1. "I sometimes feel like I’m their son. Their passion can be overwhelming...I want to give them hope...I want to inspire them when I can. My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball. I didn't realize that four years ago. I do now (beginning of essay)...I feel my calling here goes above basketball. I have a responsibility to lead, in more ways than one...I want kids in Northeast Ohio...to realize that there’s no better place to grow up. Maybe some of them will come home after college and start a family or open a business...I'm coming home." (end of essay). (emphasis added)
2. "Miami, for me, has been almost like college for other kids. These past four years helped raise me into who I am. I became a better player and a better man. I learned from a franchise that had been where I wanted to go...Without the experiences I had there, I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing today....(second paragraph) I’m not promising a championship. I know how hard that is to deliver. We’re not ready right now. No way...(next to last paragraph) In Northeast Ohio, nothing is given. Everything is earned. You work for what you have." (last paragraph) (emphasis added)
3. "I went to Miami because of D-Wade and CB....I believed we could do something magical if we came together. And that’s exactly what we did! The hardest thing to leave is what I built with those guys....When I left Cleveland, I was on a mission. I was seeking championships, and we won two."(third paragraph) (emphasis added)
4. "This is what makes me happy...(middle of essay) That would make me smile." (near end of essay)
5. "To make the move I needed the support of my wife and my mom, who can be very tough. The letter from Dan Gilbert, the booing of the Cleveland fans, the jerseys being burned -- seeing all that was hard for them. My emotions were more mixed...What if I were a kid who looked up to an athlete, and that athlete made me want to do better in my own life, and then he left? How would I react? I’ve met with Dan, face-to-face, man-to-man. We’ve talked it out...Who am I to hold a grudge?"
If we apply common rules of construction to LeBron James' essay, by both the primacy effect and the recency effect, it is the intense devotion to "home" that drove James' decision. His desire to win is a distant second. Note how James expresses this: Cleveland will not win his first year, "No way," "nothing is given" in Cleveland, "everything is earned. You work." As compared to Miami: "Miami, for me, has been almost like college;" "magical." When I reread the essay, this is what stuck out most. I have never read that thought being attributed to James previously. James mentions college both in his second paragraph and in his last full paragraph. Those are negative ways of expressing the importance to him of the desire to win: Cleveland will not win immediately, he says, and in Miami things were maybe too easy, not entirely real, "magical.".LeBron James did not go to college, he went straight from high school to the NBA. College is fun! College is the best time of many people's lives, a "magical" time and LeBron James wanted to experience that. College is also to learn and "I learned," it's preparation for the real world and "Without the experiences I had there, I wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing today." James stayed in Miami for four years, the length of college in America.
Miami is a beautiful city, a wonderful city, a nickname is "The Magic City" and for decades people came to Miami just briefly, to vacation, to have fun in the sun as Winston Churchill did. And then leave. Or, people came to to escape, as Churchill also did, as hundreds of thousands of Cubans did, to retire in an easy life, as hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers did. None of those came to Miami intending to stay, to work and start families and establish roots, none came to Miami to live, they lived in their hearts and minds elsewhere. There is a sense in which these immigrants came to Miami to die. The northern snowbirds have died, the original Cuban immigrants have died, but their children have established roots here and, since the mid-1980's it seems to me, hundreds of thousands of other people have come to Miami to live, to work, to stay. All of these folks, the vacationers, the snowbirds, the retirees, war returnees, Cuban refugees, Haitian refugees, refugees from Central America, those who made Miami a destination, all of these folks have made Miami into an exciting, polyglot, international capital city. LeBron James did, too. Miami is not the stunningly beautiful woman of easy virtue, bedded by many, wed by none. She has been wed, more than once, doesn't need to be wed, will wed if and when she wants and to whom she wants and has the virtues of beauty and independence and vitality. There are now over 2,600,000 of them in Miami-Dade County.
In James' seventh full paragraph, out of nine, (not that important) James mentions Dan Gilbert's 2010 letter. It was hard on "them," James' loved ones, not so much on James. In fact, James took one message of the letter very much to heart. These passages from James' essay and Gilbert's letter are nearly identical. First, Gilbert:
"This shocking act of disloyalty from our home grown "chosen one" sends the exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn. And "who" we would want them to grow-up to become."
