that i could go into to exemplify that point, but i know we're running out of time, but i would conclude by saying that we have a lot of ground to cover and we're moving in the right direction. [applause] >> thank you very much. >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's story and on sunday, book tv brings you the latest in non-fiction books and authorities. funding from c-span2 comes from these television companies and more, including sparklight. >> the greatest town on earth is the place you call home, and right now we're facing our greatest challenge. that's why sparklight is working around the clock to keep you protected. we're doing our part so you can do yours. >> sparklight along with these television companies supports

c-span2 as a public service. >> good evening, everyone. and welcome to politics and prose, i'm the co-owner of the bookstore along with my wife. and jeff benedict, who is here to talk about his new book, lebron. jeff's had quite a varied career, he practiced law for a while and active in politics. even ran for congress in connecticut a couple of decades ago and worked to limit gambling in that state. he's been a journalist writing for such publications as sports illustrated and los angeles times. and along the way, he's authored or co-authored more than a dozen works of nonfiction, including best selling books about tiger woods and the new england patriots as well as a legal thriller, little pink house about a landmark case on eminent domain and poisoned about the biggest

food poisoning outbreak in the united states. he's also had a hand in producing documentaries or movies based on some of his books. his new biography about lebron james is about someone, of course, many of us think we already know and about who much has been written, but jeff has produced what reviewers are calling a definitive biography of this astonishing successful sports superstar and the book is not just thorough and thoughtful, but also written vividly and engagingly, as the los angeles times put it, the book, quote, doesn't miss a shot. so i expect we're in for a very illuminating discussion this evening. and conversation with jeff will be timothy bella, a staff writer with "the washington post," general assignment team focusing on breaking news.

tim actually helped research jeff's book early on and then went off to write a biography of his own about another nba legend charles barkley which came out last year. tim's currently working on a second book. this one about actor and filmmaker, sylvester stallone. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome me in joining jeff benedict and tim bella. [applause] >> thank you so much, guys. i really appreciate it again and jeff, this is just incredible because we met how many years back now? 2010? >> i think it was 2010, yeah. >> and i was in a rough spot. i had just no experience, the industry was terrible and yet, i gravitated toward people like jeff who gave me a chance and now, i'm -- i'm stable in an unstable world, so thank you so much. and this is also just a really

cool opportunity for me because in high school when lebron james was a senior, i was only a junior and i would see this guy on espn and i was just amazed. i had never seen anything like him before and the fact that he's lived up to those expectations and exceeded them, it's incredible. and it's all captured here in this book. it's an amazing book, i really urge anyone who hasn't gotten it to please go check it out. so just kind of starting off, jeff. i know you've done tiger woods. you've done the new england patriots and including tom brady in that, obviously, so i guess what appealed to you so much to take on arguably the biggest topic right now, the

biggest athlete right now lebron james? >> well, first of all, thank you for inviting us here to our store. and to the audience for coming and spending an hour with us. for me, to be honest, lebron wasn't my idea. i wish i could take credit for it because it's a fantastic idea for a book and a biography, but both lebron and tiger woods were ideas that were brought to me by my publisher and my literary agent. in between i did the patriots which was my idea, and something that i'd wanted to do for a long time. after doing tiger and the patriots, lebron to me was the only male athlete left in america that i think we could say is in the conversation for the greatest of all time in his sport right now.

i think tiger fit that for golf. tom brady fits that for football and lebron fits that for basketball and i think probably serena williams is probably one of the persons that fits that for tennis. so, it was just an opportunity that to me, as soon as it was presented, i thought this is-- it's so obvious and sometimes the best ideas are right in front of us and we miss them, but the other thing about lebron that appealed to me right away was that he is so much more than an athlete and there's so much more to him-- not that there's nothing wrong with only be a trance sen dent athlete, but in lebron's case, there's so much more to the man than the sport. the fact that he is involved or has been involved in politics, in social activism, in building a school, and forming a

friendship with barack obama, getting involved in the arts and entertainment, building a production company, there are all of these other things that to me, his entry into the fashion world, that i don't know that i would have been as interested if it was just going to be a basketball book about a great basketball player, but the fact that lebron had so much more texture to his life was exciting. >> there are some so many things that i enjoy about this book, but the theme about this book is families, whether it's the relationship with his mother, the relationship with his wife, to his best friends, how he took them all in and they made him into a billion dollar athlete and also talk about the father figures in his life and how he does not know

