Unfortunate Childhood – No Father, Living with Single Mother – Nurtured the Iron Will of LeBron James in his journey to becoming the number one NBA star.

James is seen as the greatest example of a talent overcoming adversity to rise to the pinnacle of glory and wealth in the NBA. LeBron James’s hardships are not uncommon in life as well as in the sports world. But it was enough to overwhelm the will of any colored child born in America in the 1980s. No father, no home, James wandered the streets of Akron, Ohio with his single 16-year-old mother, entirely relying on social welfare. That was the beginning of the tough childhood years of the current NBA superstar.

High school girl Gloria Marie James became pregnant after sexual encounters with thief and robber Anthony McClelland. There was no love between them, as Gloria later recounted, it was merely to satisfy physical needs. Carrying the blood of McClelland within her was thus beyond Gloria’s intentions. LeBron was born on the last day of 1984, one of the coldest days of Gloria’s life. She was only 16 years old at the time.

LeBron James’s family fell into homelessness when he was just a few days shy of turning four. Image: ESPN.

The first three years went by without much trouble. Gloria still went to school every day, leaving LeBron at home with her grandmother and mother. Her two older brothers lived together in a large house on Hickory Street, next to the rugged street with old oak trees and the railway crossing, right next to downtown Akron. The tragedy began on Christmas Day 1987 when Gloria’s mother, Freda, died of a heart attack. A few months earlier, Gloria’s grandmother had passed away. The stability of the entire family was severely threatened.

Terry and Curt, Gloria’s two brothers, tried to keep the house for their sister and nephew. But the severe deterioration of the house, coupled with insufficient income to cover expenses, soon plunged the three siblings into homelessness. Each had to find a new place to live as no one had stable employment.

Gloria wandered the streets of Akron with three-year-old LeBron. They lived with friends. Each stay lasted a few weeks or longer, sometimes ending up at Terry’s house for a few days. The mother and son lived on social welfare throughout this time, as Gloria couldn’t find suitable work since she couldn’t afford daycare.

James later described this time bitterly: “My possessions were a backpack on my back. I often told the backpack ‘It’s time to roll’ every time we had to leave an apartment.” By 1993, when LeBron was nine years old, they moved an average of twice a month. They often appeared in homeless shelters or overnight sleeping spots built by churches.

The rare smile of the James mother and son in a photo with brothers Terry and Curt. Image: ESPN.

Throughout fourth grade, LeBron moved 12 times and missed about 100 days of school. “The kid had trouble with moving. It was confusing with new classmates in new schools. There was a time he skipped school because he didn’t know which bus to take to get to school,” Bruce Kelker, LeBron James’s first football coach, recounted.

Kelker, after a chance encounter on the street and noticing LeBron’s outstanding physique, brought both mother and son to live with him and his girlfriend in a small apartment. Kelker was responsible for transportation, buying training gear, and teaching football to James, in return, Gloria made hamburgers and cooked twice a week.

But Kelker’s small apartment only helped the James family survive for a few months before they decided to move out again. By this time, James’s prominence in football matches for children under 10 in Akron had attracted the attention of Frank Walker, a local youth trainer.

James on the high school basketball team, where he took his first steps on the path to joining the NBA. Image: Bleacher Report.

Knowing the difficult circumstances of the James mother and son, Walker offered to help by bringing James to live with his family in the suburbs of Akron. Gloria would have time to find a job, live with friends, and visit her son on weekends. The offer came just as Gloria was about to send LeBron to New York to stay with relatives. The 25-year-old agreed to the deal with Walker, and that was the turning point that brought LeBron James to success in the NBA later on.

Walker’s family, with two sons around LeBron’s age, took the homeless boy into their fold. They woke James up at 6:30 every morning, cooked him generous breakfasts, and took him to school. James also got his hair cut every Saturday by Walker, and on his birthday, Mrs. Walker made him German chocolate cakes. “That was a real family,” James recalled his time living with the Walker coach.

Life’s hardships on Akron’s railway street nurtured LeBron James’s determination. Image: ESPN.

After afternoon homework, James started playing basketball with Walker and his sons. Despite being a football coach, Walker played basketball well. He taught James how to dribble, shoot with his left hand, and recognized the boy’s great potential. “LeBron was one of the best football-playing kids in Akron at the time. But the basketball skills of the little guy amazed me. Despite being clumsy in the early days, LeBron progressed quickly, soon outperforming his peers,” Walker recounted to ESPN in 2013.

James played both football and basketball during his adolescence. It wasn’t until his sophomore year, at the age of 15, that he decided to follow in Michael Jordan’s footsteps. “It was a wrist injury, I almost broke my wrist after a game. I decided to give up football, even though it was the first sport I loved,” the Cleveland Cavaliers star shared.

While Walker was the one who nurtured James’s basketball talent to shine at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School basketball team, it was his mother Gloria who inspired him the most. “She went crazy every time she came to practice with James and watched her son play. She even applied to volunteer at the club, ready to do the smallest tasks like filling water bottles or cleaning everything, just to be with LeBron during practice. That gave the kid extra strength,” Terry, LeBron’s uncle, recounted.

Gloria went through difficult years helping her son achieve the pinnacle of success in the NBA with three championships and four MVP titles.

James never forgets the hardships that he and his mother went through: “I thank life for that. I thank the father who abandoned me. It helped me bond with my mother, go through the worst and happiest things with her. She’s not perfect, but I love her more than anything. She not only gave birth to me but also helped me become the person I am today.”

James is currently the most promising star to become the next billionaire from the NBA in America, following the legend of Michael Jordan. After signing a $500 million lifetime contract with Nike last year, James bought his mother a $6 million mansion in Florida. Previously, the 32-year-old star bought 10,000 square meters of land in Akron, closely associated with the hardships of mother and son’s childhood, to build one of the largest playgrounds in Ohio.

“God has taken away a lot from me. But He gave me something priceless, that’s LeBron,” Gloria shared when she and James received the 2009 NBA MVP award.

Since becoming a top NBA star over a decade ago, James has often been invited by prestigious schools like Harvard to speak to students. These are inspirational speeches aimed at inspiring young people to succeed in life. Perhaps no one in the NBA is more suitable than James for these talks. Because his life is the most complete proof of the journey of a boy who has overcome adversity to become the number one in his field of pursuit.