Michael Jordan the basketball legend, here are seven facts about his life and iconic career.
Few athletes in the history of professional sports can match the extraordinary success enjoyed by Michael Jordan.
After entering the NBA in 1984 as a gangly rookie with superhuman
leaping ability, Jordan became an unstoppable scoring machine and
multi-time champion, as well as a marketing icon who palled around with
Bugs Bunny and convinced millions of kids to “be like Mike.” His legend
still looming large almost 13 years after he last laced up his Nikes in
an NBA game, here are seven facts about the life of this iconic athlete:
1. The Infamous Slight
The
story of Jordan being cut from his high school basketball team has long
been part of his personal narrative, but like a teenaged Jordan
dangling from his chin-up bar to grow taller, the truth has been
somewhat stretched. Jordan was never actually "cut" from the team – he
tried out for the Laney High School (N.C.) varsity as a sophomore, and
wound up on the junior varsity instead. And a big reason for that was
that Laney was in dire need of taller players, so they passed on the
5'10" Jordan in favor of his 6'7" friend Leroy Smith. What is true is
that Jordan used this perceived slight as motivation to work his butt
off to improve, which led to impressive results when a growth spurt shot
him up to 6'3" as a junior.
2. Marketing Marvel
Jordan's
longtime professional association with Nike nearly didn’t come to
fruition. He initially wanted to wear Adidas after entering the NBA, and
was also heavily pursued to endorse a much smaller brand called
Spot-Bilt. But Nike threw out the full-court press to sign the Chicago
Bulls rookie, offering a then-outrageous deal of $500 grand per year for
five years and the chance to tailor a sneaker to his liking. Jordan
still wanted to go with his original choice and went back to Adidas one
more time, but the company was in no position to match the ransom
offered by Nike. Thus was born a collaboration made in marketing heaven;
Nike launched the Air Jordans in May 1985, and by the end of the year
the line had generated more than $100 million in revenue.
3. Sky High
Although
he left the University of North Carolina a year early to pursue his pro
career, Jordan received his degree in cultural geography in 1986. So
what exactly does one do in that field, anyway? As he explained in a Q
& A session at his basketball camp many years later, cultural
geography is an introduction to meteorology. Which means that if
Jordan’s preferred career choice of dunking over seven-footers didn't
pan out, then his backup plan was to become a weatherman. Gives a whole
new meaning to the name "Air Jordan," doesn't it?
4. Second Sport
Jordan's
passion for golf began in the summer of 1984, when he first ventured to
a course with a group that included future golf pro Davis Love III. He
parred one of the holes that day, an experience that led this supremely
confident athlete to believe he could par all 18 with a little more
practice. The quest for perfection led to his squeezing in as many
rounds as possible in his downtime, including a notorious snubbing of
President George H.W. Bush's
invitation to the White House with the rest of the NBA champion Chicago
Bulls in 1991. He went on to hold the Michael Jordan Celebrity
Invitational Pro-Am Golf Tournament in Las Vegas from 2001 to 2014, and
recently was rumored to be looking at property in Florida on which to
develop his own super-exclusive golf club.
5. Mid-Career Crisis
The
idea behind Jordan's surprising decision to leave basketball for a
baseball career in 1993 had taken root a few years earlier. His dad,
James, had always loved baseball, and with Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders
having some success as two-sport athletes, James suggested his son
could do the same. As such, when James was killed in a carjacking
incident in July 1993, Jordan sought to honor his dad's wishes by
picking up a glove. While he famously struggled in his lone season of
minor league baseball, some were impressed by how well he adjusted to a
game he hadn't played since high school. Terry Francona, his manager
that year, has said he believes Jordan could have made the big leagues
had he kept at it.
6. High Roller
Another
of Jordan's well-known hobbies is his proclivity for gambling. Reports
abound of how he goaded teammates into betting on almost every activity,
from golf to card games to rock-scissor-paper throwdowns, but his
desire to constantly up the stakes occasionally left him on shaky
ground. In 1992, Jordan was subpoenaed to testify about a $57,000 check
he gave to a suspected drug dealer after a weekend of poker and golf.
The following year, he was the subject of a book by businessman Richard
Esquinas titled Michael and Me: Our Gambling Addiction. . .My Cry for Help! Jordan
never drew any gambling-related punishment, but for years a rumor
persisted that his year off to play baseball was the result of a secret
suspension imposed by NBA Commissioner David Stern.
EmoticonEmoticon