Basketball is a vehicle.
It's not the end all of the be all.
It's a vehicle to get you from point A to point B.
Use basketball, don't let it use you.
Here at Value City Arena,
they've taken on all comers all season long.
They've played in New Jersey and North Carolina.
A national schedule. Number-one team in the country.
You know, you certainly think that this team
has put themselves right up there with the great Middletown teams,
the Cleveland St. Jo teams, the East teams, Wehrle, all of those.
Let me just say to all of you in attendance today,
you are part of the largest crowd ever to witness
a championship game in the history of Ohio.
James, Joyce, Cotton and McGee have all been here four consecutive years.
They've all won 100 games trying to become a three-time winner with this group.
You have a chance to go down as the greatest team
in high-school basketball history.
You know, that's gonna be around here long after you guys are gone.
You've taken it full circle, fellas.
This all started in a little gym with a linoleum floor on Maple Street,
at The Salvation Army.
All the travel we've done,
from the time you guys were 11 years old, all the way across the country,
through high school, all the way to culminate,
when that bus pulls up tomorrow, where at? On Maple Street.
And the only question right now is,
"Do you get off that bus tomorrow victorious?"
All right, let's go.
So, here we go. The championship game in Division II.
St. Vincent-St. Mary's with a national championship on the line.
Growing up, I had one coach who I looked up to a lot.
I learned a lot from him, and I just thought that he was someone that,
you know, I could model my life after.
Coming out of college, I got caught up in corporate America
and really lost my dream of becoming a coach.
It's kind of always a delicate situation.
You know, you don't want to live your dream through your child,
but you want to have them enjoy the things that you have enjoyed.
Myself and some of the brothers from our church,
we would go every Saturday morning and have pickup basketball.
Dru was there and you could just see that he had a love for the game.
I was one of those parents who just came to every practice that I could come to,
and so the parents just asked me, "Why don't you coach the team?"
So I jumped at the opportunity.
I can remember having a conversation with a gentleman in my church,
telling him that I was about to coach this travel basketball team,
and he happened to be on the board of The Salvation Army
and he said he could arrange a place for us to practice, so...
This is where it started. This is where we came together as a team.
Basketball was just so much fun.
It was a whole new world. That was my playground.
I mean, I looked forward to going to the basketball court.
Dru was kind of a hothead.
When he was young, five, I'd have to play until I let him win.
You know, I mean, that's just who he was.
We would play 10 games of one-on-one. I'm like, "Hey, I gotta beat you.
"I'm not leaving till I win."
We had trouble keeping players on the team, and I knew a very good player
and his name happened to be LeBron James.
He let us know that we were gonna be traveling across the United States
to play the game of basketball,
which, at that point, I was starting to get a love for.
I remember he was real flashy.
He came to practice, he was throwing no-Iook passes.
He and his mom had some tough early years,
and when I met him, you would never know that about him.
I'm seeing Dru come out of church school this one day,
and I'm thinking, "Hey, this is a big kid."
He came to my dad and wanted to know if I would play for his AAU team
that he was starting up.
My dad was real good. Everywhere we'd go, people would know him around Akron.
I kind of set out to be better than him.
Sian wasn't very good. He was big, but he wasn't very good.
He was definitely the biggest kid on our team,
so we had to use him for something.
Willie was the best player in the city,
and we wanted him to be a part of our team.
Coach Dru called and asked my brother how my grades were
and things like that, and if I considered playing on his team.
I remember Willie being real shy. He didn't really say too much.
He had some different life experiences that maybe grown him up a little bit more.
He was just a little bit more mature than the other guys.
He was like the grandfather of it all.
We just started traveling.
We started playing different tournaments throughout Ohio.
Some of the close states. Ohio, West Virginia.
We had a natural feel for each other. I'm not sure what it was.
I guess it was just meant to be, but we had a chemistry for each other.
Got to the point where we were winning pretty much all the time.
It was basketball, but it was more friendship than anything.
We were all kind of, like, strangers, and we really bonded.
I wanted to finally have some brothers that I could be loyal to and be trustworthy,
and I think we all kind of shared that bond.
I actually remember being over at LeBron's house one night,
and he was just talking, like,
"You and I are good friends, you know what I'm saying?"
It was weird for me, for somebody to express themselves to me,
including another dude, another boy, to me like that, you know what I mean?
Like, they were more giving. They were more accepting.
It just got more comfortable.
The Fab 4, that was like our identity.
We spent the night at each other's houses every weekend.
I'd look down in the rec room and there would be just bodies down there.
I wouldn't know who was in there.
It was like the team was like a family. You play your heart out for your family.
I just said, "You guys are gonna do something special. "
I didn't know what I meant by that, but that's what...
I remember telling them that.
And from there it became my dream and their dreams
to win a national championship.
The AAU is the Amateur Athletic Union,
and they host national championships for each age group,
kind of like the NCAA championships.
That's the one you want to go to and where the best players and teams are.
Financially, we had no sponsors.
You name the fundraiser and we probably tried it.
We sold Katydids. We did fish fries.
We sold duct tape for a number of years.
Hey, don't laugh. Duct tape. We made a lot of money selling duct tape.
We were kids who were on the corner hustling for uniforms,
washing cars and going around from door to door.
The big moneymaker was really right by the liquor store.
We rode in a minivan from Akron, Ohio, to Florida.
Probably, like, nine of us in a minivan.
We went down in caravans. I drove my wife's van, she drove my car,
and I had five boys in my car and she had our other three children.
- LeBron. - Hello.
You go in, they have opening ceremonies,
and the teams are parading through. It's like the Olympics,
and I'm like, "Wow, this is more than I had ever expected. "
Northeast Ohio Shooting Stars.
There's teams from New York, from California, from Florida.
We were a team from Akron, which no one ever heard of.
Talking to other coaches and hearing that they had played 60 games,
"We played 50 games,"
and I'm thinking, "Wow, this doesn't look very good."
Today, there are over 100,000 boys
competing in AAU basketball tournaments
across America. Are you ready?
No one believed that we would win any of the games.
It's like we all were just clicking at the right time.
We won some big games we didn't think we were gonna win.
Everyone was like,
"You guys won a game?" It was that attitude.
Not like, "Great game." It's like they couldn't believe we were still winning.
It's almost like our friendship off the court was exactly the same as it is on the court.
They started to believe in themselves and what they could do as a team.
In that tournament, LeBron really separated himself.
You could see he was, head and shoulders, the best player there.
We were just on a roll. We got to that championship game.
We were gonna come home and say we were national champs.
I mean, what can you say? We're national champions.
Not knowing if we were gonna go to high school together,
that definitely added a little bit more drive.
Our dreams of winning a national championship was upon us.
In just a few moments,
one of these teams will earn the right to be called national champions!
The place was packed. Lot of camera coverage and everything.
When they say your name, your heart just starts beating.
Dru Joyce!
We were definitely the underdogs.
We were playing a team, Southern California All-Stars.
They had won fifth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade.
They had two of the best players in the country.
They had one guy that was in the Kid's Sports Illustrated.
They were talking trash like, "Y'all from where? Y'all from Akron?
"All country boys."
They were sponsored by Nike, had Nike shoes, Nike sweatsuits, Nike bags.
Our uniforms were nice, until we played them.
Then they were terrible.
When they walked into the gym, heads turned.
You know, they had a swagger about themselves.
It was kind of intimidating, but we were just to point, like, "Forget it."
You know what I'm saying? They gotta play on the same court
as we gotta play. And they gotta play.
Nice pass up. Bell takes up the left side, goes to the basket,
spinning pass to Washington, who plays it in for two.
Outside shot for Bell. It's good for three points.
At one point in the game, it started getting ugly.
Our kids just had a never-say-die attitude.
In the fourth quarter, we started to cut the lead down.
