When LeBron James returns to the home court Wednesday night to “Defend the Land,” he can be rest assured there’s at least one fan in Akron who has his back.
An Akron schoolteacher made national headlines after she went to James’ home in Bath Township to leave behind inspirational signs of support after a vandal painted a racial slur on an outside gate of his Los Angeles home.
The teacher, Jennifer Pennington, 37, of Copley Township, said she is humbled by all the attention she has received.
“I’m proud to be part of a positive message,” said Pennington, who acknowledges that there are a lot more important things being done by others. “It just shows that things like this keep going on.
“Unfortunately, hate is going to be around for a long time.”
Police were called to James’ L.A. home a week ago after the word was discovered on the front gate. No arrests have been made in the incident.
Pennington, who is on maternity leave from Akron’s Jennings middle school, said she was so upset about the racial slur painted on James’ gate that she felt like she needed to do something to show how much Akron loves and supports its NBA superstar.
“I just got a knot in my stomach,” she said. “I just wanted to cry.”
So she sat down at the kitchen table with her newborn daughter, Cecilia, by her side and painted three two-sided signs with words and phrases like hero, leader, humanitarian, role model and good Samaritan on them.
“I’m a Cavs fan,” she said. “I’m a LeBron fan. It is hard not to be a fan of his.”
She then reached out to the security team at James’ home and asked if she could leave them by the gate there.
With their permission, she dropped off the signs, and pictures of them went viral on the internet.
James said the vandalism shows that even famous people deal with racism.
“It just goes to show that racism will always be part of the world, part of America,” James said at the time. “[Living with] hate in America — especially for African-Americans — is living every day.”
Pennington, whose mother taught James in kindergarten, said the Cavs star taking something as ugly as a racial slur being painted on his gate and turning it into a positive discussion of race relations in America is what makes him, as one her signs proclaimed, a great role model.
Craig Webb can be reached at cwebb@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3547.