed metaphor.)

Central to the negotiations are questions about revenue sharing, player contracts, salary caps, age restrictions, and many other related issues. Getting a handle on these things can sharpen a young person’s business acumen.

And this kind of sharpening is crucial, because a good business sense is an essential for overall success in any field. Whether it’s basketball or basket-weaving, in order to be the best you have to learn not only the craft itself, but the way to turn that craft into a solid business. Many of the most successful figures are not necessarily the most talented, but the hardest working in their field

Taking our talents beyond South Beach

Good business sense is essential in the kingdom of God, according to many of Jesus’ parables regarding the managing of money.

One of the more commonly preached is often referred to as the parable of the talents, which helps us to understand that the word “talent” was not always a reference to skill or aptitude, but actually meant a sum of money to be invested. Most NBA-caliber players intuitively understand that their talents, invested properly, can yield a great harvest over time. And many Christians today understand the principle that being faithful with a little can translate to being entrusted later with much.

But Jesus’ parable is not just about maximizing return, but also about taking to heart the urgency required in honoring the master. You also see this in the parable of the unjust steward, which is quite the head-scratcher compared to the other one. But in both cases, one of the resounding themes is the urgency with which the stewards act in response to the oversight of the master. Even though the unjust steward was shady in the way he brokered his freedom, his master was so impressed with the ingenuity that arose from his desperation.

What can we learn from these parables?

That the God of the Bible is both infinitely just and inexplicably merciful. And that for everyone, NBA players and middle managers alike, living in a reconciled manner with Him is not only the key to salvation and a life full of shalom, but if that weren’t enough … it also makes good business sense.

So when (or if) the NBA returns to arenas and TV sets across the nation, let’s rejoice. But while it’s still in lockout mode, let’s get our notebooks out.

Because, y’know, business time doesn’t last forever.