This was some scene on Friday in Akron, Ohio, some lousy excuse for secondary education. LeBron James lost his college eligibility in the third grade, when Sonny Vaccaro slipped an Adidas thermos into his lunch box and George Raveling made sure the kid's pencil cases were awash in Nike swooshes. From the sneaker companies to his family to his merry band of handlers and high school enablers, this system corrupted his chance for a college basketball scholarship long ago.

	LeBron James thought about the words he would use once he was at the podium Friday, but what were school officials thinking by holding this news conference?

Which is why such a stunning act of arrogance -- a needless news conference to tell everyone that he's going to the NBA -- stays stride for stride with everything else in the sad, sordid circus that has been LeBron James.

There was nothing to announce at St. Vincent-St. Mary except that the junior class is selling cookies for a class trip, and the cheerleaders are doing a car wash at McDonald's on Saturday morning. That's all.

And yet, there was James saying, "I'm foregoing college…" and you just stopped listening here.

Are you kidding?

Are you kidding me?

"This is the best decision for my family and me," he said so seriously. Best decision? Try the only decision. All of them, they should be ashamed of themselves. The officials at St. Vincent-St. Mary need to block off a good hour in the confessional booth and come clean for the three-ring circus they let this become. They are a private, college-prepatory high school. They shouldn't be a marketing arm of a high school senior's public relations machine.

And for the school administration to let him stand there on Friday with James personal P.R. firm hanging a LeBronJames.com banner as a backdrop, well, it had to leave you speechless. Numb. It was a fitting visual, though: The kid took over this school, turning St. Vincent-St. Mary into St. LeBron-St. James. Worst of all, the school let it happen.

Truth be told, this is considered a wonderful institution with a fine academic reputation, but from beginning to end they made every possible wrong move. St. Vincent-St. Mary turned a high school basketball team into a coast-to-coast traveling rock show. It sold pay-per-view television programming. It moved the home games to a college gymnasium. It turned itself into a cautionary tale of the way things should never be done.

So, what else is happening today? Robert Downey Jr. calling a 4 p.m. news conference to say he's had a history of drug problems? Michael Jackson grabbing the 5 p.m. slot to confess to plastic surgery? Baghdad Bob getting the 6 o'clock hour to come clean that Republic Guard is struggling to hold onto Iraq's capital? Yes, there was LeBron James saying with a straight face, "I'm forgoing college and entering the NBA Draft in June," and you're just thinking to yourself: I'll never get these five minutes of my life back.

Who lets this happen? Who tells this kid this is a good idea? What self-respecting school condones this insult to everyone's intelligence as the fitting capper to an embarrassing episode of excesses? Shame, shame, shame. All these questions, and the ultimate answer is frightening. LeBron James could become far more the norm for high school prodigies than an aberration.

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"This is just a function of what we do to our young," NBA commissioner David Stern said Thursday night in Milwaukee, speaking on the broader saga surrounding his league's No. 1 pick in the June draft. "And we do it younger than we've ever done it before."

These days, it is just LeBron Across America, the teenager caught on camera wearing those throwback jerseys in the front row of NBA arenas from Cleveland to Chicago. The good seats, the good life. Good for him. He's an amazing talent. Nobody has ever seen anything like him. He should go No. 1. But that isn't the issue. If he wants to have this needless announcement, his handlers should've had the grace take it to a hotel ballroom. A restaurant. Wherever. The school should've insisted on it. They should've told him, "LeBron, this silly scene doesn't belong here. We've used you. You've used us. Enough is enough."

This looked wrong. It felt wrong. It gave you the willies. Listen, just let him get his $50 million sneaker contract, his agent, his endorsements and get on with his life. That's fine. That's wonderful. Let him have everything. Just take down that stupid LeBronJames.com sign, get his Hummer out of the parking lot and give the teachers and kids of St. Vincent-St. Mary a Friday afternoon announcement that they can use:

The circus has left town.

School is back in session.

Adrian Wojnarowski is a columnist for The Record (N.J.) and a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPNWoj@aol.com.