Teacher posts ‘hero’ signs outside of LeBron James’ home

LeBron James’ house was in the news recently because someone vandalized his property in Los Angeles with racist graffiti.

Now another property owned by James is in the news for a heartwarming reason.

A middle-school teacher by the name of Jennifer Pennington decided to post signs praising James near his Ohio home, conferring with security guards around the home before making it happen.

ESPN’s Dave McMenamin detailed the signs:

Pennington created three double-sided white placards, writing the phrases “Hero,” “Role Model,” “Mentor,” “Humanitarian,” “Leader,” and “Good Samaritan” in big block letters using black magic marker and placed them about 10 yards apart on the side of the street across from James’ driveway.

Pennington herself explained the decision:

“My heart broke when I saw the N-word posted on [his gate in Los Angeles]. Because that shouldn’t be a word to describe anybody,” Pennington said in a telephone interview with ESPN on Sunday.

It’s a great story to counteract the terrible events outside of James’ home in Los Angeles. The event there is fandom taken to stupid heights, so it’s always nice when normal people such as Pennington step forward and correct the scale.

Kudos to Pennington for the effort here. LeBron is the face of the NBA and a global inspiration, but nobody should have to deal with the graffiti sprawled on one of his properties. He’s more important away from the court, though, where his countless efforts in providing educations and improving schools doesn’t necessarily make headlines as it should, but hasn’t gone unnoticed.