LeBron James' heartfelt essay pays tribute his mom: 'She's my champion'

LeBron James wrote a heartfelt essay for The Shriver Report's special series "A Woman's Nation Pushes Back from the Brink," examining financial insecurity among the one in every three American women living on the brink of poverty. 

"I'm honored to participate in a project that is trying to help single mothers who are struggling to make a living and raise their kids, because that perfectly describes my mother when I was growing up," James writes. "You think LeBron James is a champion? Gloria James is a champion too. She's my champion."

Gloria became LeBron's mother at the age of 16, and lived at her own mother's house in Akron, Ohio. They lost the house when James was just 3, when his grandmother unexpectedly died of a heart attack.

We moved around from place to place—a dozen times in three years. It was scary. It was catch as catch can, scraping to get by. My mom worked anywhere and everywhere, trying to make ends meet. But through all of that, I knew one thing for sure: I had my mother to blanket me and to give me security. She was my mother, my father, my everything. She put me first. I knew that no matter what happened, nothing and nobody was more important to her than I was. I went without a lot of things, but never for one second did I feel unimportant or unloved.

Finally, when I was 9 years old, my mother made a supreme sacrifice. She decided that while she was figuring out how to get on her feet, I needed some stability in my life. I needed to stay in one place and experience the support and security that she had felt growing up in a big family. So she sent me to live with my pee-wee football team coach, “Big Frankie” Walker, and his family. She later said to me, “It was hard, but I knew it was not about me. It was about you. I had to put you first.”

To read the rest of James' essay, or to see other contributions from the like of Beyonce and Eva Longoria, head over to The Shriver Report.

[Courtesy: The Shriver Report]