Valley basketball coach remembers 2002 game against LeBron James
Fender says, just like Sunday night against the Golden State Warriors, Lebron dominated the game between St.Vincent-St. Mary and the Poland Bulldogs.
SPRINGFIELD TWP., Mahoning Co., Ohio - LeBron James is "just a kid from Akron," so it's not surprising his journey from high school to the NBA crossed paths with some of those here in our Valley.
Eric Fender, now a basketball coach at Springfield High School, says when he went up against LeBron in the 2002 state semi-finals, he wasn't known as "The King" yet, but the notoriety was already there.
Fender says, just like Sunday night against the Golden State Warriors, LeBron dominated the game between St.Vincent-St. Mary and the Poland Bulldogs. Both men were juniors at the time. Fender remembers his teammates trying to strategize a defense to stop LeBron, who was already being hailed by Sports Illustrated as "The Chosen One."
"One of the things we had sort of done is just try and figure out how do you stop him, and at 6'7" or 6'8" at that time, I don't know if there was ever a true way to stop him. We tried to force him to shoot the outside jump shot, sort of as what Golden State and some of the NBA teams have tried to do but, that night he was just on," recalled Fender.
The Poland Bulldogs end up losing the game with a final score of 76 to 36. But, Fender says having the opportunity to play against LeBron and then watch him bring home a championship to Cleveland is a memory he will never forget.
