Michael Jordan: The Life

✅James Jordan would tell Michael to hand him a nine sixteenths wrench and I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. He tated me and said, “You don’t know what the hell you’re doing. Go in there with the women”. His fathers mean word me had activated deep within him some errant strain of DNA. Years later he confessed that it was my fathers early treatment of him and daddy’s declaration of his worthlessness that became the driving force that motivated him…Each accomplishment he achieved was his battle fret for defeating my father’s negative opinions of him. When Michael scored a bunch and Larry played defense, their father said “Larry, that was some great defense you played” In my mind I’m thinking that evidently my father didn’t see what I did so I had to show him

✅”I think Michael got so good because Larry used to beat him all the time. He took it hard”

✅Michael was a very respectful, well behaved kid. But he wasn’t shy about displaying about defending his interests

✅Imitation precedes creation. Michael watched the game tape of the best backer ball players to learn from them and that’s how he did his first dunk.

✅Whenever I was working out an got tired and figured I ought to stop, I’d close my eyes and see that list in the locker room without my name on it, and that usually got me going again.

✅Sophomore year of high school: Mike being Mike, he was was unusual too. We all were searching for an identity. But Mike… it was like he’d already found his.

✅When asked about why he loves basketball, Jordan said: “I enjoyed it to the point that I started to do things other people couldn't do.” He recalled some years later, “and that intrigued me more because of the excitement I get from the fans, from the people, and still having the ability to do things that other people can't do but want to do and they can only do through you. That drives me. I am able to do something that no one else can do.” 

✅”My greatest skill was being teachable@, Jordan later observed. “I was like a sponge. Even if I thought my coaches were wrong, I tried to listen and learn something.”

✅It was an open shot. Michael wanted the ball, and Michael knew he would make the shot. That was the beginning of one of the great things in our lifetime. Certain guys get open shots; they can't make them. Certain guys get open shots; they don't want to make them. Michael wanted the shot, and that you saw. There was no hesitation, no extra faking. It was, "Hey, give me the ball and I'm going to put it in the basket." Most players run from such moments, but a select few run towards them. He wasn't hiding in the corner; he was wanting the ball over there. Jordan would later reveal that he had visualized just such a moment on the team bus ride over to the event. It was predestined, Jordan said in 2002. It was destiny. Ever since I made that shot, everything had just fallen in place for me. If that shot hadn't gone in, I don't think I would be where I am today.

✅"I don't think I'm a better coach now that we've won the national championship," Smith said. "I'm still the same coach."

✅Big Idea (Este Lauder did this too): ”Let me get this straight: Jim Valvano supposedly said, "You're going to give me free shoes *and* pay me money?" Is that legal? The main idea was simple enough: to get coaches to outfit their amateur players in Nike shoes, sending a strong message to fans and consumers. When Larry Bird appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1978 in a pair of Nikes, it was a huge boost to Vaccaro's credibility.” The company’s sales soared and coaches were asking them to get in the action.

✅Jordan’s escape was Golf. His other main discover about his life was that even when he got away, his competitive urges and the adrenaline rushes they bred were still with him. He was known to bet heavily on golf

✅Sometimes you need to let someone go if they were the right person in the beginning, but you need someone else to take the team to the next level. That’s what happened to Doug and Phil Jackson when they switched

✅Jordan too had long been aware of the importance in pro basketball of the relationship between a team’s coach and its star player. If a coach couldn’t gain the respect of the star, or lost that respect, then the coach would lose the team. It all hinges on that player-coach relationship.

✅My game is such that creativity is always going to be a part of it, but it just happens. It’s not something I plan. It was something I was taught very early in my career. To go out and try to please the crowd, you never really play the game you want to play.

✅We don't need a curfew”, Jackson added, “These are adults. You have to have other things in your life, or the pressure becomes too great. 

Before Birth

Michael’s great grandfather, Dawson, was very hardworking on the farm and grew up in a tough household.

James met Deloris Jordan when he was 17 and she was 13 and said “I’m going to marry you someday”. They had their first child two years later

Deloris lost her mother while she was pregnant with Michael. The shock of the loss and the instant torrent of grief staggered Deloris and imperiled her unborn baby. “The near miscarriage was bad”

Childhood

“When Michael was born, we thought there might be something wrong with him. He’d had nosebleeds for no reason until he was five”

“He was such a Jolly baby”, “He never cried, just feed him and give him something to play with and he was fine” Michael had a near death experience after falling off the bed and almost suffocating.

He was a mischievous child. He mastered the art of entertaining and spent hours amusing us, dancing, singing, teasing, or whatever it took to bring a smile, grin, or laugh. We always needed an audience; it would not let us ignore him, no matter how hard we tried.

