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LeBron James
Told to shut up and dribble, he answered with a public school, a voter drive and a billion dollars.
The rise
Born in Akron, Ohio, on 30 December 1984 to a sixteen-year-old mother who moved him from flat to flat, he was the state's schoolboy phenomenon at St. Vincent-St. Mary and went straight from high school to the NBA as the first pick of the 2003 draft, taken by his home-state Cleveland Cavaliers.
What they did
The I Promise School, which he funds with Akron Public Schools, opened on 30 July 2018 for 240 children. When a Fox News host told him in February 2018 to 'shut up and dribble', he publicly refused. In 2020 he founded More Than a Vote, which recruited poll workers for Black precincts. Forbes made him a billionaire in June 2022, the first active NBA player and still the only one.
The full picture
His 2010 exit from Cleveland, announced on a live ESPN special, was read at home as a betrayal and jerseys were burned; he went back in 2014 and won the city its first title. In October 2019 he called Houston's Daryl Morey 'misinformed' for a tweet backing Hong Kong protesters, and was accused of guarding NBA revenue in China.
Why it matters
The most powerful athlete of his era spent the leverage instead of banking it — a school in his home town, a voting drive, a refusal to be told to stay quiet — and paid the price of saying so.
“I will not just shut up and dribble. I mean too much to society, I mean too much to the youth.”