James:
"What if I were a kid who looked up to an athlete, and that athlete made me want to do better in my own life, and then he left? How would I react?"
2. "Miami, for me, has been almost like college for other kids. These past four years helped raise me into who I am. I became a better player and a better man. I learned from a franchise that had been where I wanted to go...Without the experiences I had there, I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing today....(second paragraph) I’m not promising a championship. I know how hard that is to deliver. We’re not ready right now. No way...(next to last paragraph) In Northeast Ohio, nothing is given. Everything is earned. You work for what you have." (last paragraph) (emphasis added)
3. "I went to Miami because of D-Wade and CB....I believed we could do something magical if we came together. And that’s exactly what we did! The hardest thing to leave is what I built with those guys....When I left Cleveland, I was on a mission. I was seeking championships, and we won two."(third paragraph) (emphasis added)
4. "This is what makes me happy...(middle of essay) That would make me smile." (near end of essay)
5. "To make the move I needed the support of my wife and my mom, who can be very tough. The letter from Dan Gilbert, the booing of the Cleveland fans, the jerseys being burned -- seeing all that was hard for them. My emotions were more mixed...What if I were a kid who looked up to an athlete, and that athlete made me want to do better in my own life, and then he left? How would I react? I’ve met with Dan, face-to-face, man-to-man. We’ve talked it out...Who am I to hold a grudge?"
If we apply common rules of construction to LeBron James' essay, by both the primacy effect and the recency effect, it is the intense devotion to "home" that drove James' decision. His desire to win is a distant second. Note how James expresses this: Cleveland will not win his first year, "No way," "nothing is given" in Cleveland, "everything is earned. You work." As compared to Miami: "Miami, for me, has been almost like college;" "magical." When I reread the essay, this is what stuck out most. I have never read that thought being attributed to James previously. James mentions college both in his second paragraph and in his last full paragraph. Those are negative ways of expressing the importance to him of the desire to win: Cleveland will not win immediately, he says, and in Miami things were maybe too easy, not entirely real, "magical.".LeBron James did not go to college, he went straight from high school to the NBA. College is fun! College is the best time of many people's lives, a "magical" time and LeBron James wanted to experience that. College is also to learn and "I learned," it's preparation for the real world and "Without the experiences I had there, I wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing today." James stayed in Miami for four years, the length of college in America.
Miami is a beautiful city, a wonderful city, a nickname is "The Magic City" and for decades people came to Miami just briefly, to vacation, to have fun in the sun as Winston Churchill did. And then leave. Or, people came to to escape, as Churchill also did, as hundreds of thousands of Cubans did, to retire in an easy life, as hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers did. None of those came to Miami intending to stay, to work and start families and establish roots, none came to Miami to live, they lived in their hearts and minds elsewhere. There is a sense in which these immigrants came to Miami to die. The northern snowbirds have died, the original Cuban immigrants have died, but their children have established roots here and, since the mid-1980's it seems to me, hundreds of thousands of other people have come to Miami to live, to work, to stay. All of these folks, the vacationers, the snowbirds, the retirees, war returnees, Cuban refugees, Haitian refugees, refugees from Central America, those who made Miami a destination, all of these folks have made Miami into an exciting, polyglot, international capital city. LeBron James did, too. Miami is not the stunningly beautiful woman of easy virtue, bedded by many, wed by none. She has been wed, more than once, doesn't need to be wed, will wed if and when she wants and to whom she wants and has the virtues of beauty and independence and vitality. There are now over 2,600,000 of them in Miami-Dade County.
In James' seventh full paragraph, out of nine, (not that important) James mentions Dan Gilbert's 2010 letter. It was hard on "them," James' loved ones, not so much on James. In fact, James took one message of the letter very much to heart. These passages from James' essay and Gilbert's letter are nearly identical. First, Gilbert:
"This shocking act of disloyalty from our home grown "chosen one" sends the exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn. And "who" we would want them to grow-up to become."
James:
"What if I were a kid who looked up to an athlete, and that athlete made me want to do better in my own life, and then he left? How would I react?"
