Ohio State’s 2017 uniforms against Penn State are sweet, from the helmets to the cleats.
LeBron James is a legit Ohio State fan, so the Buckeyes wearing his cleats is cool for everybody involved
He don’t give a damn ‘bout the whole state of Michigan, ‘cause he’s from Ohio.
Joe Maiorana-USA TODAY Sports
And it is those cleats that are inspired by LeBron James.
Specifically, the Lebron Soldier XI shoe, just one in the superstar’s line of signature kicks:
Twitter/@OhioStateFB
The basketball version:
It’s not an accident that Lebron hooked the Buckeyes up, and it’s not a one-off either.
He’s done it before, like last season against Michigan, when the Buckeyes rocked these:
The idea for the cleats worn last year was a decade in the making, per James.
“It’s been something that’s been in the works for years now,” he said. “We finally was able to put together a shoe and work with the Nike football lab to put a cleat on there. It’s always a hard process when you turn a basketball shoe into a cleat, so we finally was able to find a shoe that fits the Nike lab football cleat.”
Lebron didn’t go to Ohio State, but he’s a huge fan.
He didn’t go to college at all, but the Akron native said he would have been a Buckeye if there was a one-and-done rule forcing him to go to school.
“I promise, I say this all the time -- if I had one year of college, I would have ended up here,” James said.
....
“No matter where I go in the world, no matter where it is, I will always rock Ohio State colors,” James said.
He has an honorary locker in Ohio State’s hoops locker room (something many schools do for notable alumni).
And he called his attendance at last year’s Ohio State-Michigan game a bucket list item for him.
He made the most of it with his Cavs teammates.
LeBron also isn’t shy about his Buckeyes fanhood on social media either.
James being a child of Ohio means Ohio State fandom might as well be preordained.
The Buckeye State is unique in the fact that it only has one dominant power program. It’s similar to states like Louisiana and Nebraska in that respect. If you’re born in Ohio, you probably root for Ohio State.
If you happened to be born in one Cleveland hospital last season on the weekend of The Game, you got your own pair of LeBrons, too, in addition to a blanket that read “beat Michigan.”
Sports are serious in Ohio, and they start ‘em early. James is just a product of his scarlet-and-gray environment.
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