In January of 1999 I wrote a column about Michael Jordan for the Indiana (Pa.) Gazette. It was a few days after his second retirement from professional basketball and well before his ill-conceived comeback with the Washington Wizards.
In the column I encouraged my son, Grady, then nine years old and an aspiring basketball player, to “be like Mike.”
Jordan had been cut from his high school team as a sophomore, his top two college choices — UCLA and Virginia — had not offered a basketball scholarship, and he was only the third pick in the 1984 NBA draft.
And yet he became the greatest basketball player to ever play the game. He won six NBA titles as a member of the Chicago Bulls, was a five-time MVP, and won two Olympic gold medals. His is a story
of perseverance and fiery competitiveness.
Muhammad Ali once said, “The will must be greater than the skill.” Michael Jordan possessed both the will and the skill. He was willing to do whatever it took to be the best. And I thought those traits would be great for Grady to emulate.
How was I to know 10 years ago that many of the traits that made Michael Jordan a great basketball player would now make him a strangely bitter and incomplete man?
In September of this year Michael Jordan was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
In his acceptance speech he gave an unfiltered look into what drove him to greatness. It was not a pretty sight.
It seems that much of Jordan’s motivation throughout his career was based on proving other people wrong. Leroy Smith was the player that his high school coach, Pop Herring, kept on the varsity over him. Jordan flew Smith up to the induction for the expressed purpose of calling out his old coach. “I wanted to make sure you understood: You made a mistake, dude.”
“MJ was introduced as the greatest basketball player ever and he is still trying to settle scores,” one Hall of Famer said privately.
In a 23 minute speech he ripped everyone, including his college coach, his college roommate, his pro owner and general manager, two of his pro coaches, and the man who presented him the award that evening. Even his kids were not spared from his mean spirited oratory.
“I wouldn’t want to be you guys if I had to,” he said. He then turned his attention to Jeff Van Gundy, Bryon Russell, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson…basically anyone who had crossed him in the past thirty years.
It was a sad and uncomfortable night for anyone who respected and adored Michael Jordan the basketball player. It was painfully obvious that he still needs to break a defender’s legs with his cross-over dribble; he wants that dunk to be in your humiliated face.
But there are no defenders now, nothing left to prove on the court. You won Michael. And yet it is obvious the victories remain hollow for you.
Perhaps now, as he nears the age of 50, Jordan realizes that defining yourself as a basketball player, even the greatest that ever lived, is unfulfilling.
Maybe Grady can learn something from Mike after all.
— Edwards is the men’s basketball coach at Francis Marion Univeristy.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement