<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">It was one of the biggest days in LeBron James' career that you don't know about. It happened during the spring of 2001, when James was just a sophomore at St. Vincent-St. Mary, and happened mostly under the radar and far away from home. A few months after leading the Irish to a second consecutive state title, James came to the Bay Area to play in a weekend AAU tournament with a high-powered club called the Oakland Soldiers -- and, at the same time, to be exposed to an entirely new crop of influential onlookers. ``LeBron wasn't playing well in the first game; he was upset about the string in his shorts because it wasn't right and it was bothering him,'' said former high school coach Keith Dambrot, who accompanied James and his mother, Gloria, on the trip. ``I pulled him out in the hallway and told him to stop messing around because there were a lot of important people that had come for the game. And you know LeBron, he loves being challenged.'' Not surprisingly, James picked up his game and took over. He helped his team to the championship and sent away the crowd at California-Berkeley with big thoughts. Now, years later, many in the Bay Area who came to the tournament consider themselves lucky to have witnessed James at an early age.</div> Full Story
