LeBron James had come a long way since his childhood in the small, struggling village of Pine Hills. The days of hunger, instability, and uncertainty were long behind him. Now, an NBA superstar, a global icon, and a philanthropist, LeBron had the resources and platform to make a difference. But his heart led him back to Pine Hills—not for a charity event, but for something far more meaningful.
It was a quiet return. No entourage, no camera crews, just a humble rental car driving down the cracked streets that LeBron knew so well. He passed the familiar water tower, faded with time, and noticed the unchanged landscape—crumbling buildings, dilapidated streets, and a community still struggling. The sight tugged at his heart. Despite the riches, the fame, and the recognition he’d earned, there was still a part of him that longed to return to the place where his journey began.
LeBron parked near the old convenience store that had once been the center of his world, the same store where he and his mother had lived in a small apartment years ago. It had been eight months of hardship when they’d moved here, and though he was only nine, those months shaped him in ways he was only now beginning to understand. He stepped out of the car, walking toward the entrance of the store. The familiar bell above the door jingled as he entered, sending a wave of nostalgia through him.
Behind the counter stood a young man, absorbed in his phone. When he noticed LeBron, his eyes widened in disbelief. “Are you really…?” the clerk stammered.
“Just passing through,” LeBron said with a warm smile, trying to keep things normal. He picked up a chocolate milk, the same treat he and his mom would share when times were tight, and paid, leaving a generous tip before stepping back outside.
As he walked toward the park at the center of town, memories flooded back. The playground equipment still stood, rusted and weathered, and the children played in the same small park, their voices rising in the air. It was then that LeBron saw her—Miz Wilma. Her gray hair was neatly tied back, and she sat with the same straight posture she always had. When she saw LeBron, her eyes lit up.
“Little Brun,” she said, her voice wavering with emotion.
“Ms. Wilma,” LeBron replied, his heart catching in his throat. She had once given him peppermint candies, slipped into his pocket when his mother wasn’t looking. She had been a lifeline, someone who saw him not as a poor child, but as someone worth caring for. They sat and talked for a while, reminiscing about the days when his mother would bring him by to share a meal, and when he helped her with groceries, always asking if she needed anything.
LeBron could see the pride in her eyes. “I always knew you’d do great things, child. Always knew it.” She said it with the kind of conviction that only comes from truly believing in someone.
The words stung with unexpected emotion. Miz Wilma was right. Despite everything, despite being poor, despite the hardships, someone had always believed in him—whether it was her, Coach Miller, or his mother. That belief had driven him to become the man he was today. And now, it was time to return the favor.
LeBron spent the next few hours reconnecting with old faces. The people of Pine Hills hadn’t changed much—some were older, others had moved away, but the struggles remained. There were the familiar signs of poverty: broken-down storefronts, a playground desperately in need of repair, an old basketball court with rusted hoops. It was clear that Pine Hills was still a forgotten town, left behind by the progress others had made. But LeBron wasn’t here to merely observe; he had come to make a difference.
His next stop was to see Coach Miller, the man who had changed his life with a single act of belief. Coach had been the first to see potential in LeBron, the first to treat him like more than just a poor kid with a ball. LeBron walked up the familiar street to Coach Miller’s home, a small white house on Maple Road. He knocked on the door, and when it opened, he was greeted with a warm but surprised smile. “Took you long enough,” Coach Miller said, his voice still carrying the authority that LeBron remembered.
“I’ve been busy,” LeBron replied with a chuckle, dropping to one knee to embrace the older man. The years had taken their toll on Coach, but the love he had for LeBron, and the belief in him, had never wavered. Coach had given him his first real basketball, a gift that LeBron had treasured.
“You changed my life, Coach,” LeBron said, his voice thick with emotion. “And now I’m here to return the favor.”
Coach Miller looked at him with a knowing smile. “You’ve got something rare, LeBron. I always knew you’d make it. But remember, you can’t do it all alone. You need the community.”
LeBron nodded, understanding. “That’s why I’m here. I want to give back to Pine Hills, but not just with money. I want to help rebuild this place, from the ground up, with long-term solutions.”