who his biological father is and he doesn't care, but along the way he found that male mentorship in so many different people, including two very different people. the first one is warren buffett and the second one is jay-z and for a basketball player still in his 20's how and why did he gravitate toward someone like jay-z or someone like warren buffett who were much older and had more experience than he did? how did that happen? >> well, i think in the case of gravitating towards jay-z, it's just more when lebron is a, you

know, is a kid and young teenager like a lot of his peers and friends, he loved his music and it's very similar why would he gravitate towards michael jordan? because he idolized him. what was unique, as a teenager he had the opportunity to meet jay-z which most teenagers didn't have the opportunity. lebron had that opportunity solely because he was such an exceptionally talented athlete at a young age that jay-z took the time to come and watch him play live and then remarkably, when lebron goes straight from high school to professional basketball, you know, he passes go and doesn't stop because he never-- everybody knew he would never go to college because he was too good. and what's remarkable is that that summer between when he was

drafted as the number one pick and when he played his first game in the fall as a cleveland cavalier, he did something that would never happen today, he went and played on jay-z's, you know, private team in new york city that had a league that jay-z had a team in and they played for something called the chip. and these teams were basically loaded up by, you know, a lot of local players in new york city that were playground legends, but back then, you know, jay-z was trying to recruit ringers and he recruited lebron to come and play that summer on his team in new york. that kind of craziness would never work today with the way the nba controls them, but that was the start of a genuine friendship because that summer he hung out with lebron a lot. i mean, with jay-z a lot and they actually built a real relationship that wasn't just a famous kid athlete and a famous, you know, rapper,

hip-hop artist, producer who were hanging around because famous people like to hang around each other. they actually became truly friends. warren buffett is a totally different thing. i mean, warren buffett isn't someone that lebron idolized as a teenager. but within a very short time after signing a $90 million contract with nike when he was 18 years old. and a massive contract with the cleveland cavaliers, and other endorsement deals, lebron was a lot smarter than most entertainers, never mind athletes, all entertainers, in trying to surround himself with advisors who are experts in things like how to invest your money, how to protect your money, how to do things other than just do endorsement deals, which athletes do, but how do you actually do something

besides that, like maybe own a piece of the company and one of the people who was advising him very early, who had a great relationship with buffet, lebron wanted to meet him and his advisor brokered that meeting and he flew to omaha to spend a day with him and started what grew into a legitimate friendship and lebron did all that when he was like 20 years old. and so, if you think, i mean, those of us in the room who are a little older and you think back like what were you thinking about and doing when you were 18, 19, 20? it's fair to say he was more mature. i think a lot of people his age, he was certainly more mature at that age than i was at that age. >> i was terrible at that age. just for the record.

and there is a third person he gravitates toward, it's president obama and then senator obama, too. and it's at that point in time lebron had not honed in on his political poise. he hadn't really found it yet and yet, he hears what obama says when he -- and again in 2012 and opens up his mind in a way he hadn't felt before and the book is reminder of how that relationship was so special and so important to him. tell me, how did that influence him and just actually change in terms of how he thought about politics and social issues,

jeff. >> so, i think when you look at the formation of lebron's relationship with barack obama, this takes us back to his relationship with jay-z and supports that this wasn't what i said a minute ago, famous celebrities hanging around with each other. and illustrate why the relationship had real significance to it. in the beginning of his basketball career when lebron becomes a pro, he's 18 years old. he is literally a teenager. he's not knowledgeable in the area of politics. he's never had a need to be. like most 18 year olds he's not really paying attention to that, particularly because his life at this point is so focused on the fact that he is being compared to michael jordan. he's got this huge mantel on

his shoulder and sports illustrated deemed him the chosen one, the heir apparent to jordan. and the expectations on this kid are unpress departmented. michael jordan didn't have the expectations on him when he joined the nba. tom brady certainly didn't have them when he came in. the closest thing, tiger woods, similar, but no one was saying he would be the next jack nicklaus. lebron was focused on that, rightly so. the first time he encounters politics is in 2006 when we're now in the run-up to the beijing olympics which are going to take place in 2008. in the run-up to the beijing olympics, there are groups meeting in the city, washington d.c., and they're planning -- you could even say plotting how they will leverage the olympics