James takes the ball up the side. Now look, they cut the lead to three and he's about...
What a move by James! We got a three-point ballgame.
The fans started to get into it. We started feeding off of their energy.
We made a run and still had the opportunity to tie it with a two or win it with a three.
We're just seconds away from crowning the national champions.
Ball to LeBron James, gotta hurry it up the court.
They double-team him. Shot at the buzzer!
The whole time I'm looking at it, it's like,
"Okay, this is the one I've always dreamed about.
"It's about to go in. It's about to go in."
... AIl-Stars, 68, Shooting Stars, 66.
And my dreams just shattered. And we lose by two.
That was it. LeBron put his head in his hands and that was it.
It was just a sick feeling, like we were right there but it just slipped away.
... high-school basketball here at Ohio.
So good luck to all those teams making their way to Columbus.
Of course, the team on everybody's watch list
is the Fighting Irish of St. Vincent-St. Mary.
Can LeBron James and his team complete this remarkable season
by bringing home the championship?
We had just lost the national championship. We were just so together during that time.
It was like, "Man, we want to keep doing this.
"We don't want to go to high school and split up."
We felt like a loyalty to each other. So, where one person went,
that's where everybody else was going.
If you were an inner-city kid, you went to Buchtel.
It was definitely an all-black school, so everybody expected us to be there.
I was on staff at Buchtel High School, pre-season open gym,
and so I'm bringing Dru around and letting him play with the guys.
He says, "Dad, they're not gonna give me a chance here."
They didn't think he was big enough to play.
He wasn't always the biggest, wasn't always the fastest.
He wasn't the cutest, either. Oh, man.
But he was tough as nails.
He definitely has a little man's complex.
He won't let anybody pick on him. He'll stand up to the biggest guy.
He has the biggest heart in the world.
I think, sometimes, he may have been frustrated.
He had this little pull-up bar in his room and he'd sort of just hang from it,
trying to stretch or whatever, make himself taller.
The guys were getting bigger and I wasn't growing as much,
so I had to add something else to my game.
We took Dru to a Sunday night clinic run by an ex-college coach named Keith Dambrot.
Well, I remember that he was a very quiet young man
that was all business, and really had an unbelievable skill level
and tremendous work ethic for a fifth or sixth grader.
Most days off, it didn't matter if we were coming home from a game or tournament.
I remember being here on Super Bowl Sunday.
I was here all the time.
Keith and Dru really developed a bond,
because they were both little guys who loved basketball.
Every other coach would tell me,
"You gotta grow, son. You gotta get bigger. "
Just throwing negative stuff, right out the gate.
He realized that I really didn't care much about size.
I just was gonna put him in a position to be successful.
Keith was now a high-school basketball coach.
So Dru says to me,
"Dad, I'm not going to Buchtel. I'm gonna go to St. V. "
And I remember saying to him, "I'm on the coaching staff.
"Everything's in place. What do you mean?"
He said, "Dad, I know Coach Dambrot will give me a chance."
Choosing to go to St. V was definitely bigger
than just picking one high school over another.
People look at you like you was choosing race.
The African-American community wanted us to bring our talents to Buchtel
and felt like we were traitors.
The comment made was,
"Hey, Dru, I understand you're pimping for St. V now."
Well, even if our own community looked down on us, it didn't matter.
It was worth it for our friend.
St. Vincent-St. Mary just happened to be down the street
from where all this stuff started at The Salvation Army, all on Maple Street.
Coach Dambrot then asked Coach Cotton and I to be a part of the staff
because we had done a great job with the kids.
I mean, they were ready to play high-school basketball.
- Our team was ran like a college. - He was on us from stretching.
Like, if you wasn't stretching hard or you wasn't stretching the right way,
he'd be on us.
"Get your... Get this... Do this... Who the hell you think you guys are?
"You freshmens."
I'm looking at him, like, "Yo, I'm from the hood.
"I'm about to do something to you, like, after practice."
I was very difficult at times but I had a purpose behind it,
and, I think, in the long run, it proved to be a good thing.
We never knew how to play basketball
at a high level like that until Coach Dambrot.
He's putting the best players on the court.
If you don't got it, you don't got it. He's not playing you.
It don't matter if you're a senior.
We have a lot of young kids. We have four freshmen in our top nine.
They totally hit the ground running, and they instantly had a chemistry,
and they started blowing teams out.
You could see the cohesiveness that takes teams time to develop that.
They had it as soon as they were freshmen.
Every time we go out on the floor, we want to play 110%,
and that's what we did tonight.
Five games in, 5 and 0, 15-0, 20-0,
and the buzz is clicking.
The Eagles fall from the ranks of the unbeaten
while the Irish roll on.
St. V proves worthy of that top ranking.
We just established who was the best.
It's kind of cool, I think,
"Hey, guys, I think we made the right decision to go to St. V."
That's what we were saying. "I think we made the right decision."
These are young kids, 14 and 15 years old, and they went 27 and 0.
All season long, when we go out for warm-ups,
you would hear the other teams laugh at him and call him the mascot.
Dru, at the time, was 4'10" on a good day.
Come on, man, this guy...
They looking at this dude like, "He's not gonna play."
Lot of guys around Akron, they felt like he got what he got
'cause Coach Dru was the coach.
I was very hard on him, and it hurt our relationship.
For a long time it wasn't father-son. It was coach-player.
Sometimes he could break me down in a game and I couldn't get through it.
Sometimes I had to mediate between the two.
Dru did feel it was hard to live up
to the standards that his dad had set.
Maybe I went overboard.
I had enough sense one time to ask Dru if I was being too hard on him,
and he told me, "Yes."
My dad had me in the gym getting up shots, watching tapes and watching games,
watch how he shoots the ball, watch his arc he puts on the ball.
I wanted everyone to understand that what Dru got
he got because he earned. But it was hard. It was hard on both of us.
Definitely harder on him because, as a child, you want to please your parents,
and I'm sure he questioned, "Do I do anything right?"
Coming up here on ONN,
we have the Division III State Boy's Basketball Finals.
As Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary battles Jamestown Greeneview.
They're freshmen. At this level, the crowds, the pressure is going to get to them.
He's the glue, he's the point guard, he's the one to make this team go.
And they've done a nice job right here hustling.
Matthews slices into the lane. And a foul called on Matthews.
But so far Greeneview's done a nice job of controlling the pace of this game.
To call Dru Joyce, who's checking into the game,
diminutive would be a vast understatement.
He came into the game, and the fans were laughing at him.
They thought the ball boy checked in.
His shorts were so big they looked like sweat pants.
He is generously listed at 5'2",
but I think everyone's under the general consensus that he may be about 4'11".
Greeneview by three, 11 to 8.
We almost couldn't see him shooting, and he stuck it to tie the game at 11.
Throws it to Dru Joyce.
Dru Joyce gets open deep in the corner, and he does it again!
Then when he made the third one, I didn't want to say anything.
I just wanted to allow this thing to play out.
... and this looks like the Irish just want to pass it around the outside.
He didn't want anybody to say anything about his size
because he felt he could go with anybody, no matter their size.
He'd just do it a different way.
That's where the good guys' point guard...
Dru Joyce!
This tie-breaker. Division III championship record. Six for six.
Six for six, Dru Joyce.
He has 18 points in six minutes of playtime.
Dru Joyce. There it is.
Twenty-one points for Dru Joyce at the end of the third period.
St. Vincent-St. Mary, a quarter away from the state championship.
It was a transcendent moment.
It was a moment that most people there will always remember.
There was a little man on his shoulder that he knocked off that game.
I think it's the size of that man's heart and the size of that man's brain
that determines who can play and who can't play.
Going to the sophomore year we were playing some tougher teams,
so we needed to be better.
I never thought basketball was gonna be my future.
I just wanted to play it just because it gets you girls.
Rome transferred in.