LeBron outlined his vision for Pine Hills: revitalizing the schools, bringing healthcare access, creating job opportunities, and improving infrastructure. It was ambitious, yes, but LeBron had the resources to make it happen. And more importantly, he had the passion to see it through.
Over the next few weeks, LeBron began working with local leaders, community members, and Coach Miller to turn this vision into reality. They started with the school—rebuilding it with new technology, classrooms, and a proper gymnasium. The community center was next, with renovations aimed at providing safe spaces for after-school programs and activities. Healthcare was addressed by expanding the clinic into a full-time health center, and new jobs were created through a local business incubator. LeBron’s foundation provided the funding, but the real work was done by the people of Pine Hills.
It wasn’t an overnight transformation. There were setbacks, doubts, and struggles along the way. But LeBron stayed committed, visiting Pine Hills regularly, working side by side with the community, ensuring that they had a voice in shaping the future of their town.
Months passed, and the first signs of change became visible. The community center was alive with activity, the school’s new facilities were buzzing with students, and the factory had been repurposed to create jobs. People were beginning to see hope again, not just in the form of promises, but through tangible change.
Then, on the one-year anniversary of his return, LeBron stood before the community in the newly renovated school gymnasium. He spoke about the progress they had made and the challenges still ahead, but his focus was on the future. Pine Hills was no longer a forgotten village—it had become a beacon of hope, a model for what could be done in overlooked communities across the country.
But there was more. LeBron announced the launch of the Forgotten Communities Initiative, a national program that would bring the same transformation to other struggling towns across the United States. Pine Hills was the first, but it wouldn’t be the last.
Coach Miller, the man who had believed in LeBron when no one else did, was named the executive director of the initiative. Together, they would lead the charge in bringing real change to communities that had been left behind for too long.
And so, the journey began—not just for LeBron, but for the people of Pine Hills, who now saw a future filled with possibility. The promise LeBron made to this town all those years ago had been fulfilled, and it was only the beginning.
As he looked out at the crowd, LeBron smiled. It was a quiet victory, but it was the kind that would change lives for generations to come.
Column: I promise, this is the real story of how LeBron James is saving Akron
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (6) during NBA action against Brooklyn Nets on Jan. 25 in New York.
(Frank Franklin II / Associated Press)
Lots of stories have been written about LeBron James and Cleveland.
About how, as a Cavalier, he came through for a city that had long ago soured on the possibility of winning a championship. And more recently, about how he’s still loved in The Land, despite decamping for life in Los Angeles as a Laker.
But I want to tell you a different story, this one about LeBron James and Akron.
About how, in addition to being the biggest booster of this proud but struggling city of roughly 200,000 people, he also is setting himself up to be its biggest savior — far more than most people realize.
But let’s begin at the beginning, at a gritty little basketball court 35 miles from the glitz of Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland.
While fans gathering for Sunday’s NBA All-Star game will undoubtedly see themselves as welcoming a wayward James “home,” it’s this court in west Akron that he never really left.
A LeBron James “Space Jam” mural in Akron, Ohio. The mural was painted by Kent State University art student Chardae Slater.
(Madeleine Hordinski / For The Times)
Tucked away in a tree-filled neighborhood park, it’s not on any official or unofficial sightseeing tour. Locals, for the most part, are only ones who know and care about it. In fact, it’s rather ugly.
The last time I saw it, during a trip home to northeast Ohio last summer, the hoops were bare of nets. The rose-colored playing surface was dull and chipped, probably as much from wear and tear as sun and snow. Empty bottles, discarded surgical masks, the butts of menthol cigarettes and the wrappers from corner-store cigars lined the bleachers.
The only sign of life was a group of men at a nearby picnic table, hooting and hollering in the eat-the-air humidity, while playing a spirited game of dominoes.
Back in 2005, though, this court was the place to be in Akron.