Michael had an aversion of water at age seven. He was swimming with a friend in the ocean when the friend panicked and grabbed on to Michael. Michael pushed away to keep the boy from dragging him under, and the child drowned.

When the Americans lost the Olympics, Michael retreated to the kitchen and said ‘I’m going to be in the Olympics one day and I’m going to make sure we win’

James Jordan would abuse his daughters and sleep with them. This got Deloris and James to separate.

Michael was soon named best little league player in the state and moved up to the next league where he wasn’t as good but got better quickly. “He was a joy to coach. He always wanted to play.” He would watch game tape from Derek Jeter and copy his moves

Later that year, a girl at school called Michael a “ni….” “I threw a soda at her,” he recalled, “I was super rebelling.”

High School

Michael was cut from the varsity basketball team. He went to his room and cried making sure nobody heard him. He was pissed. This actually helped his competitive drive. He would go to varsity games wishing for them to lose so he could show them that they needed him.

At the end of his sophomore year, Michael was five ten. He continued growing to six three over the summer, and his parents told him he would be as tall as he thought he was going to be.

College

Michael chose to go to North Carolina University to play basketball with coach Dean Smith. His freshman year, he was trying to fit in like all the other students there. He joined the basketball team and started out as a starting player. In their finals game, there were a few seconds left on the clock and they were down one point. Michael gets the ball and makes the shot. His life would never be the same after that moment. It was a turning point where he became ‘Michael Jordan’ instead of ‘Mike’.

After the win, another good player, Buzz, would be found partying, but not Mike. “That's what was unique about him. He could have become totally self-absorbed and gotten into partying and all that fun stuff and the women and all these other things. The impression I got was that he was so committed he wouldn't allow himself to become sidetracked. Even at that age, he knew he wanted to be the best, and he knew the pitfall, and he wasn't going to fall into it. He seemed very sure of himself, sure of what he wanted to do, and nothing was going to stop him.”

Jordan would be found watching game tape of himself on the video recorder after many of his games.

After one of the games they won, Michaels teammate saw him at the vending machine and started saying how great the game was, but Michael just said, “Yeah, okay” and started talking about classes. He wasn’t interested in talking about the win

After losing one of their best players Worthy, the Tar Heels started to spiral. Jordan said he was burnt out and wanted a break, but Dean saw him in the gym the next morning and asked why the change. He said he needed to get better

After Jordan came home, Dolores took his car keys and told him to do something he never seemed to have the time or inclination to do. She demanded he get some sleep.

Despite already going to the NBA, Jordan insisted on studying for his exams and pressing ahead with academic issues and graduating.

Nike

Company executives had a $2.5 million budget for pro basketball shoe endorsements, and we're thinking about spreading it among several young players. It made sense to spread the Nike budget across the array of interesting young players in the very deep 1984 draft. Don't do that, Sony Vaquero told Strasser. Give it all to the kid. Give it all to Jordan.

He went into something of a rant about Jordan's appeal, how he was the figure to drive athletic shoe marketing to the next level. Most important of all, Vaquero went on, Jordan was the best player he had ever seen. Jordan could fly, Vaccaro told Strasser.

This was not about business plans; it was about Sonny Vaccaro's hunch.

Nike made the deal seem more like a partnership, which Deloris liked a lot. During the meeting, Jordan was stone faced and didn’t show emotion. He only wanted a new car, but the deal was $2.5 million and he didn’t understand that. Phil Knight was also involved, but he didn’t approve or deny the deal, his silence became his tacit approval

As the rookie caught fire in early 1985, Nike released its first Air Jordan’s shoe, a red and black model that drew an immediate ban from the NBA. The league's guidelines called for players to wear white shoes, and the NBA said Jordan would be fined $5,000 each time you wore the new shoe. Strasser quickly decided that Nike was going to have Jordan wear the shoes anyway, and the company would pay his fines each night. Plus, they were going to tell fans about the banned shoes through an ad campaign. The NBA couldn't have handed the shoe manufacturer a better marketing platform. When you tell the public that something is banned, what does the public always do? Tell them you're not allowed to do something, and they'll do it.

Nike would ring up an astounding 150 million in Air Jordan sales over the first three years, which in turn brought Jordan the first wave of profound personal wealth.

Pistons

Dumar (best defender on Jordan) created the “Jordan Rules” where when the Pistons played Jordan, they would need to double team him or else he would shoot himself and be too quick. That’s what they had to do to win the game and beat their specific competitor.

“I think that ‘Jordan Rules’ defense as much as anything else, played a part in the making of Michael Jordan”.