to put political pressure on china for human rights abuses in various parts of the world, one of those being sudan. and so, one of those groups that was very well-organized and had some good leaders, they actually connected with one member of the cleveland cavaliers, a guy, player named ira nobly. he was a bench player, he was interested in civil rights and human rights and he signed on to help the organization put a spotlight what's going on in sudan and use the olympics to do it. and one of these groups helped him craft a letter that he they ever asked all of his teammates on the cleveland cavaliers to sign. and the letter really kind of called out china because of what was going on in sudan. to be honest, none of these

players, including ira, knew anything about what was going on in sudan. ira was educated by the group, but so struck by that, yeah, i'll write that letter and get my teammates to sign it and this is where it starts to get dicey for lebron. it's not a knock on ira, but when you're the 12th player on the bench and you don't have the largest shoe contract in sports, it's easier to sign up for something like this because what you say doesn't cause international news. if lebron says something about this, it's similar if someone in the president's administration says something about it, it's going to be an international story. lebron didn't know anything about sudan. he didn't know anything about china's connection to it, in fact, his friend warren buffett was asked about the same thing because warren buffett's company berkshire hathaway, one

of the companies they invested in with a petrol company that was connected to this arms and stuff going on in sudan and basically buffett's answer was, yeah, we're not going to change what we're going to do, it's unfortunate what's going on there, but doesn't affect us. lebron decided not to sign the letter, he and one other player on the team one of two that didn't. and as soon as he did that, they covered it and in the united states and became a problem for him and he was repeatedly questioned why he didn't sign it. mind you this is in the middle of nba playoffs he's getting hit with this and then he has what some people say is the greatest game of his career in the middle of all of this against the detroit pistons. lebron has the game of his life where he literally-- it's like one of the few times

when one man beats five. it's a stunning performance that makes everybody forget about sudan and china for a season and then the olympics come and when lebron actually goes to beijing it starts up all over again and this time, he basically takes the position he says two things. first, he says, i don't know enough about this to talk about it, which by the way was true. and number two, you shouldn't mix sports and politics. that's the more controversial statement given where he's going to end up. so that's that. now, here is the thing, that's the summer of 2008. think about-- so he's in beijing dealing with this. think about what's happening in america in the summer of '08. barack obama is on a run to the white house that looks like it might actually happen and when lebron comes back with beijing with the gold, here is where

jay-z comes in. jay-z was very motivated to help barack obama win and capture the white house. he talked openly about the idea that a black man would occupy the white house was unthinkable when he was a teenager. if someone said that to him then, he would have thought they're crazy. here is looks like it could actually happen. he decided to do a series of concerts in support of barack obama's candidacy in different cities right up before the election and the last one was in cleveland and lebron agreed to go and participate in the concert and speak to what would be essentially a sold out auditorium, which just happened to be the same auditorium where the cavaliers played their home games. and that's the first time that lebron actually took a political stance on anything. and he told the audience, he was voting for barack obama. he told the audience, this the

most important election of their lifetime. jay-z said a similar thing. and then lebron encouraged everyone there to get their aunts and uncles and moms and sisters and everybody to go out and vote. that's his entry point to politics. of course, obama does win. he does capture the white house and then he does something that no american president had ever done before. which is he then turns to nba players, not just lebron, but a bunch of nba players, including retired players like magic johnson and seeks their help in some of his agenda, his basic agenda, one of which is health care, and get lebron to do public service announcements. and one of the groups not participating and signing up is

the minority community where lebron had influence, that's why he did the ad. and this is a guy getting paid millions to do commercials and he did these commercials for free because this wasn't about money. and the republicans, like mitch mcconnell and some of the guys in the house, they didn't like the fact that obama was using these celebrity athletes to move the needle. but that's -- over the eight years that barack obama was in the white house, lebron, i would say, grew up -- and i say that in a complimentary way. think about going to school with the president of the united states. a guy who could truthfully say in 2007, i don't know enough to talk about this, to get to a point eight years later where he is the lead voice on "i