He was cool. He was... No, Rome wasn't cool.
He was funny, but he was so selfish.
I mean, we looked out for each other. Rome, no sense of that.
They were like sisters, like little girls. Always giggling and it was touchy feely.
You know, and always sharing, and I'm not the sharing, caring, loving type.
He called himself angry man. He'd be like... Somebody had on a hat
and they'll walk down the hall, and he'd be like, "Hey! That hat is dumb as hell."
You know, something like that. For no reason, no good reason.
It was like, "Man, why is you... You wake up angry, like, what is you mad for, like?
"Who did something to you today?" I mean, he just had an attitude.
Sian was always talking on the court, you know, playing dirty. I never liked him,
and Dru raked my eyes out like some wrestling type, like, ripped my eyeball out.
I hit him in the eye. He was crying.
I punched him in the face and Dru, he's just a little off, he's like,
"Yeah, yeah, hit me again. Hit me again. I like it, I like it."
The St. Vincent-St. Mary Irish basketball team
finished the season a perfect 27 and 0 in the Division III State Champion.
So let's tip it off with their crowning moment as we honor...
- This year's to beat, St. V! - This year's to beat, St. V!
People saw such high expectations
because we had won the previous year. We had won state.
It was a team that was young, and people said,
"This could happen for the next two or three years."
We were starting to get some national ranking and people were starting to say,
"What's going on over here in Akron, Ohio?"
We weren't winning by eight or 10 or 12. We were winning by 20.
You could see the whole LeBron phenomena
and then the team phenomena grow and grow and grow.
James with a steal, clocks it, and finishes with a flourish.
Since we were winning, you know, it really didn't matter
that Rome had an attitude sometimes
or he didn't want to do what we needed him to do sometimes.
He's playing well, we playing good, and he's just trying to make it through it,
instead of gaining friends and doing it for each other, not just for him.
You know, when you're winning, you don't see as much as you would see
if you were losing. So, Romeo not being as tight as us four,
you know, it wasn't so microscopic, if we were losing.
Akron's St. Vincent-St. Mary has done it again.
But we were winning.
I didn't care if I was part of the group.
We were playing good ball and we were winning.
That's all I cared about. I figured I'd do my own thing.
We definitely reached our goal for that year, but it also opened our eyes up, like,
at the end of freshman year, we could do so much more.
Our goals had become bigger,
and we can carry this to the national championship.
Listen, fellas, hey, big day. It's the big day.
All right? We're better than this team.
They haven't played anywhere near the competition we played.
But I'm gonna tell you, they're gonna play hard, fellas.
So if you're not ready to play hard, let me know now. Come on, let's bring it in.
- One, two, three. - Team.
- Four, five, six. - Work hard!
Coach Dambrot and the Fighting Irish from St. Vincent-St. Mary High School,
what an outstanding season you've had.
Him leaving at that time, you know, really hurt our morale.
I didn't care about his personal reasons at all.
I knew what he had said to me, that he was gonna be there for the four years,
and that's all that came in my mind, like, "Man, you lied." You know what I mean?
And I played hard for him. He cursed me out and treated me bad,
but I felt like he was one of the best coaches that I had ever played for,
and seeing him go, I couldn't understand it. I never wanted to talk to him again.
It was one of the hardest decisions I ever made,
because I wouldn't even have that opportunity
if it wasn't for the players on that team. Those guys had resurrected my career.
You know, Keith calls me and tells me that he wanted me to take over.
My first response, honestly, was no. I didn't want to do it.
I just felt like, "I don't want to mess this thing up.
"These kids have so much going for them."
We had upgraded the schedule till it was...
We were playing nationally-ranked teams. We had them all coming into Akron.
We're moving into Division II.
There were just so many challenges, and for me to be a first-year coach,
I just felt like I didn't want to mess it up.
And I can remember sharing that with my wife,
and she said to me, she said, "Dru, how can you say no?
"This is honoring all those years that you put in with these kids.
"How can you possibly say no?"
And those words were what I needed to hear.
I grew up in some very humble beginnings. My father was a janitor,
and my mother cleaned wealthy families' homes.
She was what they called a day worker. But my mother was just adamant.
I mean, going to college for me was almost like going to high school.
It was never, "Am I going, am I not?" It was, "You're going."
I wasn't really trying to climb the corporate ladder,
but as the kids started to come and the responsibilities started to grow,
the focus was, "Hey, we need to make a little more money,
"and, yeah, I'm having a lot of good success at work,
"winning a lot of prizes, a lot of trips." I was very appreciative of it.
But at the end of the day I would ask myself,
"What have I done that really matters?"
Let us pray. Dearly, Father Lord, we thank you
for all the blessings you've bestowed upon us.
Lord, we understand that basketball is very small in the scheme of things,
but we recognize there's a lot of people who'd like to be right here where we are.
But you have blessed us with this opportunity,
and we want to make the most of it,
not for our own glory but for your glory.
Pray these things in your son Jesus' name. Amen.
- Amen. - Amen.
- Team up. - Team, on the count of six.
- One, two, three. - Team.
- Four, five, six. - Work hard.
Superman, let's go.
I took over understanding that if we won,
they were gonna be Keith's kids, and if we lost, it would be my fault, so...
A doors open for your dream, you don't think about anything else.
You just run through the door
and try to do the best job that I was gonna be able to do.
St. Vincent-St. Mary will be playing a national schedule this year
with an opportunity to win a national championship.
A lot of pressure, though, on Coach Dru Joyce
to make sure they have the same success as the previous two years.
That's one team you gotta buy a ticket to go see, St. V's.
We definitely felt like, you know, it was our turn.
I was starting to become a man in my junior year.
I was 16, about to turn 17, so...
It was like, "Whatever, let's get down."
We're playing these highly-ranked teams in the country and we're winning 100 to 50.
And the Irish blew away the Bulldogs 76 to 36.
Eighty to 35.
St. Vincent-St. Mary's dominate again, 78- 49.
I kept hearing about this player Carmelo Anthony and I'm like, "Whatever."
Country, stateside, city-side, it was bananas.
It was like we felt invincible. We was, like, untouchables.
Travis from LeBron James. Travis from James.
They seemed to never let anybody down. They really were defending all the hype.
After a while you started saying,
"Wow, is this one of the greatest teams in high-school basketball history?"
First time I saw LeBron play was in Akron,
and I think that the tendency, especially when you're a skeptical sports writer,
is to try and nitpick and say to yourself,
"This kid isn't as good as everyone says he is."
And yet, he was that good.
And so I pitched the story to Sports Illustrated.
He's been dubbed the chosen one. According to Sports Illustrated,
LeBron is the first high-school athlete to grace the magazine's cover in 36 years.
Nobody from Akron had ever been on the cover of Sports Illustrated before.
You've got kids from Texas and New York City
reading about this kid from Akron, Ohio.
The Ohio, national and world media
have been following the St. Vincent-St. Mary star
all season long.
Once the Sports Illustrated thing goes on, everything was just amplified.
Today's ESPN, Internet generation,
what happens in one small corner of the country or the world
can be worldwide.
And these kids were right at the forefront of it, so when they went someplace,
people knew them by name.
LeBron James has his own T-shirt that you can buy here at the game today.
You have to go back, I think, to Lew Alcindor, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar now,
who got that kind of attention as a high school player before their senior season.
But when you have to go back that far,
you realize how rare it is, what LeBron was doing.
They moved all their high-school games over to the University of Akron
just for sheer seating purposes, and even there, some of the higher-profile games,
the 5,000 seats weren't enough.
The Cavs/Gund Arena has only sold out twice this year.
Once when Michael Jordan came to town, and the other was to see this guy.
LeBron James, and a 30-point win sends the Irish to the regional semifinals.
LeBron James!
It was almost like playing in the NBA.
