LeBron James and Coco Gauff will the flag bearers for Team USA at Paris Olympics opening ceremony on Friday. Both athletes were surprised by the honor earlier this week, but their connections go much further back.
James and Gauff's career are both decades apart and somehow now running simultaneously. Leading Team USA into the opening ceremonies together should put Gauff's early triumphs and James's sustained success in perspective. At the most simple level, they are both teenage phenoms who became world famous athletes known widely by just their first names. There's a certain poetry to the fact that Coco has been alive almost as long as LeBron has been in the NBA.
