last month at the nba all-star game, lebron james, the best baller in the world,  responded to being told “shut up and dribble” by laura ingraham, a conservative political pundit (analyst, authority). her idea was that lebron’s only talent is basketball.  this was a major analytical error. an article on the usa today website by jeff zillgitt contains an explanation of the work lebron has done promoting education in his hometown as well as several examples of second conditional (if + past tense + would, could, might or may) to hypothetically demonstrate what would happen without james’ efforts.

lebron isn’t gonna shut up (photo by ty wright/getty images)

the headline of the article uses past perfect (auxiliary had + past participle) to pose (presents) a hypothetical question…

What if LeBron James had just shut up and dribbled?

in response to the question in the headline michele campbell, director of the lebron james family foundation , praises lebron via the second conditional…

• if it was just basketball for him, what a waste that would be.

waste means lebron would not be effectively using his significant non-basketball talents.

cool second conditional practice & more  richyrocks english on youtube

in fact, if it was just basketball for him…. is used to present various other accomplishments lebron’s foundation is responsible for 👉🏽

• there wouldn’t be $41 million earmarked for full-ride scholarships at the university of akron for akron public school students who go through the foundation’s i promise program.

earmarked means designated for. a scholarship is free money provided to students to pay for school.  go through means participate in, complete.

lebron’s wristband in this picture says “i promise”, the name of the program he started for students in akron.

• there wouldn’t be 23 high school students called ambassadors who mentor younger students in James’ program.

mentor means advise someone younger or less experienced.

in the matrix, morpheus is neo’s mentor.

abigail zupancic is one of the mentors. she is a high school student and she describes working with younger students like this…

if they’re struggling with school, they can reach out and get paired up with one of us.

struggle means have problems.  pair up with is work with one other person. reach out is ask for help. it is used famously in the first line, last line and chorus of depeche mode‘s classic personal jesus where it means contact or communicate with. listen for…

reach out and touch faith

and one final second conditional usage from campbell…

• there wouldn’t be an i promise public school opening in the fall for 120 third-graders and 120 fourth-graders. by 2022, the school will be open to students grades one through eight.

to show the power of james’ name, campbell shared that

without knowing the location of the school, who would be the principal or even who would teach their children, campbell received 240 commitments [from parents]. they’re willing to sign up because we give them hope.

always use the -ing form of a verb after prepositions; in this case knowing (NOT know) after without (a preposition). the principal is the director of the school. a commitment in this context is a pledge to enroll (register) in the school. commitment can also be a responsibility or promise.

in american english dumbledore is the principal at hogwarts (headmaster in british english) 

campbell also used third conditional to express a hypothetical scenario in the past (would have had )

without lebron james outside of basketball, i’m going to tell u we would have had children who dropped out of school. we have 1,200 kids who are behind in school, but because of lebron james they are catching up and believe they belong on a college campus and believe they can be educated.

drop out means quit. again, campbell uses a real fact to contrast with the hypothetical that lebron doesn’t pay attention to anything outside of basketball.  behind means at a lower level than they should be. catch up means the students are reaching the level where they should be. belong means be in the correct place. can be educated is passive voice (auxiliary be + past participle).

lebron wants kids to promise they won’t drop out of school (gary varvel)

and lebron said this about his foundation….

did I ever envision it would get to this point? no, i didn’t. but we never had a ceiling. we don’t have a roof now…..we don’t know what’s in the future, but we will come up with a great plan.

envision means visualize, imagine. we never had a ceiling…. is a reference to a confusing comment basketball great michael jordan made last year about potential without limits. come up with means create.

what do u think about lebron’s efforts to improve education in his hometown? do u know another public figure who has created a similar initiative?  share your views under leave a reply