After four years of taking classes and supposedly turning into adults, it seems to me that graduation speakers and family members see this commencement weekend as one last chance to give us seniors all the real information we need before being let loose on the world. In this last edition of Follow the Leader, I will do the same. But because I have no really interesting personal experiences to draw on, I will turn to the world of sports for inspiration and say this: Be LeBron, not Kobe.
While most of my fellow graduating seniors probably wouldn’t mind being either all-star at this point, I think the life choices and career paths of these two immensely talented professional athletes say a lot about what we can do with our talents and our Georgetown education.
Kobe Bryant and LeBron James are incredibly gifted athletes, and with hard work and dedication they have used these gifts to become the world’s two best basketball players. The debate may rage over who is the better basketball player, but even if the talents of these two men may seem to be identical at times, the manner in which they carry themselves is not. Both are confident, as they should be, but James’ confidence is quieter and more humble. When James makes a great play he will celebrate, but unless provoked, he rarely taunts opponents. Though he has been told since his junior year of high school that he could be the heir to Michael Jordan’s throne, James has always been quick to compliment others – and such humility only makes him look stronger.
Bryant, on the other hand, regularly reminds those guarding him that they cannot stop his offensive attack. In a recent playoff matchup against the Houston Rockets, Bryant got hot shooting the ball and went so far as to inform the announcers covering the game that Houston’s Shane Battier could do nothing to stop him.
In isolated instances, there would be nothing wrong with such brazen proclamations of ability, but after years of such behavior, Bryant’s act has grown tired for many. As a young player with immense talent, many were amused or impressed with his competitive fire; but as a 12-year veteran, he comes off as simply arrogant and unlikable. Many even blame this arrogance for causing the rift between Bryant and former teammate behemoth Shaquille O’Neal, which caused the Lakers to trade the three-time NBA finals MVP to Miami and helped to prolong a six-year championship drought in Los Angeles. Conversely, James has pressed Cleveland management for more talent around him since his arrival, and after several key acquisitions in the past year, James has been perfectly happy to see his scoring average drop this season in favor of a much higher win total and a better shot at a championship ring.
Bryant will always have his legions of loyal fans, but to the less-biased mass of sports fans, James is the more beloved star. Tellingly, LeBron won his first MVP this season despite a decrease in scoring, perhaps as a reward for his maturation into the kind of player that makes his teammates better, even if it comes at a cost to his personal success.
Bringing this rather lengthy sports analogy back to the matter at hand, everyone graduating this weekend departs the Hilltop with unique abilities have, along with the tools to do great things. Like Kobe and Lebron, we have taken the gifts we have been given and worked hard to turn them into an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University. Like Kobe and Lebron, there will be no shortage of people telling us how great we are. It would be easy to let all of that go to our heads.
It doesn’t take a Georgetown graduate to see where I’m going with this. With the prestige and opportunity that accompanies a Georgetown degree comes the real challenge of remembering that no matter what we do or achieve, the way we do it might be just as important. Sports analogies can sometimes only take us so far, but these two NBA greats should serve as a reminder for any of my classmates of how to use what we have been given. We have a right to be proud of this accomplishment, but, like Lebron, we should not let our gifts define us.
In trying to act out my own lesson, I would like to thank the many friends and family members who have followed this column. Their attention and input has meant more to me than they know, and whenever I felt really silly about spending time on this column every other week, some comment or e-mail would motivate me to keep writing.
This is it for Follow the Leader. Thank you to all who took the time to read it, and best of luck to all my fellow seniors in the class of 2009.
Jamie Leader is a senior in the College and can be reached at leaderthehoya.com. This is Hoya Sports’ last installment of Follow the Leader.
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