can't breathe", on gun violence, on talking about police brutality and minority communities, but not in a way that attacks the police. i mean, that takes a lot of skill to walk that line. lebron james never attacked police. he never said defund them. he never really criticized them. he actually just talked about what it's like to be in his community. he did some what i would call very diplomatic things that came, in my view at least, from the benefit of watching one of the most skilled political leaders we've had in the last 50 years, he watched him and he saw how-- a perfect example. i mean, when trayvon martin was shot for wear a hooded sweatshirt. the president didn't attack people, he just pointed out that he had--

that if he he had sons they would look like that and lebron is in a position, he does have sons and they do look like that. and i thought to me one of the most remarkable things about the obama years was watching the maturation of a young lebron james who, in my mind, is -- he is an older lebron james and i'm not really talking about calendar years here. i'm talking about how much he aged in terms of his political skills and diplomacy. lebron's not a flame-thrower. there are certainly celebrities when they speak out they alienate everybody. lebron has never been about that and some people would-- trump supporters would say, well. but if you look at the record and you really want to look at the facts, lebron was incredibly disciplined with donald trump most for months,

and he never used his name he just talked about the issues. and then it was impossible not to invoke his names, and i would say he's very disciplined. >> were you looking at my notes? all of these topics here. speaking of donald trump, since we're on that topic now. >> sure. >> back actually to the first time that trump publicly engages with lebron james and this is actually during his free agency and in the book, there is just a great story about donald trump and the actual pitch he tried to make to lebron james to become a new york knick. what happened there, jeff? >> oh.

[laughter] >> my friend lebron. so in 2010, this is actually-- the reason i like this story so much is because it isn't political and hilarious in many respects and incredibly entertaining which is a big reason why it's in the book to be quite honest. in 2010, a bunch of teams were campaigning and competing for lebron's services. it was a great situation for lebron and you know, the new york knicks were one of those teams that were competing to win lebron over and get him to come. and they were trying to figure out what could they offer, besides, you know, the contract's going to be the same pretty much no matter where he goes. so what can the knicks do that the other teams can't. and the knicks leaned into it's the new york city, the capitol

of the world and stuff that could happen off the court, and there is validity to that. and that didn't appeal to lebron, he wanted to win championships. the knicks had the idea they were going to pitch lebron by taking the film and took the biggest celebrities in new york and basically got them to go on camera and talk to lebron why he should become a knick and come to new york and they got robert de niro, mark messier, and all the actors, harvey weinstein. >> james gandolfini. >> he's the best one, sopranos off the air for three years and what's fascinating and i made this connection in the book, the last episode of the

sopranos aired at the same time that lebron was playing in his first nba finals as a cavalier. they lost, got swept in the series, but i used it to say, you know, the sopranos and tony soprano was going off the stage as lebron was really taking over the american stage in '07. now it's '10 and he loves mob movies, the godfather, he likes began gandolfini if he would be in the film. and the difference is, everyone else is talking to lebron, they wanted gandolfini to do a bit like get back in character as tony like he's coming out of the witness protection program because we know how that show ended we don't know what happened. and so, he agreed to do it and so did edie falco to go back in in character and the filmmaker goes to new york and they hired a great documentary filmmaker

to do this and interviewed them in tony's apartment. it's a great scene, i'm not going to tell you what happens because you've got to get it out of the book. the trump part. trump was one of the people that they approached about being in the film and when they go to trump tower in the book to do it, and trump very specific instructions about the lighting and hair gel and foolishness that goes on and the impatience of it when he sits down, how long is this going to be and what are we doing? you know, what are we doing? and it's like we're trying to convince lebron to come-- >> oh, my friend lebron. it's all of this ridiculousness because particularly what's going to happen five years later, you know, it's like it's funny now, but it's not going to be funny in five years and i think what i thought you were going to ask me, tim, when you said the first time i thought

you were going to ask me the first time that lebron and trump intersect politically. i was going to ask you that next, actually. >> so jokes do stop once trump gets in office and obviously there's talk when trump is in office targeted at colin kaepernick and also, steph curry who speaks out about not showing up to the white house and lebron famously saying, you bum on social media towards the president. and it kind of started this rivalry between a president and one of the world's most famous athletes that we just haven't seen before. and never, never. so as you are actually breaking