James, then finishing his second season with the Cavaliers, had brought in an MTV production crew to shoot “Battlegrounds: King of the Court.” The reality show, which he hosted, tracked two amateur teams — one led by former Chicago Bull Ben Gordon and the other by former Philadelphia 76er Andre Iguodala — and culminated in a three-on-three basketball tournament.
I was there that night, sitting on a friend’s porch across the street, watching as thousands of people jockeyed for a better view of celebrity players they never thought they’d see in real life. And they marveled at the court that Nike, at James’ urging, had paid to have resurfaced.
An empty basketball court in west Akron, Ohio, on Thursday. In 2005, LeBron James, then a Cleveland Cavalier, transformed the court at Perkins Park into a Hollywood set to film the final installment of a reality TV show.
(Madeleine Hordinski / For The Times)
“We’ve never had anything like this,” Scott Gooden, one of the officials in the tournament, told the Akron Beacon Journal at the time. “This is a great thing for Akron that LeBron is putting on, and it’s a lot of good publicity that we need.”
I was only in my first few years out of college, working at my first job in journalism. But I knew then, as I know now, that James had cemented his connection to the people of Akron that night. Particularly those who grew up Black and poor and traumatized like he did.
People who had been long ignored or betrayed by government and its systems walked away believing — if only for a moment — that they were important, had value, and were worthy of attention and investment.
But one-off events don’t bring about permanent change, as evidenced by the current condition of that west Akron basketball court and the surrounding neighborhood. That’s why I call this the beginning — not only of what the LeBron James Family Foundation has become, but what it is becoming.
The foundation’s executive director, Michele Campbell, explained it to me this way:
“The ‘I Promise’ movement was born after a lot of soul-searching and talking after that first year working in Miami and him coming home,” she said of James. “He was like, ‘We need to do more. We’re doing nice one-and-done events. But are we really moving a community? Are we really making a difference?’”
Most people know about his I Promise School, and the great success it has had in improving high school graduation rates and sending kids to college.
Most people don’t know about how his foundation has inserted itself into local government or how, at James’ direction, it is slowly pulling and transforming Akron’s bureaucracy to operate in the “I Promise” way.
“We feel that we’re modeling the way a community should operate,” Campbell explained, “and challenging — in very positive ways — how we change certain systems.”
Now before I go on, I’m sure some of you are wondering: Aren’t Cleveland and Akron basically the same place? The answer is — ahem — hell no. The cities are the seats of two different counties, and are about as different as Palmdale and Pasadena.
Cleveland, where I grew up, is known for its cutting-edge hospitals, museums, messy sports franchises (see Odell Beckham Jr.) and union-driven politics. In some ways, it is still trying to reinvent itself after losing the steel industry.
Akron lost its mojo when the rubber plants closed, but is still home to a lucrative polymers industry, as well as Devo, the All-American Soap Box Derby, the Black Keys and the Goodyear blimp. It’s also where Alcoholics Anonymous was founded, prompting thousands of people who have reclaimed their lives from addiction to descend on the city each summer in motorcycles. It’s very noisy.
James is a product of — well, kid from — Akron, not Cleveland.
Which is why, like the Akronite rubber barons before him who built Firestone Park and Goodyear Heights — neighborhoods for their workers that doubled as centers of power — he is basically building an “I Promise” neighborhood.
“If you look at history and look at what he’s doing, he’s taking a model that had worked and redoing it,” explained Judi Hill, president of Akron’s chapter of the NAACP.
In addition to the I Promise School, there is I Promise Village, I Promise Institute, I Promise Housing, along with Thirty Five Rhodes and, soon, House Three Thirty — an ode to Akron’s 330 area code. (More on that last one later.)
The I Promise Village, sponsored by the LeBron James Family Foundation, provides housing for students and their families who need an escape from homelessness, domestic violence or some other trauma.
(Madeleine Hordinski/For The Times)
All are clustered a mile or so from downtown Akron, mostly along one of the city’s main thoroughfares, West Market Street. And all were developed and now run on a mix of public and private capital, which James raised by leveraging his reputation.
