Gloria, LeBron’s single mother, continues to play a significant role in his life both professionally and personally. The NBA superstar says she is mostly responsible for his current level of success.

According to an interview LeBron gave to Maria Shriver of Today in 2014, the basketball star said, “I don’t know if she read about it, or she just heard about it, but from day one, I always had that mother and father inside my mother, so I never was a kid that was kind of like, ‘Where is my father?’” He said, “I don’t know where she found the fortitude to sаy that, but she gave it to me and I never even had to think about it.

I still haven’t asked her, but she had to be the best there is. Meet Gloria James, the inspiring athlete who raised basketball superstar LeBron. She gave birth to LeBron when she was only 16 years old. Born on February 4, 1968, in Akron, Ohio, Gloria Marie James is the sister of Curt James and the younger sister of Terry James.

Sports Illustrated reports that she gave birth to LeBron when she was only 16 years old, and that he has never met his biological father. In an essay he wrote for Today in 2014, LeBron recounted that his grandmother, Freda James Howard, helped Gloria raise him when he was little.