this down, jeff, how do you dissect what unfolds what a president who was always online and an athlete in lebron who does read the stuff that gets written about him because those are two really unique personalities just going at each other like that. >> yeah, i would say that-- i mean, to me, well before donald trump became president he sought lebron as-- he saw lebron as an adversary and a rival and starts with the fact that lebron campaigned for hillary clinton. he was campaigning for trump's adversary. and he wrote an op-ed endorsing

her candidacy for president, talked about why it was in the best interest of the country for the country to elect her. never mentioned trump, by the way, ever, in her entire candidacy, never once did he utter the words donald trump. when he campaigned with her in person, which he did in cleveland, he never mentioned donald trump's name. and if you recall, it was right before the very famous debate between hillary clinton and donald trump that occurred right after the access hollywood tape was leaked by "the washington post," who put that audio out of donald trump coming off a bus talking about women and what he could get away with and what he had done to them in the past and using a lot of crude language. that tape was leaked right before the debate and the

reason this-- lebron ends up getting pulled into this is because you'll recall that trump's defense and he said this in the debate. that was locker room talk. he said that in front of the whole country. that's what -- it was locker room talk. well, the minute that happened, naturally the press is going to ask the most famous athlete in america what he thinks about that. so lebron didn't have a press conference. he didn't like put out an op-ed. he didn't say i want to talk about this. he was asked about it and that's what happens when you're in the position that he's in. you get asked about a lot of things that you probably wouldn't talk about if the press didn't ask you about it. so he was asked about candidate trump's locker room talk defense. and his answer, to me, was one of the most powerful things

he's ever said in a political forum, which, by the way, he said this in a locker room, but what he said was, he said, i have a mother, i have a daughter, i have a wife, and we don't talk like that in our locker room. i mean, he never mentioned trump's name. i mean, to me, that's one of the most powerful things an athlete can say. you know, i have women in my life that i love. i have a daughter. i'm married, i have a mom. we don't talk like that in our locker room. when lebron james says we don't talk like that in the locker room. they don't talk like that in the locker room because he's the leader of the locker room. and i tell you, it's not just his locker room.

i interviewed male athletes in the nfl who told me how that statement impacted them, how it -- because there are a lot of athletes who were offended by that, by the grab em by the whatever language and that's just locker room talk. a lot of married athletes who have moms and daughters who did not like being grouped into that that that's how they all are. it's lebron voicing it which now makes it easier for the other guys to also say the same thing. when i talk about lebron being so much more mature in the way he deals with what would for most people be a sand trap, this question is loaded and there are so many ways to answer this and cause a controversy. what he did, he answered it and

basically let everybody know, i love my daughter i love my wife, i love my mom, i don't condone any of that. that's not who i am and the men that i play basketball with, that's not who they are. never mentioning anybody else's name. >> we could stop there and say that's the end of the discussion, this thing is over because to me, one of my favorite -- call it an anecdote or whatever you want, but when i got to write that passage, i was on morning joe the day after the book came out and i got to tell that story on msnbc to the country in the morning, a political show and i have to say, it was one of the few times as a journalist that i actually felt like -- it felt really good to quote the language of an athlete who has the courage to talk like that

and then just stand behind it. and be quietly-- it's almost like recognizing the power in a low voice and the power of the message and it's like, i don't have anything else to say. >> now, i'm really happy you actually brought up that passage in particular because i know me just being a sports fan and lover of history, to go back and hear what ali and bill russell and jim brown, who just passed away, those guys were talking about back then, who could drop lebron in that era and i feel like he would hold up as well and possibly even better, just based on how he's doing. and it's also kind of

fascinating, too, how he's put his money where his mouth is, too. and talked about being a billion dollar athlete, but put a part of that book toward the i promise school in akron and other stuff he's done in terms of his education initiatives and creating jobs for black men and women, and i guess understanding that, jeff, how would you describe the impact he's had off the court and just putting his focus on stuff like education and housing at a time when -- if back then there wasn't a popular thing to do among athletes. >> there's always risks when you try to compare athletes

from different generations, whether you're comparing them athletically or if you're talking about more seriously things like civil rights, and so i know, michael jordan never wanted to be compared to bill russell as a basketball player because he said they played in different eras, the game is different, blah, blah, blah. i think you can say the same thing basketball-wise about lebron james and michael jordan. when you get to civil rights and things like that, lebron doesn't want to be compared to muhammad ali. that's a big-out sized character. and i suspect that muhammad ali wouldn't want to be compared to jackie robinson, a different era. different era, different circumstances, different times. lebron james in this time, in this era, to me, it's easy to say that he is in a -- he would fit really well if he lived in those other eras and was a