People at our hotels, girls trying to get up to the room.
People out front scalping tickets for 300 bucks
to see a high-school basketball game.
You knew that it was a phenomena that you wanted to see,
'cause you knew that you were gonna be able to tell your kids,
"I saw LeBron play when..."
He's like the next Michael Jordan, so my brother told me he had to get a picture.
I mean, he wasn't the only celebrity. He was just...
He had a little more star power than the rest of us.
We were like a rock band. He was just the lead singer.
We had jogging suits. We was all matching.
We was laced from head to toe. We were sponsored by Adidas now.
We was rocking. We like...
Signing autographs everywhere we went. Taking pictures, you know, kissing babies,
that kind of thing, so, you know, it was all good.
If that wasn't bad enough, 300 people waiting for autographs,
but there were guys in their uniforms that had just played the game
who wanted his autograph.
No autographs, gentlemen. No autographs.
- LeBron. - Come on.
- LeBron. - LeBron.
- There he is! - LeBron!
We love you, LeBron!
You know, for me, as a first-year coach, how do you manage this?
It was all new, so there were times that, you know,
I wanted to go out in my backyard and just scream.
He had to try to handle that circus, plus keep us on track.
With the amount of expectations,
the amount of people that were going to the game,
the teams we were playing,
they were drawing more than we were at the universities.
We'd be sitting in the athletic office
and the answering machine would come on and it would be The Letterman Show.
We'd all look at each other like, "Oh, my, God."
You know, we were like... It turned adults into kids.
When someone has a tremendous amount of talent at such a young age,
we go nuts for it in the United States. More so, I think, than in other countries.
As a journalist, you do think about
what it's gonna do to somebody's life when someone that young,
who hasn't really done anything yet, is put on the cover of the magazine.
How do you tell 16, 17- year-old kids, "Don't let it get to your head,
"but there's about 300 kids out there waiting for autographs"?
We definitely had a swagger about us, and we had a strong swagger.
Can you talk about your relationship with LeBron James?
I've seen him play. He's very talented.
Ultimately, what it comes down to is the belief in yourself.
If he has that, he'll be fine.
LeBron can do some damage on the next level, too.
Damn. Shoots off for another landing.
One more time. Go slow one more time.
One more time.
You get that invincibility trait where you think that,
"Hey, it doesn't matter. I can turn it on and off whenever I want."
One thing that you need to be a champion
that all the greats have done throughout the years, eat Wheaties.
Eat Wheaties. Right? Right? That's all you gotta do, right?
When you've coached a group of guys from the time they were 10,
sometimes, you know, you get to a point where they stop listening to you,
they stop hearing you.
How is that not a part of the play?
Sian was right here, the ball was here. We're gonna spread the play. Go.
- Even if we don't, Dru'll set it up. - Go!
I could see some problems coming that could lead to disaster,
and I didn't think there was anything Coach Dru could do about it.
We were winning and we were young, so, you know,
we blew them off, like, "Whatever, we're gonna win anyway."
Partying late at night, you know what I'm saying,
having people come visit at the hotel.
We got a game the next day, but who cares? We still winning by 40.
There were people who were starting to talk
about whether they could win a national championship that year.
The difference between a good team and a great team,
it's the attention to the details.
No one wants to talk to one another.
You don't start talking, you never gonna play for me.
You'll just be a JV guy sitting at the end of the bench.
I mean, I'm just being real with you.
All right? If you can't do those little things, how can we play?
Off the court, you know, Romeo, he was distant from everybody,
so when it came to on the court, you know, we were kind of distant from him.
We had it rough growing up and, you know, you had to fend for yourself.
Everything we got, it was, like, precious to us.
Saying thank you, thank you, thank you. Through Christ I pray. Amen.
- Amen. - Amen.
So I thought you...
Growing up was hard. It was real hard, you know.
Sometimes we didn't have nothing to eat
and my sister would go put on a big, thick winter coat,
go steal some ingredients to make some spaghetti,
you know, just whatever we needed to do to get by.
My family moved around so much it was ridiculous.
Like, I went to maybe six or seven elementary schools.
He wasn't able to establish really long-term friendships
maybe the way he should have.
He took on an attitude, "Each man for his self.
"I have to get mine.
"No one is gonna look out for me. If I don't get it, then I won't have it."
He wanted to leave. They were a clique,
and he wasn't a part of it, and it hurt his feelings, and he just felt like, you know,
why even bother?
You know, I had known Romeo not well or well enough where he could talk to me.
But Dru, Willie and Sian gave him no chance.
No chance at all.
Why you all complaining?
Hey, hey! All right.
Hold on, hold on.
- That will always get you in trouble. - But I didn't do anything!
- We need a police escort. - Is you sitting down?
- Sit down. - We need a police escort, man.
Everything with Dru and me is intensified.
Now we're on a national scale, and I don't want any mistakes.
If Dru had a turnover, it was like he had 10 turnovers.
We bumped heads because, you know, now I'm requiring perfection from him,
and maybe not from everyone else.
If you can't let it go, then let me know it and then I'm not going to play you.
I just told you, I don't have an attitude.
- Why don't you listen? - Really.
Point guard, leader.
The only team that's gonna beat St. Vincent-St. Mary is us,
and these kind of attitudes is what is going to beat us.
You just see a complacency that's creeping in because of the status.
You're being built up on this pedestal. It's so easy for that thing to fall.
We're the defending state champions, you know? They gotta come beat us.
I'm not being cocky, but that's just the type of player I am.
I'm guaranteeing, I'm not gonna let my team lose.
I don't want my team losing, and I know they don't want to lose,
and I ain't going to let it happen.
A sellout crowd awaits us here at the Value City Arena.
Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary will throw their high-powered offense
up against a team that fully expected to be playing in this game today.
You guys are not ready to play. You're underestimating these guys.
You guys think you can turn it on and off like a faucet, but you can't.
If you think this team is gonna walk out there and let you walk away with this,
you're fooling yourselves, right, fellas? You're fooling yourselves.
A new head coach, Dru Joyce, really stepped into a pressure-cooker job.
It's gonna be a tough roll for St. Vincent.
Complacent, arrogant, selfishness, that's not what we're about.
They believe in their style of play...
We're not backing down from these guys. We're not changing a thing.
- We're going right at them. - That's why I like this match-up today.
The opening tip for Division II State Championship game,
and the opening tap was controlled by Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary.
We played them earlier that year at Kent State. We blew them up.
You know, we're thinking, "Hey, they can't beat us."
James working on Wyrick.
Spins to the baseline, leaves it inside for Travis.
I'll tell you, this young man can pass...
Early on, Roger Bacon, they made it very clear they were a very good team,
that it wasn't going to be easy.
... the Spartans from Roger Bacon.
And it's Beckham Wyrick put his team back ahead by a point.
They go up and down the floor here in the first quarter.
- Let's go! - Let's go! Pick it up!
We struggled early.
LeBron couldn't do some of the things that he had done so easily.
They played here this morning in Columbus.
The media crush... And the fourth personal foul on LeBron James
as he spins into the lane and a charge is called.
It's just like everything happened wrong at the right time.
In this third quarter with no points...
Able to answer the drive by James.
Seven minutes and 10 seconds remaining in the Division II State Championship game
here in the Value City Arena in Columbus.
Offensive rebounding a big factor.
In this one, that's been one of the reasons that Roger Bacon has...
James can't finish it inside. Took the lob from Dru,
Dru Joyce, who can't finish, and it's a five on four game right now.
James a little slow getting back down the court.
And that's what's hurting 'em. That's what's hurting 'em.
- St. Clair from the baseline scores. - You cannot sit back and watch.
We just started unraveling.
It's on the baseline now. Wyrick got blocked from behind.
And if that's on Romeo Travis, he's just fouled out of the game.
Travis beside himself.
And Travis has fouled out of the game.
