Jay Leno joked on his Friday show that Clevelanders' responses to LeBron's departure run the gamut "from angry to very angry." But actually, reactions across Northeast Ohio are much more nuanced than that, especially in the King's hometown of Akron.
View full sizeThe gigantic "Witness" mural that overlooked downtown for years might be coming down, but many people in Greater Cleveland still respect his image. WITH ROBERT L. SMITH
The day after LeBron James stunned Northeast Ohio by leaving the Cavaliers, a Nike "Witness" poster remained firmly taped to the wall in downtown Cleveland's Styles and Profiles barber shop.
"What would we take it down for?" asked barber Russell Vaughn, 58. "His decision was his to make. Yes, it was hard on us, but he did what he had to do."
Vaughn's comments stirred a swift retort from Ray Paulk, 47, a Cleveland truck driver who felt the way the star departed left behind a bad taste.
"You had one job to do -- that was bring a ring home, and you didn't do it," said Paulk. "Then you skipped out."
The debate inside this small shop, featured years ago in one of Nike's first Witness commercials, reflected the range and intensity of emotions churning in Northeast Ohio since the region's hero declared he was changing teams.
The conversation is more thoughtful and nuanced in Greater Cleveland than what the nation saw Thursday night, when news cameras captured fans burning LeBron jerseys. Heartbreak is the universal sentiment, but beyond talk radio and sports bars, forgiving voices blend with the accusatory ones.
Within the black community especially, people are less likely to condemn James' decision and to try to understand it. Local reaction at times has illustrated a generational divide, with older fans more likely to see betrayal and younger fans more likely to defend a young person's right to chase his dreams. And especially down Interstate 77 in James' hometown of Akron, he's still the King to many.
"It was a heartbreak that he left. But I probably would have done the same thing," said Romero Fountaine, 14, while spending time at the Broadway Boys & Girls Club in Cleveland. "I can still look up to him."
Elizabeth England, 40, a black Cleveland Heights mother of three, feels James is someone her sons can emulate.
"I see a man who takes care of his children, who respects and loves his mother. I'm proud that he came from humble beginnings and did some positive things with his ability."
James engenders a different kind of pride in the black community, where people remark upon more than athletic skills.
Mansfield Frazier, a writer and community activist in Cleveland's Hough neighborhood, noted that James has stayed true to the mother of his children, is a good father and gives back to the community, sponsoring an annual bike-a-thon and contributing to Boys & Girls Clubs.
"That does get him a pass in the black community. I think blacks are less inclined to beat up on him," Frazier said.
Many black fans began to recoil at what they saw as unjust criticism and personal attacks on James. Team owner Dan Gilbert's characterization of James as a narcissist and a traitor struck a nerve.
Barber Russell Vaughn, 58, of Lakewood, says he is happy for LeBron James and his decision to leave Cleveland as he works on customer Ray Paulk, 47, of Cleveland at the Styles and Profiles Barber Shop at 1431 Chester Avenue in downtown Cleveland on Friday, July 9, 2010. Vaughn says he will leave his "Witness" sign up, in background."I think it's because there's a feeling in the black community that there's a double standard, that more is expected of black athletes," Frazier said. "Blacks are expected to leave money on the table and be loyal."
Keith Jones, a 39-year-old black flight attendant and Akron resident, believes James made a professional decision and is being unfairly maligned.
"I feel this had nothing to do with his loyalty," Jones said. "He will always be an Akron native. He just moved on to a different part of his life."
Still, while many fans are willing to accept that James moved on, they are united in dismay for how he chose to do it. They saw the ESPN "Decision" show as needless humiliation for Cleveland.
For that, Frazier blasts James' handlers, the people who surround him. "They're basically kids," he said. "Inconsiderate children."
Perturbed by how James "chose to discard Cleveland in front of a national television audience," former local television newsman Ben Holbert spent Friday contacting an interracial group of 50 friends and professional contacts. Holbert, who is black, wants them to join him in coming up with a marketing strategy to counter the insult and offer another view of Cleveland.
"I'm not throwing in the towel. We got too much to offer," said Holbert, 51, now the U.S. Census Bureau's local spokesman.
A young generation may not be joining his crusade.
Even though Deante Smith, 19, had to comfort sad-faced kids Friday as a counselor at the Broadway Boys & Girls Club, he still believes "LeBron doesn't owe nobody nothing."
Smith knows older Clevelanders feel that James let down their championship-starved city by leaving, and that not long ago, players like Larry Bird and Michael Jordan stayed loyal to the towns and fans that made them superstars.
He's one of several under-30 Clevelanders who don't see a betrayal. They've seen their own peers leapfrog to bigger cities, and sports heroes of their generation flit from one market to the next.
"You can't force nobody to stay nowhere they don't want to be," insisted Smith. "I don't like the way [James] handled it though. Don't have a one-hour program telling Cleveland you're not coming. That was messed up."
Yet in a week of high emotions, age wasn't a precise predictor of responses. Neither was race or gender. Said George Julien, 45, a white Cleveland Heights resident, "What he's been through, at his age, he's just got to do what's right for him."
Julien compared James leaving to Jim Brown announcing that he was retiring from the Browns at age 30, with plenty of records under his belt and much more to accomplish.
Another point of view, largely dormant these past five weeks in the uncertainty over James' future, ends with a big question mark. Why are we investing so much spirit in this issue?
Stanley Miller, executive director of the Cleveland NAACP, complains there has been far too much LeBronmania, while real issues lack attention.
"It was fun to have it as a diversion, but it ended up becoming a distraction," Miller said Friday. "We've got 25- and 26-year-olds, really bright minds, leaving this city every day. I don't see the same effort to keep them."
James, he said, is overrated.
"He made some contributions to this community, he contributed some money, but when you talk about our real needs, he didn't make a dent. We have to put this behind us and put our enthusiasm behind a real issue. Just pick one."
Felicia Adams, 32, of Euclid, also sees misplaced priorities. "Cleveland public schools are a failure, we have kids who go to bed without food, parents who abuse them, people who don't have jobs and are soon to be homeless -- and yet we're out on the street protesting, making signs, about an entertainer? That's what he is," she said.
People are noticeably less critical, and maybe reach harder toward understanding, 35 miles south of Cleveland, in the neighborhoods where James grew up.
Willie Owens, a barber for 50 years in Akron's mostly-black Buchtel neighborhood, not that long ago used to see a young LeBron dribble past his shop window. He's saddened to know the James era is over, but the white-haired man takes a paternal view.
"I had a daughter born and raised here," he said. "I wish she stayed. But she had to go on and live her own life."
That sentiment was seconded many times in Owens' shop, where customers were quick to defend James' right to move on and expressed gratitude for his time among them.
"He put us on the map," said Duane Temple, a 53-year-old construction worker. "The rubber companies left. That young man, he doesn't owe us anything. I'm very proud of him. No matter where he goes, I'm in his corner."
Handsome townhouses have replaced the gritty apartments that James knew in Akron's Elizabeth Park projects. But the children know it was his brief tenure that gives their address a cool factor.
On Friday, the teens tapping into the Internet at the Cascade Village community center expressed support and admiration for James and only a casual allegiance to his former team.
"I am a LeBron fan, not a Cleveland fan. I'll just become another Miami Heat fan," said Jasmine Hartwell, 16, her eyes narrowing. "And it was evil to burn his jersey."
But her friend, Charmyn King, 17, wondered aloud at what James was leaving.
"He had a lot of support here -- real support," she said. "It won't be like that in Miami. I mean, they probably want him there, but they don't love him like we do."