colleague or associate of arthur ashe and big russell and kareem abdul jabar and some of the other players who had a social conscience and weren't afraid to use it. now in those days, none of those guys made money the way lebron has. in this era, there is a disincentive for high profile athletes to politically and socially engage michael jordan didn't do that, that's his right, that's his decision. he made his decision and i'm not going to criticize him for it. i'm just saying that lebron made his decision and his decision by choosing to engage as the richest athlete in america, he made a decision. some people say it's easy for him to do that, he's got all the money in the world. >> it's not like that, there's actually more risk for him

because he is now considered in many corners of this country as a divisive figure. people that don't like him because he wouldn't shut up and dribble. people that don't like him because he decided to challenge the president of the united states in a very public way and take him on. he has done a bunch of things that i think demonstrate he certainly has the courage to fit in with those other pillars who are athletes and had their time. i think if lebron had grown up in the '60s or '70s, he would have been with those guys. it's interesting in this era, he's kind of alone. i mean, that's what i would say. he's kind of alone. there are not a lot of, first of all, he is alone in the ranks of where he sort of is as an athlete. i mean, i think that tom and tiger are there with him, but that's about it. but even in the nba when you

look at the other so-called superstars, none of them have really done what lebron-- lebron's done a lot of things that get no mention. like the fact that he formed a voter registration advocacy group in the middle of a campaign during a time when republicans were trying to basically block minorities from being able to vote, he was in the key cities and key battle ground states, particularly in minority districts, he put the money there to get people registered to vote. he made calls the way a congressman would make calls for a colleague, lebron would sit home and call people to get them to go out and vote and support specific candidates in specific districts. he built a school. i mean, just think of that sentence. he built a school. i mean, no one else has done

that. that is kind of a sentence that makes you scratch your head and go, he's a basketball player, yeah, but he built a school. and not just any old school, but a school that has like a commissar i in it where you can get soap and toothpaste and why things like that? he grew up in a neighborhood where kids don't have that in the house and get those things before they go to school. and there's a great moment, the ceo of walmart agreed to help supply the school with these things and he's basically lebron's talking to him what it's like to be hungry. the ceo of walmart has no idea what it's like to be hungry. he's never been hungry. the other executives who were there for this conversation, one of them told me, one of the executives who was there for this conversation said when lebron was talking, i was

thinking to myself, i don't know what it's like to be hungry. i have never felt hunger pains. lebron has. and so, even if you go into that school and you look at how the school is made. all of those things are literally outgrowths of what he lived and that's why i do think it's not a stretch to say he is in a category by himself. when he called president trump "you bum" on twitter, it wasn't because the president attacked him. it was because the president attacked steph curry. lebron's rival on the basketball court. that's who he-- >> biggest rival, probably. >> his biggest rival on the basketball court, steph curry. the president attacked him in a tweet and lebron jumped into

the fight before steph curry could respond, and lebron did it for him. and i'm saying, this is a guy i want on your team. i don't mean to get emotional about it, but this is a guy you want on your team. you want him in your neighborhood, you want him on your block, and i think all the reason the guys on the golden state warriors who wanted to beat lebron so badly, by the time they were playing him for the third time in the nba finals, it's hard to hate a guy that's so loyal to you. he's helping everybody. and so, that's why draymond green doesn't want to-- yeah, he might knock lebron down, but after the game going to put his arms around him and say, we're brothers. >> well, we could talk all night, especially about basketball, but i just want to open up for anyone who has any questions. we have the microphone right

here, so, if you have them, i advise you to step up because if not, i've got some more. [laughter] >> good. actually a couple to start with. jeff, you obviously admire so much about lebron james, but you start the book with one of the moments that i think it's fair to say if you were to do over again, you would do it differently, right, when he announces that he's leaving cleveland and going to miami. why do you choose that moment to begin this very thorough and admiring biography. >> that's a really good question from a writing standpoint i love answering. it's really important-- i mean, the hardest decision that a biographer has to make or actually anybody who is writing a book has to make is where to begin. where do you bring the audience

