LeBron’s cynical, resentful feelings about Ohio after losing eligibility in school: “The last four years, we’ve done so much for our community. Soon as one bad thing happens… they bring us all up under. They’ll never remember the good things, just the bad things. You can’t let them bring you down.”

For context, LeBron's first real controversy was his mother gifting him a Hummer H2 for his 18th birthday. She actually took out a loan to get it, so the Ohio High School Athletic Association ruled that not a violation.

His second wasn't long after, when he was gifted a Gale Sayers and Wes Unseld jersey from a local shopkeeper in exchange for him posing for pictures the owner could hang up in the store. OHSAA ruled the jerseys a monetary benefit too big for him to play basketball.

A judge overturned the ruling shortly after, just ruling he pay for the jerseys and miss another game. SVSM had to forfeit a game, and that was their sole loss in LeBron's senior 25-1 season. As stupid as it now sounds, it was a big issue back then.

The first game he played was in Trenton, New Jersey against a senior Trevor Ariza's Westchester. Before the game St. Vincent St. Mary visited YouthBuild, a non-profit for 16-24 year olds.

Given the small media presence there, LeBron was probably being a lot more candid about his resentful feelings towards OHSAA and even St. Vincent St. Mary here than he'd ever be in Ohio or an interview.

"You can do a thousand or a million good things, but as soon as you do one bad thing, they try to bring you up under,"

"The last four years, we've done so much for our community in Akron, Ohio, and for the state of Ohio, I can't even count how much. As soon as one bad thing happened to me… they bring us all up under. They'll never remember the good things, just the bad things. You can't let them bring you down. Just stay strong."

He was asked how other students felt about the team, and was surprisingly blunt and negative:

"They hate us," he said. "I feel, and I think I can speak for all of us, they don't like the basketball team overshadowing the other sports. When you see things like that, you can't fall into that trap."

"I don't know how we've even done this, this year, with all the things that've been going on with me and all the things going on with our team. You've just got to stay strong. You've got that circle. Everybody that's in green right now, we've just got to stay strong through all the haters."

When asked about similarities between Trenton and Akron, he said:

"I'm from the 'hood, we see stuff like this and it ain't even nothing new to us. I grew up in the projects just like everyone else, just like most of y'all. We just try not to take things for granted, the life we're in, we just try to make things positive for us. All I can say is: If you have a goal, just try to be what you want to be. Don't let nobody tell you you can't do it."

Lastly, one of the students asked the St. Vincent-St. Mary players where they expected to be in five years. In an eerie bit of prophecy from LeBron:

"Five years from now," he said, "I'll be on my way trying to win another NBA championship."

He was in his fourth year in the NBA when he made his first finals appearance, so he did get to try in exactly five years.

Trevor Ariza was asked about his situation before they played and had a great response:

“Everything a kid sees, he wants,” said Westchester star Trevor Ariza. “That’s just kids. If [James] deserves it, let him have it. From what he’s doing, the way he’s handling everything, I think he deserves it.” Ariza doesn’t mind or resent any of the hype heaped on James this season.

“I’m happy for him,” Ariza said. “It got him a No. 1 draft pick in the league next year. But the bad part is, when he messes up, the whole world is on him. I probably couldn’t handle it right now.”

“You can make the game harder than what it really is by getting into the media and everything like that,” Ariza said. “Really, all you’re doing is getting on the court and doing what you do every day. I think the adults are the ones that are overplaying it.”

A few sportswriters were on his side at least, here from an article titled "LeBron Playing in Real World", sounding the alarm that led to the NIL decades later:

This isn’t “Hoosiers” or even “The White Shadow.” It’s the mercenary world of prep hoops.

For some reason the outrage comes only when the players try to get something back. Shoe companies want to slap their logos all over teams, outfitting schools such as Westchester with shoes and sweatsuits. St. Vincent-St. Mary made almost $300,000 off the basketball program last year — and that was before the LeBron hype gave the school the gumption to charge adults $15 to see him play at home games this season.

And even opposing coach Ed Azzam said some stuff that reflects the issues we see in AAU programs today, something LeBron has brought up as a problem himself:

“The top high school programs, for the last six or seven years, have been traveling or playing in top tournaments throughout the country,” Westchester Coach Ed Azzam said. “These one-game extravaganzas are not local teams against local teams.

“It’s all about money. These guys that run the events are making money. Are the kids being exploited? To a certain degree, everyone’s being exploited.”

By the end of it, LeBron said the situation helped him mature, even though he was clearly still mad about it. You can kind of understand how LeBron handled controversy/hate going forward, and how it might've impacted his view on "loyalty" given he clearly felt here that Ohio gave him the worst punishment for two jerseys and a few photos – an independent judge had to step in.

That upcoming game he was in NJ for against #7 ranked Westchester was on national TV the next day. LeBron left the game early, having scored a career-high 52 points, with six threes. Westchester were losing 78-43. SVSM wins 78-52.

Sources: #1, #2, #3