Hoops hero shares value of determination

PALMER — Sometimes you just have to say “whatever Biebs.”

That’s one thing professional “streetballer,” actor and author Jesse LeBeau left Mat-Su middle school students with this week after telling the story of his rise to fame.

“We can’t always control what happens to us, but we can change how we respond,” LeBeau said during a presentation at Colony Middle School on Thursday.

Though he wouldn’t recommend saying “whatever” to a platinum-level pop star whose people hired you to be in his music video (LeBeau said he has a chronic problem with accidentally offending celebrities upon meeting them), ignoring those who try to crush your dreams is a good idea, he said.

“Do not make someone’s words a priority in your life, when all you are in that person’s life is an option,” LeBeau told the students.

LeBeau’s story starts in Ketchikan, where, as a middle school student, he was known for being the shortest kid in class.

“My life became a constant cycle of being overlooked and underestimated,” he said.

LeBeau relayed one particular moment: In his seventh-grade year, while shooting hoops at lunch, he leaped for a rebound shot, only to be dwarfed and thwarted by an eighth-grade student who stood taller than 6 feet. After making the shot, the older student asked what LeBeau planned to be when he grew up — “a pony rider?”

Angry, embarrassed and depressed, LeBeau wanted to give up, for a while. Then the desire to prove that student wrong — and prove to himself his imagined potential — won out.

“I had two choices, and it’s two choices that you guys are gonna have over and over: You can get bitter, or you can get better,” he said.

LeBeau chose the latter, going so far as to not only sleep with a basketball in his bed, but to ask his father to slow the car down on the way to school so he could dribble the ball on the pavement while they were driving.

By the time LeBeau graduated from Ketchikan High School, he was a star. He’s still short for a basketball player — 5-foot-8 — but went on to play college ball at San Diego Christian.

After that, he still had dreams: to be in a commercial, a movie, and on TV. In the meantime, he went home to work as a commercial fisherman. Though not cut out for the job and often in disagreement with his captain, he said, he worked hard. He wrote his goals on a 3-by-5 card, and looked at them every day to remind himself of where he was headed.

One day the captain found the card and read it to the rest of the crew. He told LeBeau that he was “a delusional fool” if he thought he could accomplish his goals.

But LeBeau knew from experience that accepting failure was not the answer.

“In that moment I made the choice that I was gonna get better, and that position made all the difference.”

Sure enough, six months later LeBeau starred in a one-minute TV advertisement for Nike Zoom Kobe VI shoes — with his favorite player, NBA star Kobe Bryant — that showed during a Lakers game. The following year, the movie “Thunderstruck” came out with LeBeau’s name in the credits as a stunt performer.

Last year, he published his first book, “Among the Giants: How One Underdog Pursued His Dreams & You Can Too!” Now, he plays for “Fab4,” a street ball team of entertainers who play the game with a bit more flair than in traditional competition.

And it’s all because he chose to act.

“Taking action is the biggest thing that separates winning from losing in your life,” LeBeau said. “Too often we hope, we wait, we dream, we meditate, we ask advice … and those are all important, they’re all a part of the process, but at a certain point an opportunity presents itself and you need to act.”

But without the right attitude, that action could be meaningless, he said.

“Attitude is everything. If you only take one thing away from today, take away this: the biggest obstacle you’ll ever have to overcome is yourself.”

The student perspective

What stuck with several Colony Middle School students most strongly was the idea that no one’s negativity should dictate what is possible for another individual.

“You can’t let anybody else stop you,” said eighth-grader Hallee Yundt after the presentation.

Yundt said she hadn’t heard LeBeau’s story before, but could identify with the doubt of older teammates. When she started playing volleyball in sixth grade, one person told her that, as a setter, she wouldn’t be a good player. It got to her deep inside, but she didn’t budge, and it paid off. Now, she has more confidence.

“Now I know it’s actually one of the best positions to play because you always get the ball and you’re like the leader of the team,” Yundt said.

Yundt’s classmate, Lindsey Paxton, said she was most impressed with LeBeau’s delivery of the seemingly cliché “follow your dreams” speech.

“He actually explained it,” with his own life stories, she said.

Paxton also said LeBeau gave her the impression of being “more unique than other motivational speakers” with his humor and dance/basketball acts performed briefly during the presentation.

Eighth-grader Nik Nygard was mostly excited to have LeBeau sign the Kobe VI Nikes he happened to be wearing that day.

Currently a C-team basketball player at Colony, Nygard said he’ll also be implementing LeBeau’s practice of carrying a basketball with him everywhere.

“As long as you believe you can do what you can, you’ll achieve it,” he said.

The teacher perspective

Colony principal Mary McMahon said the generalizations of LeBeau’s message — formed from a story about basketball — applied well to the lives of all her students, especially those who have participated in the Knight Writers program. (The program allows students to write about overcoming adversity anonymously, and get those stories published in a small-circulation book.)

“Because he’s published a book, he connects on that level with what we do here,” McMahon said. “(Knight Writers) hasn’t always reached out to our athletic audience … so this is what I’m hoping will add more excitement for our athletes to become writers.”

Though LeBeau said before his presentation that he “never in a million years” imagined he would become an author, his mother, Donnie LeBeau — who is traveling with him this month — said she wasn’t that surprised. She is a teacher, after all, and something must have rubbed off on him, she said.

Wasilla Middle School principal Casey Hall, whose school hosted LeBeau on Wednesday, said his students seemed to enjoy and also be inspired by the speaker.

“Social media was all lit up with him,” Hall said by phone Thursday morning. “I think they’re pretty excited.”

After finishing up his book tour, LeBeau said he will be back in Alaska in January 2016 for another round of school visits, and is requesting that school principals make their reservations now.

For more information about LeBeau, visit his website at jesselebeau.com.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.