On Wednesday, basketball star LeBron James, player for the Cleveland Cavilers, was quoted saying, “I would quit basketball if I was Northern Iowa, I would quit.” This comment came after the UNI basketball team’s downfall to Texas A&M.

A student that preferred to stay anonymous said, “I just think people look up to him so I think when young high school students see him say that they’re like ‘well if I’m not very good, should I even play?’ if he’s saying that.”

James went into the MBA without experiencing college basketball. He wouldn’t have had to deal with the balancing act that student athletes have to go through with athletics, traveling, academics and other activities.

“I just think it’s disrespectful,” said Kate Duffy, junior communications and marketing major. “He should understand the pressures of what comes with a basketball game and how stressful situations, accidents happen.”

Michael Kennedy, senior technology management major, and Jacob Hackman,  junior finance and accounting major, thought that the comment was supposed to come off more lighthearted.

With UNI making it to the Round of 32 in the March Madness tournament despite a rocky season, Hackman looked at it in a positive light.

“We did make it that far so it’s not like we’re a joke of a team,” Hackman said.

Even if James meant the comment as a joke, some students still were offended.

“You know, they [UNI] worked their butts off and they played the hardest they can, and I think it’s awesome that they got to where they got after this season’s struggles that we did have,” Duffy said.

Instead of tearing university teams down, some students thought that players in higher leagues should be encouraging to aspiring players.

“If they play basketball in college is something they’re aspiring to do with their life so you should be supportive of that because you were in that situation at one point,” said Tre Goodhue, sophomore history and secondary education teaching major. “And how would you feel if a major basketball player just told your team to just quit?”

Specifically for UNI, Goodhue said, “They should try to build them up. Obviously they feel terrible about it. And that’s just like rubbing salt when someone does that. So they should try to be like, you know, come back from it, do better next year.”

“I’d probably just ignore it for the most part,” Kennedy said. “There’s not much you can do about it. You can try harder, wherever you go or end up next year.”

Hackman explained how no matter who you are, no one will be wholly perfect in their game or in life.

“You’re not going to be perfect all the time,” Hackman said. “They didn’t really expect to get that far, I’d say, but it was a good run.”

The UNI men’s basketball and the UNI Athletic Department declined to comment for this story. Representatives for James did not reply to requests for interviews.