into the story or in the case of a biography, where do you bring the audience into the life of the subject? and i have always subscribed to the theory that, you need to bring them into their life in the moment where they cross over. what does that mean, cross over? lebron's life up to that point, look, his childhood, his origin story is like charles dixens novels. i mean, it's as hard as hard can be. but in his professional adult life, the part of the life that we think we know, this is the moment where lebron crosses over from just a great been player that everybody kind of admires for his athleticism, now somebody everybody in his opinion about, and a lot of people's opinion is negative. for the first time in his

career, he's dealing with hatred. he's like violent hatred. racist hatred, it's -- he is public enemy number one in american sports and that all turns in an hour on live television. so, to me, this is the moment to bring the reader into the life, to show the reader that this is a textured, multi-dimensional life that you're going to read about. it's not all dunks and championships. it's not all basketball. there's a lot more to this man than that because the way this chapter ends is when all hell is breaking loose that night and he is being-- the owner of the cleveland cavaliers is saying things about him in a public forum that no one would ever want said about them and the new york times has already declared

the miami heat the new evil empire within an hour of this. when he lands in miami at 2:00 that morning and it's bad, and his fiancee says, essentially to him, but you've been through worse than this. that's how the chapter ends because it's the perfect segue to go back to what she's talking about, which is his upbringing. ... now i want to take you to this is just this is really just stupidity media getting all hyped up about something that really that important. this is an athlete deciding where he wants to be and we're acting this is nastily deciding what he wants to be employed. and we are acting like this is like a world hunger problem all of a sudden. it's not that big of a deal except that he's famous.

you want to see something that actually really matters? let's go to where he grew up. so that's what i was doing here. >> the other question i have is you did and heck of a lot of research on this book and a number of the reviews have described it as very well researched. one thing you were notta able to do is talk to lebron.th if you had been able to come is there something you couldn't figure out,, couldn't get an answer to that you were aske' him? >> i think it's, most of the time i believe it's better for the biographer not to talk to the subject. look, most of the best biographies that people in this room have read are written about dead people, president from the past, founding fathers, great scientist that lived long ago. you know, when you write about someone who is living, it's

tricky if you are talking to that person and having a relationship and a dialogue. i think it's better in most cases, and i believe it was in this case, as a believe it was in the tiger woods case, to have not had those direct conversations withda lebron. someday i suspect lebron will write an autobiography, and he will choose a writer, a skilled writer to help him write it, and he will write a biography that he wants to write, as he should. but this is not that. this is an objective, deep dive by a biographer who look at his life. the truth is he can say i didn't have anything to do with that. and the truth is i can say he didn't influence me one way or the other. i mean, that's what it is. it's what i saw, it's what i see. if someone says it's pretty glowing, it's like, he glows.

it is what it is. i can't help the fact that this guy has done all of these things. you want to talk to me about china let's talk about it but i mean not afraid to talk abut anything this guy has done. i just think his life, he's lived his life this way. >> is a one particular thing he would've liked to have asked him for the book? >> i mean yeah. it's one thing i could sit down and ask him, it a private conversation, is i would love to know more, , i would ask a red k his wife but i think the most interesting thing about him that i couldn't probe deeper on is the relationship between them. because relationships between husbands and wives are just hard enough to begin with. and when you put a spotlight on a relationship and your rapid in celebrity and fame and money and all the trappings that have ruined so many celebrity couples

that we all know about, once again, they have, not he, a, they have defied that. and the fact they have been together since they were in high school, if you were a hollywood film writer and you created the story you would get laughed out of the building because it's too pollyanna can ridiculously just not realistic. the fact that they did this and they are still together and they have raised a beautiful family, and look, that's what i'm saying, like it is what it is. i would love to know more about that, the truth is not just me selfishly, but if you want to talk about how you can really help people, how they made that work is, there are universal lessons in that that i think would benefit a lot of people. no one is capable of listening to lebron talk and then going

out and being the kind of basketball player that he is. no one can do that, but there's a lot of people that could try to implement some of the things that he's done as a man and as a husband and as a father in their own homes and be effective. >> any of the questions, guys? >> she has one. go ahead. i know you do. step up. >> so relating to what you just said, did you find it so hard to be objective? i would review a think west "l.a. times" l.a. times where they're saying you were straying away from -- i s wondering wasfr hard because you love him so much? >> no. i wouldn't say that i love him so much, because it's hard to love someone you have never, you know, build a personal relationship with, so wouldn't say that. but what i would say is when you choose to take on a subjects