We're in the back seat right now. We gotta do something.
Under a minute and a half to go, LeBron James flies to the baseline and...
Finishes with a big-time flourish.
That was definitely big time there.
Working on Wyrick, into the lane.
They kick it back to Dru Joyce, and it's knocked away...
The lead stands at three with 22 seconds left.
66-63, Cincinnati Roger Bacon,
Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary with the basketball,
with 17 seconds left in the game.
Score and time, lower right of your screen. Mraz curls up a...
With nine seconds left and a foul is called.
And a technical foul has now been called
on Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary's Dru Joyce.
The player, Dru Joyce, who disgustedly fires the basketball
at the basket after the foul was called,
and Dru Joyce has just been hit with a technical foul.
The key to this is now, after the free throws,
Roger Bacon gets the basketball.
Well, for all intents and purposes, that put the nail in the coffin, I think, for St. V.
A lack of composure down the stretch has hurt Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary.
At the line will be...
Cincinnati Roger Bacon has upset Akron's St. Vincent-St. Mary
and won the Division II State Championship.
The first loss to a team from the state of Ohio
since the 1998-'99 season.
Cincinnati Roger Bacon is the Division II State Champions.
I never thought I'd be a basketball coach. I grew up playing football,
and if it was gonna be anything coaching-wise, it would've been football.
The way I approached basketball,
once I understood that this is what Dru wanted to do,
was to give him the best that I could give him,
and, honestly, my knowledge of basketball was not great.
I think that I've learned in a nontraditional way.
I'm a lot older getting started doing this
because I was just a dad, honestly, helping out my son.
Interspersed in here are books from different authors.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, he wrote a book. I got his book,
and Great Quotes, I use that all the time with the guys.
These are all the videos. That's how I've learnt the games and grown as a coach.
This is where I spend a lot of time.
You keep learning. You don't ever stop learning,
and I'm committed to never stopping to learn.
As long as I coach, I'm going to keep learning.
I want them to be the best
and for them to be the best I felt like I had to try to be the best, so...
My dad took the loss real hard. I mean,
a lot of articles and reporters really let him have it.
There was an article written after the loss of the state championship,
and he wrote, "When the team needed me most, I wasn't there. "
You have to consummate your dreams.
We can only do that by being dreamers ourselves
and pondering for years what dreams look like.
You got a choice, and your choice has impact upon your direction.
And if you don't use your choice, don't blame God,
don't blame the people around you, don't blame your circumstances.
You can use your choice. You can exercise your...
After the season, I thought about it and I recognized that
I had gotten caught up, you know, and lost that perspective.
My job wasn't about basketball.
It was about helping them become men, and I got caught up
in the winning and the losing, and I forgot, really, what I was there for.
I'm going to do what I believe God sent me here to do,
and that's to build some character in you guys.
You can get onboard with me and run with me,
or you don't have to, but this is the direction I'm taking the team.
They just recommitted themselves, you know, to the game and to each other.
They looked at it and they had a resolve, "We're not losing anymore."
Five, six, seven, up.
Come on, boys. You gotta give me more...
Going into senior season I started thinking,
"How am I gonna set our team up the right way to win it next year?"
It was an eye-opener for me,
on me being a leader that I wanted to be for our team.
I remember sitting in an American Government class
with Sian and Bron, like, "Man,
"this is our last year. We have to win. I'm doing whatever Coach Dru say.
"If anybody say something to him,
"I'm getting on them. You know what I'm saying?"
We couldn't get past that father-son part and the coach and player part.
I just handled it terribly.
I just been trying to listen to everything he has to say 'cause I know,
even though I might think I'm right, he's the coach.
I can't look at it with that father-son thing. I can't bring that into the table.
If we're going to be the best, we have to beat the best.
And the only way you can beat the best
is if you put them on a schedule and play them.
We were ranked 23. We took that as a sign of disrespect.
We were committed to proving them wrong.
It was gonna be the last time we played together.
That's what made it so important.
This was our last opportunity to do
what we've been dreaming about since the fifth grade.
It was tough because Willie had been through so much,
but I recognized that, for the good of the team, that Corey had to start.
This is Willie's yearbook. Think he was, like, fifth grade.
"What do you want to be in the future?" "A basketball player in the NBA."
"If you had one wish, what would it be?"
"For my future to come true."
I looked up to him at everything. A person I could talk to,
wanted to be a point guard just like him.
Growing up in Chicago, my mother and father going through things at the time.
My sister was taking care of me at the time, primarily.
Willie saw a family pretty much be stifled by drugs and alcohol and jail
and things like that.
He was struggling at school. Self-esteem was really low.
My sister felt like I needed a male influence in my life.
Willie moved from Chicago in here, moved in with his brother, who was still,
you know, fresh out of college. It was kind of tough on Willie.
You know, Willie was the youngest child in the family at that time,
so it was emotional.
I remember the weekend before I left,
my sister taking me to go wash all my clothes, so I have stuff clean.
She folded all my stuff, put it in a trash bag,
and I remember waking up early that morning and being excited to go,
and then her being there, you know what I'm saying,
making sure all my clothes were there,
you know what I'm saying, driving off and her being in the rearview,
that was real hard.
I'm thinking I was probably maybe about 22, 23
when he came up here, and, you know, it was hard.
We didn't have any money, you know. We were college students,
and to bring a child into our lives,
we just couldn't do some of the things that a 22-year-old college student would do.
We had to stay home some nights when friends of ours had invited us out,
or we had to find a babysitter or something like that.
- Well, Will, what you think? - I like it.
- Were you surprised? - Yes.
Going into high school, he was probably one of the top athletes in the city.
In my freshman year playing football, I dislocated my shoulder.
Ever since then, I just felt like my basketball game wasn't the same.
He lost his touch, you know. He could never get really fully in shape,
and it was just... I just think that shoulder just really did him wrong.
I felt his pain, as an athlete, as a big brother, as a father figure.
You know, the passion that he has, and to see something taken from him.
That probably was the hardest time of his life.
It hurt a lot. It really did. You know what I'm saying?
But you can make your opportunity happen wherever.
I definitely learned a lot from my brother about sacrifice.
I can't imagine what he had to go through for me to be there.
I think in order for you to excel or achieve, you have to make sacrifices,
and if you really love and you care for people around you,
you know, you sacrifice for them as well as yourself.
When Willie didn't start, he could've cried and bitched about it, but he didn't.
He came off the bench for the betterment of the team,
and when I seen that, I realized
that it was something bigger than individuals,
it was just something bigger than all of us.
Today,
you know, this is one of the biggest, most pivotal times of our life, right now.
When a link breaks, everything falls apart.
Can't ride a bike with no chain, you know what I mean?
Think of it as a wing. You know what I'm saying? A unit.
I wanted to be a part of something besides basketball.
You know, those guys were friends outside of basketball.
Hung out all the time, you know?
No matter how you think about it, you want to be a part.
That catalyst, that leader,
that person that you can lean on, confide in and talk to.
But I think once you felt the love that we all have for each other,
I think that was bigger than being selfish. So out of the Fab 4, we got together
and decided that we wanted to make it the Fab 5.
Senior year, it was all five of us, hands on each other's shoulders.
Nothing can stand in our way, nothing's gonna separate us.
A high-school game has attracted a crowd of 10,000 here tonight,
but it's not just any high-school game. It's phenom LeBron James
against the number-one ranked team in the country, Oak Hill.
Oak Hill is this basketball factory.
It's where kids go to become major college stars and pros,
so, to have the opportunity to beat them is like to beat a national all-star team.
The stakes of that game were massive.
Dick Vitale and Bill Walton came in to do the game.
I mean, it was treated like it was a Duke-North Carolina game.
There was so much pressure to see what this kid and this team had.
