What Makes the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Championship Such a Good Story
Picture this: it is December 27, 1964 — the day of the 32nd annual NFL championship game and about 3 years before the first Super Bowl game in 1967. There were 79,544 people at the game, and there were even more people watching the game on their television sets because it was the first time an NFL title game had ever been broadcasted.
This was also the last time any Cleveland sports team won a championship… until Sunday June 19, 2016, when Cleveland was able to break their unlucky streak and clinch the NBA championship.
Cleveland owes their championship to superstar basketball player LeBron James. The Cleveland Cavaliers originally drafted James in 2003, and he played for them until 2010. In 2010 he left the Cavaliers and signed a 6-year contract with the Miami Heat. However, in 2014 he opted out of his contract to return to the Cavaliers.
In his postgame interview Sunday James stated, “I set out a goal two years when I came back, to bring a championship to this city. I gave everything that I had. I poured my heart, my blood, my sweat, my tears into this game. Against all odds, I don’t know why we want to take the hardest road.” James and his team were the first team to make a comeback from a 3-1 deficit to win the NBA championship. These are not the first odds that James defied though.
James describes his situation growing up as a negative one. Back when the series started James said, “I’m a statistic that was supposed to go the other way, growing up in the inner city, having a single-parent household. It was just me and my mother. So, everything I’ve done has been a success. So, as far as the game of basketball, I just go out and play it and have fun and love it, and be true to the game and to my teammates and live with the results.”
Despite the odds, though, James has truly become a 1 in a million athlete. The adversity he had to overcome to win the NBA championship goes deeper than just winning 3 games in a row. It goes back to his hard work and determination to not become another inner-city kid statistic.