life, you don't get to pick and choose what comes with that life. you get all of it. you have to. and i can also say when i i ad to write this book about lebron, i i had no idea what is getting into. i knew the superficial stuffny that anybody else would know who's awake, but there's a lot about him that i didn't know, b like 90% of what's in the book i didn't know. and so i did know i was going to find, or what i was going to see what people would tell me or stuff like t that. and all i can say it was pleasantly surprising and there was never a time after a day of writing on lebron why went to bed sad or depressed. i can't say that about some of

the other books i've written where there were times when i went to bed just like, oh, this is a brutal, brutal. i never felt that way with lebron. i mean it, yeah, the early chapters are tough when he's a boy, but no, i didn't. i just, you know, yeah, there was an admiration there are not going to deny that and i'm not, it's not the basketball part. again, the human qualities that i saw with him, that's the stuff that i was just glad to be able to write that. it was nice for a change to be in a position to write a story like that and have it be what it was. >> thank you. also, what was was youro process like to like start researching him? where did you start? because you so much extensive research. >> excellent question.

>> you know, honestly, i'm going to answer it but it's one of the few questions i don't like to answer, and i'll tell you why. it's not because i've anything to hide. it's just because that would like to talk about the method too much beyond what's in the source notes. i am a big, big, big believer in source notes. that's what i have almost 100 pages of them in this book. source notes are important and they do not like reading these kinds of books that are without source notes. so i am all for that here, big believer in tellingow the audiee how you did your work, but you're asking a different question. it's actually a little more of a sophisticated question than sourcing. you are talking about method, andho research method. and all i'll say here is, because we are being recorded, we are on tv, is that one of the things that i do at the very, very beginning, and that's what you asked, how do you start, as

i spend easily six months at the very beginning of any project,, tim knows this because we've done this before together, but i building timeline of the subjects life pics of the subject could be a company. could be a team like the patriots, who could be a person like lebron. but i build a timeline and its, it's really detailed and when i'm building timelines, that's like building the foundation of a skyscraper. you got to go deep, deep into the ground.. you got to dig a deep, deep hole and jefff dufour a time -- tons and tons of cement to hold up a very tall building. the timeline is at that. it's taking an enormous a a dp hole and then filling it with a lot of cement that will support the story you're going to build. there is nothing glamorous about doing that.

but if you love research, and i love research, i love studying someone's life, finding out things that no one knows. i love reading. i can tell you that if it was written about lebron, though matter how poorly it was written, how badly it was done, how boring it was, i read it. and i have a library to prove it. i read every story that a think i would every story the akron beacon journal ever wrote about it, starting with a one paragraph story when he was come his first few peewee footbae and he scorednd touchdowns and n wild, all the way up to now. and that's the beginning of my process. it's like once you have timeline of the subjects life, that's when it enables you to get up really high in the air, like over a a forest and look at ad say okay, that tree right there i

did put a lot of light on that tree. this put over here when you do much withh that. but then this tree over here, big time. i might actually mac whole schapters about this one week n his life, but thela season in cleveland i might skip the whole season and do it in a paragraph. but you can't figure that out if you don't, for me at least iif can't figure that out if i don't have that immersive, extensive timeline. my lebron timeline was, i mean, it was half as long as a book when i was done with it. literally, like if i showed you the document you would say that's almost a book. it is, and in the center becomes a skeletal framework of a book. and so i i can see, like whenm done with that, i have my roadmap, i know where i'm going, now it's just knowing, okay, i'm going here, here. not going to tell you how i go after that, but those are state

secrets. >> thank you. >> that was a great question. >> it i is. and on that note i think we're out of time, unfortunately, jeff. but we want to thank you all so much for coming out and jeff, thank you. it's a wonderful book. "lebron", ," go buy it. it's awesome. thank thank you so much aga. >> thank you. thanks, tim. [applause] >> if you ever miss the c-span's coverage, you can find it any time online at c-span.org. videos of key hearings, debates and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. these points of interest markers appear under right hand side of your screen when you hit play on select figures. this timeline toll makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. scroll through and spend a few minutes on c-span's points of interest.