- How good is LeBron James? - Well, simply put, Dan,
LeBron James is the best high-school basketball player
I have ever seen, and I think, as a 17-year-old,
he's better than Kobe Bryant was at the same age.
We felt like, in order to win a national championship,
we had to beat Oak Hill.
For LeBron James, as great as he is,
this is the best high-school team in the country,
some of the best competition he's ever faced.
When you see a team like an Oak Hill, great players from all over the country,
well, I got a group of kids from, pretty much, the neighborhood.
That was our chant before the games, before we came out.
It was letting people know that this is not the same team that came out last year.
"We're the Soul Squad," because it's, like, all of us together.
We weren't here for no fun and games. It was serious, it was business-like,
and it was exactly what the song said, "We ready."
I think that was the first pillar of our season
that let us know that we could make a run at this whole thing.
They only played, like, maybe three or four Ohio teams.
Forget about the yellow school buses.
They're going up to the Akron-Canton Airport,
and flying to their games.
Are you serious? Are you serious? Are you serious?
We weren't just beating teams. We were dismantling them.
Playing the best basketball of our lives, by far.
There was no complacency with us.
I mean, we would win the one game and it was time to move on to the next.
We went to Philly to play Strawberry Mansion,
which was the best team that Philly had, the best scoring high-school basketball
in Philadelphia. More than Wilt Chamberlain.
And we dominated them.
Played the best team in North Carolina. Blew them out.
We were winning the way we were supposed to win.
We were winning by defense.
You know, my teammates is like my brothers.
And, you know, coach is like my brother. You know, we all a big family.
Let's take it to them off-white velours you got on.
- These are white as day. - No. Yesterday.
It seems like more guys are getting into the mix.
Well, yeah, there's a chemistry here that, honestly, last year we didn't have,
and then there's a commitment here to defend.
We won because we were together.
We won because we respected Coach Dru as a coach, as a mentor, as a leader,
and we had one goal, and that was to win the national championship,
and we wouldn't let nothing stand in our way.
LeBron James brings his act to the west coast,
as St. Vincent-St. Mary of Akron, Ohio,
takes on a powerhouse from Santa Ana, California, number four, Mater Dei,
here in Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles.
You know, there's a lot at stake in this game.
The winning team will be taking over the number-one ranking in the country.
Now, Dan, the Irish are gonna have to find a way to do it today
without Sian Cotton, one of their strong inside forces.
Undefeated on the season. Without him, they're a different team.
When I was about 10 years old my dad told me,
"'lf you don't get a scholarship, you're not going to college. "'
Growing up being Lee Cotton Junior's son, we couldn't go anywhere
without somebody recognizing our dad,
and somebody telling us, "Your dad was a bad boy at South High School.
"And listen to what he has to tell you."
So we always wanted to make our dad proud,
especially since he's the one who taught us how to play.
Sian really looked up to him a lot and copied a lot of things that LC did.
You know, wanted to be like LC.
We started taking dance when I was four, probably. I mean, I liked it.
He was a ballerina.
And then when LC started to grow a mustache, Sian went in the bathroom,
got some eyeliner and painted a mustache on himself
so he could have a mustache like his brother.
Growing up, he was more than a brother. He was my teacher, too.
A lot of the beliefs that I have now he installed in me.
You know, sports was more than just a game.
It was something that taught you how to be a man.
I was hard on him because, at an early age, I realized he was better than I was.
LC, as more of a leader, was able to give Sian some direction.
Once he started seeing how his basketball skills tied into his football skills,
he looked at me and said, "This football thing is me."
And I said, "I know, so we're gonna do it."
Hello, everybody. A big day for a big name in local high-school football.
Sian Cotton was named the U.S. Army All-American Player.
He's one of just 78 high-school players across the country to be selected.
With that honor comes an invite to play in the All-American Bowl and the defensive...
The football game was the same weekend we were set to play Mater Dei.
I felt like I didn't want to let my teammates down,
but at the same time I didn't want to let my family down.
We needed Sian out there. We couldn't lose. We couldn't afford to lose.
We lost, it's over. Our dream is down the toilet.
I told him, "This right here is all about you, me, and my mom and my dad. "
L helped me realize it was more than just me playing football, you know?
It was my ticket to go to college.
So now we're missing one of our key guys.
Willie is put into a position where he has to play and start.
Mater Dei is basically the same team that we had lost to in eighth grade.
Remember these Mater Dei players played against James at an AAU tournament
a few years ago, when they were eighth-graders...
And they beat LeBron back in Orlando in the 14-and-under AAU championship.
I don't know if they remember, but I know everybody on my team
definitely did, like, "We ain't forgetting not one of those faces."
It was basically like you had a "Won it" ad on our locker-room door.
We wanted this game more than anything.
Joyce gonna settle things down a little bit. His coach, his dad.
Joyce misses the three, now a run-out for Mater Dei.
And is slammed by Marcel Jones, a 6'11"...6'7", rather, junior.
That's where Mater Dei can score a lot of points.
Here is Strawberry, has it blocked!
Here's James. Look at the pass!
Showtime early for LeBron James.
Upper... Yes.
... to Jones. Same spot, same result!
He gets the ball inside, triple-team. What a pass!
James.
McGee with a put-back.
Time's winding down on Mater Dei,
as LeBron James and St. Vincent-St. Mary of Akron, Ohio, remain undefeated.
They pick up their third win over a top-10 team already this season.
When we won that game, it felt like I had some revenge.
It felt like I could close the book on that deal.
Seeing what we had accomplished from a few months ago, being ranked 23rd,
or years ago, when we weren't ranked at all,
or even more years ago, when we weren't mentioned.
The day it came out, and we've seen that St. Vincent-St. Mary
was number one in the country, it was probably one of the best days of our lives.
But there isn't a person
or an organization that put Akron on the map
like this St. Vincent-St. Mary basketball team players.
Do you feel like the bull's-eye is on your back
'cause you guys are number one in the nation,
or is that something you don't even think about for games?
We've been the bull's-eye since the sixth grade,
and every time we go out there, we're the number-one team in the country.
Everyone wants to knock us off.
It was a very critical eye being turned towards LeBron at that time.
He had gone past the awe stage,
and he'd gone to the full-blown celebrity stage,
which is where fans and media are looking for flaws.
Phenom LeBron James and his team take to the court tonight,
but there's a lot of attention being paid to what's, maybe, in the parking lot.
Ohio State high-school officials
are determining whether James has forfeited his amateur status
by accepting a $50,000 vehicle.
Here's a kid who grew up in subsidized housing,
so how did they come up with the money to pay for a $55,000 vehicle?
Check out this baby, huh? It kind of looks like LeBron's vehicle, does it?
There are some people that say, "Hey, what about some of these affluent kids
"whose parents buy them Mercedes?" And, you know, it can go both ways.
But his mom was granted a loan understanding that
that money would be paid back, which they weren't worried about.
It was a legitimate purchase, but it was just an opportunity
for the people who were looking for something to criticize LeBron
to have something to latch onto.
We love to build people up, and then when the story gets too stale,
we kind of dig a little bit deeper so that we can get stories
that people would be interested again.
How does he have two cell phones
when his mom doesn't have a job, he doesn't have a job?
Are you even concerned about the eligibility issue?
This pro lifestyle, how does that affect your teammates?
Even people in Akron want you to lose. How does that make you feel?
Whenever you're on a pedestal, the people who are surrounding you are cheering...
Hey, LeBron, you gonna ride in that Hummer?
... but there's a whole lot who want to see you fall, too.
I said to LeBron one thing, I said, "Are you ready for the negative press?"
And he said, "Yeah, Coach Dru, I'm ready." And I left it at that.
We'll debate the pros and cons of making a prep star
into a national icon.
James is prematurely capitalizing on his fame.
When did this madness begin? Just how did it become too much too soon?
It had gotten too big.
