Bonus Cut: "The Chosen One" + LeBron James print giveaway
Plus: U2, Sebastian Telfair, Bubblicious, and shooting The Rock on a Motorola phone
Hi everyone. Welcome to my newsletter companion to “Cover Story,” a basketball book I wrote which is set for release on October 19th and is available for pre-order here. If you want to tell your followers about my book, feel free to share this tweet or this Instagram post. If you’re not a newsletter subscriber, click here to make sure you get every post in your inbox.
The first time I talked to photographer Michael LeBrecht II about shooting what ended up becoming the defining cover photo of LeBron James’ career (pictured above) for “Cover Story,” I asked him about the general challenges of his job, especially when it came to shooting high profile subjects. “You have a nanosecond to get somebody to feel comfortable,” he told me. “You have to make a connection.”
The idea of being comfortable is a recurring theme in “The Chosen One” chapter in my book, from LeBron being comfortable with the idea of allowing Sports Illustrated writer Grant Wahl into his life for a profile story to Wahl’s editor Greg Kelly being comfortable with the idea of putting a high school junior on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
One of my favorite things about “Cover Story” is how it serves as a time capsule for a a set of very specific moments in sports history. Magazine covers become snapshots capturing those moments for all of us to look back on. There’s no better example of that than “The Chosen One” cover and all the hoopla surrounding LeBron before he turned pro.
Before LeBron landed on the Sports Illustrated cover, SLAM was the first national magazine to profile the Akron native. Ryan Jones made the trip to St. Vincent-St. Mary High School to write the story and would later become the author of the book “King James: Believe The Hype—The LeBron James Story.”
The cover for SLAM’s 54th issue belonged to Shaquille O’Neal and not the high school sophomore from Akron; a perfect sound decision at the time but one which the magazine’s founder Dennis Page (with hindsight as his friend) told me is his biggest regret today.
We’ll leave those stories for the book, but I did hit up Ryan Jones recently to see if he had any fun artifacts from that era. The first thing he shared with me was this King James adidas sweatshirt which was part of the brand’s recruiting pitch for the high school phenom:
The next item was an adidas Chosen One sweatband which LeBron wore during high school:
Lastly (and my personal favorite) is a four-pack of LeBron-themed Bubblicious chewing gum which Ryan believes was released around 2004-2005:
Ryan also shared his favorite magazine covers (the same rule applies to all SLAM alums: they can’t pick any SLAM covers). His first pick (pictured below) is a February 23, 1987 Sports Illustrated cover featuring Magic Johnson. “It’s a classic Magic pose, all forward motion on the fast break, on the verge of what looks like a layup but could just as easily be a no-look dime to a trailing James Worthy or Byron Scott,” Ryan told me via email. “Those purple-and-gold Weapons look so dope it might as well be a Converse ad. And of course, it's against the Celtics.”
Ryan’s second cover pick also comes from 1987, “which probably says something about how the stuff you're obsessed with at 13 leaves a permanent imprint on your brain,” he says. The Time cover featuring U2 (pictured below) came at the height of the rollout for the rock band’s fifth studio album “The Joshua Tree.” Ryan says there was something remarkable about seeing his favorite band on the front of a serious magazine. “It confirmed that that something I cared about mattered in a much bigger, more significant way,” he explained.
“The Chosen One” cover also helped open many doors for photographer Michael LeBrecht II, who still has fond memories of shooting a Sports Illustrated cover with Sebastian Telfair in 2004. Like many of the magazine covers selected by folks for this newsletter, there was a personal connection for LeBrecht. He was the captain of his high school basketball team in New York and used to play against Telfair’s cousin Stephon Marbury growing up.
LeBrecht remembers shooting Telfair for Sports Illustrated Kids when he started to get the same buzz as a high schooler at Lincoln. “I grew up in Brooklyn but lived in Coney Island for a couple of years,” he explained. “I actually lived in the same building Sebastian grew up in, which was crazy.”
At six-thirty on a freezing February morning, LeBrecht brought Telfair to a Coney Island pier, set up a trampoline, and had him jumping in the air for the cover shoot. “He had his shorts and tank top on, but I brought these heat patches, so he had like four of them underneath his shirt trying to keep him warm,” he recalled. “It was freezing outside, but it was a clear, beautiful blue sky.”
LeBrecht has shot many memorable Sports Illustrated covers over the years. From a technical standpoint, he calls the 2002 college football preview issue with Tommie Harris (pictured above) a favorite and still remembers creating the rain effect for on set for the cover photo. LeBrecht also picked a 2012 cover featuring Deron Williams, a 2016 cover with Dwayne Johnson, which he shot on a Motorola Z phone, and this year’s 2021 NFL preview issue with Dak Prescott as the cover subject (LeBrecht is a huge Dallas Cowboys fan).
And finally, a giveaway…
Michael LeBrecht II also generously accepted my pitch to give away an 8x10 print of the photo above which he took as part of “The Chosen One” photoshoot. The contest will close this Friday and I will contact the winner via DM next week. In order to enter, you simply have to:
Tweet about “Cover Story” on Twitter by including this link and tagging me @steven_lebron
For an additional giveaway entry, share this IG “Cover Story” post to your Instagram Stories and tag me @stevenlebron
If you’re a newsletter subscriber you’ll also be automatically entered.
Make sure you follow Michael on Instagram @michaeljlebrechtii to see what he’s up to next. I’ll be back next Tuesday to talk about “Soul on Ice” and Russ Bengtson’s favorite magazine covers.
Thanks for reading the newsletter. Feel free to subscribe if it’s your first time reading. You can pre-order “Cover Story” here and find me on Twitter and Instagram. Email me if you want to chat.