“That kind of convening power doesn’t come with everybody,” Akron Mayor Daniel Horrigan said. “And he’s using it in a way that is always impactful for the city, in a positive way. He’s betting on us.”
In addition, the foundation has been quietly buying up land and commercial properties for future redevelopment along the same thoroughfare. That puts James in line with the increasingly popular strategy in Black America for revitalizing long-neglected neighborhoods.
But this part of the story is about more than just real estate. It’s about infiltration — Campbell’s word, not mine.
Rather than bypassing the broken government systems that James encountered growing up, his foundation is working with government so that future generations will have it better than he did.
For example, East Akron Neighborhood Development Corp. agreed to incorporate dedicated rooms for studying and a basketball court into the affordable complex that will be known as I Promise Housing.
“We’re doing this with the LeBron James Family Foundation, so you need a basketball court because exercise is very important,” said Cheryl L. Stephens, chief executive of the nonprofit housing agency.
And it’s all being built with government tax credits on land donated by the city.
At the I Promise School, public school teachers are in classrooms, teaching a government- and union-approved modified curriculum on a modified calendar. Parents, meanwhile, have on-site access to a county-employed social worker, who can work out problems with accessing food stamps and other public assistance, as well as an in-house attorney who can offer advice on resolving custody cases and getting records expunged.
The so-called wraparound services model has worked so well that the United Way has replicated it at other schools across the city.
“If we created our own charter private school, we’d make all the rules,” Campbell said. “But how do you show others that you really can create change in a public school system? So that was like a directive from LeBron: We’re not creating our own. We’re working within.”
And in Akron, where city officials are swamped with challenges, they welcome the help.
“We remain partners with the foundation to say, ‘OK, if you need something, what is it? Is it investment in this? Is it a connection to another agency?’” Mayor Horrigan said. “‘How do we get out of the way?’”
If only Los Angeles could learn to do this more often.
Imagine if this was the response from the L.A. Board of Education when music moguls Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine announced that they wanted to open a magnet school in Leimert Park.
The I Promise School on Thursday in Akron, Ohio.
(Madeleine Hordinski / For The Times)
There is an irony to this story of Akron and LeBron James, though. It’s precisely because he has been able to cajole the city into doing better by its poorest residents that he has become a target of criticism.
Only a few can live in his housing, only a few can go to his school, and only a few can learn about blockchain technology under a new deal with Crypto.com. Indeed, I Promise is a closed ecosystem that helps only a fraction of the many who need it.
House Three Thirty is designed to change that.
The 60,000-square-foot entertainment venue will be open to the public and have a restaurant, a coffee shop, a financial planning center, a museum, a wine and cigar room, plus basketball courts and a football field on the roof of the ginormous parking garage.
There also will be on-the-job training for people interested in careers in food service, hospitality, event management and finance.
But first Akronites must get used to the idea.
House Three Thirty will be in a building long known and loved as the Tangier. Almost everyone who has lived in Akron has traipsed through there at least once, probably for prom or maybe for a wedding.
For Angelenos, it would be like Magic Johnson or Fernando Valenzuela announcing that he was taking over Griffith Observatory, painting it black and reopening it as a fancy community center.
“I was there when they announced it,” Hill said of House Three Thirty. “I cried because I thought we’re losing an icon. But we’re also gaining a new future.”
Perhaps this is the kind of story that can happen only in Akron.
A city so small that most residents remember when people used to chase his Hummer through the streets just to get a glimpse of him — that is, before he started lending it to friends as a decoy.
So small that almost every resident seems to have a personal LeBron story — or fears having a personal story. As one man told me, shaking his head while playing dominoes in the west Akron park where it all began: “I can’t talk. Bron’s gonna find out.”
Small enough that what he does here matters.
The last time Cleveland hosted an NBA All-Star game, James was 12 years old. And, as he told reporters on Saturday, his family didn’t have the means to make the 35-mile trip up from Akron.
“I had so many dreams of being an All-Star when I was a kid,” James said.
Today, he is reshaping Akron in his image, from the inside out. And Cleveland has nothing to do with it.