Too many people were now scrutinizing him that he could barely breathe
without having someone check to see, "Is this guy breaking the rules, is he legit?"
It's something that the system in high school
wasn't really designed to handle.
This is SportsCenter.
LeBron James is ineligible to play for the rest of his high-school season.
Declared such, Friday afternoon, by the Ohio governing body
over two retro jerseys he accepted from a Cleveland store.
He had taken a jersey from someone he knew as a gift.
The Ohio High School Athletic Association
was facing an unprecedented set of circumstances.
They had this incredible player they didn't really know how to handle
who looked like he was obviously benefiting from his fame.
And I think they just got sort of sick of all the complaints
from the member schools and felt like they had to do something.
So they just decided to take swift action.
My ruling is immediate. This is an unusual situation.
And because we've had to address so many issues surrounding it,
I think, as leaders, we need to take a look at it.
There was no chartered territory for this.
There was boxes of shoes arriving at his house daily,
and for him to be in trouble over two jerseys that he got from a store
was comical.
He's no exception, whether it's LeBron James or Mary Jones
or Pete Smith.
St. Vincent-St. Mary right now is ranked number one in the nation,
and without LeBron James playing,
obviously they'll drop from that number-one ranking.
They have five games left this season.
This is a team that has been very good the past few years.
They've gone to the state championship games...
When I heard that I was ineligible for the rest of the season
I couldn't think, I couldn't believe it. I felt that I had let my teammates down.
LeBron was still in diapers, going on two years old.
So I bought him a Little Tikes basketball hoop.
From then on, he had to have it at the highest height.
And he was dunking on it, then.
She was 16 when she had me.
The father figure that I was looking for, you know, wasn't ever there. Ever.
Your mom raised you pretty much by herself,
was a teenage mother, unmarried.
First of all, do you know your biological father's whereabouts?
No, not really. But I'm not really even concentrating on that,
because I really have my father and my mother all tied up in one,
and that's Gloria James. At this point I don't really need nobody else.
The only thing that didn't help, 'cause me kept growing every so often.
You know, and she had to keep throwing clothes away and go buy new ones.
That didn't help.
So I just bought clothes bigger to begin with
and just rolled them up and put a few cuffs in them.
Gave him time to grow into them.
It was constantly on the move for us. From five years old till eight,
we probably moved 10, 12 times in three years, four or five schools.
We didn't have any definite place to reside at.
We didn't know if we was gonna have somewhere to sleep the following night.
The hardest thing for me was to meet new friends,
going to new schools all the time,
and, you know, finally get comfortable with a group of friends at one school
and then having to leave.
He didn't have a normal childhood.
I mean, hell, he even lived in some of the worst projects in town.
I mean, you definitely see things, at a young age,
that you don't never want your kids to see,
you know, violence and drug abuse and police sirens.
It didn't matter where we were. Being with my mother, only thing that mattered.
I believe we became even closer than the normal parent-child relationship
due to our circumstances and enduring them together,
going through them together.
I never complained, never.
We were already going through tough times.
It doesn't make it any better if I'm complaining.
My mother said it was time to go, packed my little book bag and it was time to roll.
I remember my mother sitting me down and basically telling me,
because of certain situations, that she may be gone for a little while,
that I was gonna be living with one of my coaches. It was a challenge.
That's all I cared about when I was growing up,
if I was gonna be able to wake up and my mother was still alive or still by my side.
That was... Because I was already without a father,
you know, and I didn't want to be without both of my parents.
You know, so, it was definitely scary and tough.
The thing that I had on the court that I didn't have off the court was security,
because every day we went to the gym, I knew I'm gonna get picked,
or we were gonna win basketball games, or we're gonna win pickup games.
I've always said it's home away from home for me.
Anybody that's close to LeBron knows that basketball court becomes his sanctuary.
He blocks everything out, every bad situation or whatever.
When he's on that court, that's when he's actually at peace and at ease.
Gradually, my mother found a place.
Hey.
I had a place to sleep, and I knew we weren't going anywhere.
- Anybody home? - No, I fooled you.
So this is where I ended up moving to. I moved into this room and...
If you can just imagine just photos of all the NBA superstars
was all over these walls.
This whole wall was Michael Jordan pictures.
From, like, right here was all Allen lverson, was right here.
This was Kobe Bryant's wall right here, from, like, right here over,
and then everybody else I kind of just filled in.
It was... It's crazy to see that they got everything out of here.
I put staples all in the walls and tape and duct tape all over the walls,
so it's kind of funny to see that it's all gone now.
It was home. It was funny to see that everybody wanted to be here.
You know, everybody wanted to come... I mean, why here?
- You wouldn't have thought that. - I mean, all my friends got houses.
- Low-income houses. Yeah. - All my friends got houses.
All my friends got houses, but you look outside,
- their parents are dropping them off here. - Right here.
Didn't even have time to lock the damn door.
"Just leave it unlocked, come in."
- "Just leave the door open." - Yeah.
And they was coming.
Due to the circumstances, he had to grow up being moving.
No stability with friendships. His relationship with Sian,
Dru, Rome, Willie is as important as his relationship with me.
There's one thing about Bron, he loves people around him.
Never liked being by his self,
and when he found us, he found homes, he found father figures,
he found one of the greatest things that happened to him, friendships.
Once I had that security, finally, with friends,
you know, I automatically, like... These are the guys I'm gonna be with.
No matter what happens, these are the guys I'm gonna be loyal to more than anybody.
These are my brothers. These are my four best friends.
Our next senior, Mr. LeBron James!
They grew up in basketball together,
so the love that they shared for the game was because of one another.
Everyone's saying St. Vincent-St. Mary today beginning life without LeBron.
I remember to this day going to practice, and I couldn't practice,
and I was sitting on the sideline crying, the whole practice,
just because I couldn't be out there for my teammates,
and I knew that at some point they were gonna need me,
and I wanted to be there for them, and I couldn't.
Hey, this is what the ruling is so far, that LeBron can't play this game.
I know that he wants what you want,
and he wants you to win and he wants you guys to win for him,
and, you know, for yourselves and to keep the dream alive
and understand that he loves the game.
I can tell you one thing,
he's gonna be the biggest cheerleader in the crowd.
- Amen. - Amen.
- One, two, three. - Team.
- Four, five, six. - Work hard.
Live from the James A. Rhodes Arena on the campus of the University of Akron,
welcome to Akron's St. Vincent-St. Mary Fighting Irish basketball.
My, oh, my, how things have changed.
Full house as usual for this Sunday afternoon game.
But it's electric for the wrong reason.
Obviously, the LeBron situation was big news not only here
but all around the country.
It was emotionally and psychologically taxing
just before you even played the game.
It was something that was in the papers. It was on SportsCenter.
It was something that was a big buildup just to see how they'd perform without him.
The clock's about to start, fellas. Look, it's been a great journey.
It's not over. I don't believe that this is the time for us to pack it in.
I don't think you believe that.
Today, if we were ever unified, we need to be even more unified today.
Does your son seem any different out there today?
Of course he's different, because an integral part of his team is missing.
My son is heartbroken for LeBron.
They all are. They're all hurting. They're heartbroken right now.
This is the biggest game of the season.
This is the biggest game of the season because tomorrow is not promised
and the past is over. All we got is right now.
Let's take care of right now.
Everyone wants to speak otherwise. This is a great team,
with a great, great player, but this is a great team, all right?
This is a great team. And don't you ever sell yourself short of believing that this isn't.
But, hey, I'm just saying words. You guys gotta do it on the floor.
Play hard, play smart, have fun, all right?
- Amen! - Amen!
Everyone had to step up, and we understood that, you know?
There's no team in the state of Ohio that's been to more final fours
than Canton McKinley.
Nobody can carry this team, and the only guy who can carry this team
is wearing a black shirt and sitting on the bench right now.
You know, it was tough seeing him on the bench,
and, you know, we had been playing together for so long.
You know, it wasn't usual, you know? We were together, we were the Fab 5,
so it was just tough.
Irish is going to have a few problems getting into sync here offensively.
Nice play by McKinley to get it down long and...
The Bulldogs are not intimidated.
That's got to be a big concern right now for Dru Joyce, the coach.
Irish need to keep that lead on right now.
Three!
Somebody's hot!
They weren't backing off anything, so we could have lost at any given moment.
Stan Hall to the hole.
For as great as they were as a team, when the going got tough,
you know, 23 got the ball.
It was important to us that we show everybody that we were a team.
We weren't just a one-man show.
Dru Joyce gets a big pocket for the Irish.
That's a big play right there.
We had some animosity, too.
When you shot LeBron down, you took a shot at the team.
Sian takes the rebound.
6.6 to go.
Romeo wants the ball. Got it! And there's the game.
It's a 63-62 finale.
What a ballgame.
Here are some guys who were basically thought of, in most circles,
as LeBron and his sidekicks.
It said a lot about all of them, for people around the country to say,
"You know what? These guys are really impressive, and not just this guy."
You have to understand what this team's been through this week.
They withstood a whole lot. You know, there's been a lot of adversity,
and they stood up and they met the challenge.
After watching my guys win that game,
it made me realize that I had to do whatever I could to get back on that court.
So he took it to court, and after a judge decided
that the punishment was too severe, LeBron was reinstated.
There's no one in the world that I'd rather play with than those four guys.
The week of the championship game,
it was the last time I'm gonna coach my son,
it's the last time I'll coach Bron, Romeo, Dru, Willie, Sian.
You recognize that, you understand that
not only is a state championship at risk, but also a national championship.
Nine years in the making.
From fifth grade, we all dreamed about being able to play
for the national championship.
We had an opportunity in the eighth grade and failed,
and now, a few years later, we have that same opportunity to do it.
It hit us hard during that time.
It was, like, more than basketball.
This is the last time that we was gonna compete together.
You have a chance to go down as the greatest team
in high-school basketball history.
That's gonna be around here long after you guys are gone.
You've taken it full circle, fellas.
This all started in a little gym with a linoleum floor on Maple Street,
at The Salvation Army.
All the travel we've done,
from the time you guys were 11 years old, all the way across the country,
through high school, all the way to culminate,
when that bus pulls up tomorrow, where at? On Maple Street.
And the only question right now is,
"Do you get off that bus tomorrow victorious?"
All right, let's go.
So, here we go. The championship game in Division II.
St. Vincent-St. Mary's with a national championship on the line.
Joyce controls, and the basketball game is underway.
Eight minutes on the clock
and the first possession goes to St. Vincent-St. Mary.
Not a seat in this house.
It is elbow-to-elbow to watch this championship game.
Inside they go, and a slam dunk, right away!
Coach Petrocelli talked about how he's instructed his team to be patient.
They will work and work and work and work.
They're taking time off the game clock, and they'll set it back up out on top.
If they can shorten the game, they may have a chance.
We kind of had the feeling that they would hold the ball.
I guess early on they were just a little bit better at it than we thought they would be.
Double-team. Somebody's gotta be open, and it is.
They ran a minute and change off the clock.
This is clearly the pace that Coach Petrocelli wants.
We tried everything we could to speed them up,
but they had us chasing them, and it was hard.
A lot of slow action,
- and Doug Penno making shots like that. - Execution.
To perfection. Just like Roger Bacon last year,
they're frustrating the Akron players.
James on the rebound. What a shot by Gill!
Out of bounds. St. Vincent-St. Mary's will have the basketball.
Close to the end of the first half I was questioning, you know, myself.
Three seconds left, Weems for three. It does not fall.
Alter has won the first half of this basketball game,
somewhat surprisingly.
They have an 11-to-1 run in the last four minutes and 10 seconds.
Going into halftime losing, I'm thinking, "Not again. Not two years in a row."
Fellas, it's not about the X's and O's right now.
It's not.
I want you guys to just, for one minute, try to grasp this thing.
You have an opportunity that you guys have been given.
Now, look around the room, guys. Hey, let's be real about this.
Some of these guys, Dru, Bron, Sian, Rome, Willie,
you'll never play another game of basketball.
To be where you guys are at
is just a blessing that you guys will only understand later in life.
As this game winds on,
some of you guys... Hey, this is my last time coaching you, and...
There's been a lot of great times, a lot of great memories,
and I'm gonna cherish them.
But let's do this, fellas.
Just... You know, let's do this. Let's end this thing the right way.
- Let's go, man. - Let's go!
- One, two, three. - Team!
- Four, five, six. - Work hard!
And my dad is just as big a piece of this puzzle as any five of us.
This is a guy who was a football player that changed to be a basketball coach.
When I told him this is what I want to do,
he was the first person to put the ball in my hand.
Joyce will take it in and Travis scores at the three seconds, clock running.
He was key for me being the man I am today.
If I wasn't at St. V with Coach Dru pushing me toward the right thing,
God knows where I'd be right now.
And he gets a steal, after two free-throws comes the triple!
Now he's starting making those... Alter's in trouble.
He helped me have that security that I've always wanted in a father figure,
and he didn't have to treat me like I was one of his kids
or buy things for me. He didn't have to do it, but he did.
... out to James, they can take the lead.
James. Very nice!
It was always more than basketball to Coach Dru.
He always wanted the best for us.
Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary's spelling it out with 2:26 to go...
We all looked at Coach Dru as a father figure and loved him like that.
6.3 seconds to go.
Forty-36. The Irish with the lead. Pressure is on.
- Might be the ballgame. - The ball... James gets the rebound!
He will dribble it out. Joyce four seconds down the line.
And that's the basketball game!
Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary's wins their third, in four years,
Division II state champions here in Columbus.
The Irish are your national champions!
Looking over and seeing my mom and Coach Dru and Miss Joyce,
and everybody who had been there from the beginning was there that day,
and it was just a dream come true.
I felt like I did something, like, you know, my life is now worth something.
And winning it with my best friends, one of the best feelings I ever felt in my life.
I just had to go find my brother and hug him. You know what I am saying?
Because I could still be in Chicago doing the wrong thing.
I could be in jail, dead, you know what I am saying?
He just led me in the right path.
It just seemed like everything traced back to him.
When we won that championship, I just had to go find him.
Ran off the court and... Twenty-thousand people and he found me,
and we just embraced each other.
I felt like a proud father.
I got to share that with my brothers and also did that with my dad.
I got a chance to share my dream with everybody I love.
We made a lot of sacrifices. Not just me, other parents.
Sometimes I wonder if we took some of the kids' childhood away from them,
'cause they worked so hard. They didn't hang out like a lot of kids.
So sometimes you question, "Did we do the right thing?"
I love them all like they're my sons.
God gave me an opportunity to be involved with this,
and it wasn't about basketball. I needed to help them to become men,
that they're indebted to something that's greater than themselves.
When I hugged him, I whispered in his ear, "Don't ever give up on your dream.
"Look at me."
I had to go a roundabout way of finding my dream again.
For a while I had lost mine,
and through working with that group, I got it back.
You just don't know what life has in store for you.
And of course everyone wants to know, "What is next,
"or when are you going to decide?"
You know, it's so hard to think about anything else right now
besides being with my teammates while we're still here in Columbus.
And I'm just gonna try to keep this in my head
as long as possible and live out this last night.
LeBron James, with no regard for human life,
has given the Cavaliers their biggest lead tonight!
Move your line out a little bit. Move your line out.
It's gotta be full speed. Take the layup,
and rebound from the front. Go for it.
Rebound. And go to the next guy in line. Hurry up, hurry up, let's go.
Who's gonna be the first one to... All right!