Jordan, Michael

Michael Jordan

1963-

American basketball player

Michael Jordan is considered by many to be the greatest basketball player in the history of the game, even by some to be the greatest player of any sport. As Jerry Sloan, the coach of the Utah Jazz told the Daily News of Jordan, "I think everybody knows how he should be remembered, as the greatest player that has ever played." A two-time Olympic gold medal winner with the U.S. basketball team, Jordan distinguished himself in a 15-season career with the NBA by, among many other achievements, leading the league in scoring more seasons (10) than any other player in history, and by setting a record for the most consecutive games scoring more than nine points (842 games). He started his career with the NBA during the 1984-85 season, playing as a guard for the Chicago Bulls until 1993, when announced the first of three retirements. He went back to the Bulls in 1994-95, "retired" again in 1999, and went back to the game, this time with the Washington Wizards for the 2001-02 and 2002-03 seasons. In 2002, at the age of 39, he announced his intention to quit playing for good after the 2002-03 season.

Cut from His High School Team

Michael Jeffrey Jordan was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1963. He was the youngest of four boys born to James and Deloris Jordan. James Jordan was the son of a share cropper from rural North Carolina, and he was in Brooklyn to attend a school that trained employees of General Electric. Jordan's mother, Deloris, was a homemaker until her children were old enough to attend school, and then she became a bank clerk.

When Jordan was about seven years old, in 1970, his family moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, the town he would later consider to be his hometown. He began playing basketball at an early age, often with his older

brother Larry. "When I was younger," Jordan said on his Web site, "my motivation came from wanting to beat my brother. This inspired my extremely competitive nature."

As a freshman in high school, Jordan joined his school basketball team. It was on his high school team that Jordan chose the jersey number he was later to make famous as a pro, number 23. When later asked why he chose that number, he replied to the Associated Press, "I wanted to wear No. 45 in high school, but my older brother (Larry) wore that number. So I decided to go with half of 45, which is actually 22½." Jordan at first had trouble standing out on the school team. In fact, only a year after joining the team, as a tenth grader, he was cut from the varsity team. But this only pushed him to work harder at perfecting his game. As he later said on his Web site, "I think that not making the Varsity team drove me to really work at my game, and also taught me that if you set goals, and work hard to achieve them—the hard work can pay off."

"That Boy Is Devastating"

Jordan began to distinguish himself on the junior varsity team, and was soon averaging more than 20 points a game. "I remember going to Laney High on a Friday night, Michael's junior year, and now he'd grown to, maybe 6 foot 1," Jordan's uncle Gene Jordan later recalled to Kevin Paul Dupont in the Boston Globe. "Before the game he's telling me, 'Watch me, I'm going to slam dunk three balls tonight. You'll see. I'm going to slam three.' And I'm there saying, 'Boy, who you kiddin'? You can't slam no ball.' Well, he didn't slam three, but he sure as hell slammed two. And I told my brother that night, 'Hey, that boy is devastating.'"

Even so, Jordan was not on the lists of most college basketball team recruiters. He was noticed by recruiters at the University of North Carolina, however, and there he went to college, playing guard on the school team under coach Dean Smith. True success touched Jordan for the first time at the NCAA tournament in which his team played against the Georgetown Hoyas. Jordan scored the three of the last five winning shots to bring North Carolina its first title in a quarter of a century. "I've never seen anybody pick up the game so fast," one of his former UNC teammates and later Lakers player told Filip Bondy in the Daily News years later. "Michael just doesn't repeat mistakes."

After his success at the NCAA championship, Jordan became nationally famous, and a celebrity in North Carolina. He even landed on the cover of the Chapel Hill telephone book. Next came his selection to the U.S. team in the Olympic Games, played in Los Angeles in 1984. Team U.S.A. took home the gold medal. Jordan graduated college in 1985 with a bachelor's degree in cultural geography. After college, Jordan was picked up as the first choice in a draft lottery by the Chicago Bulls.

When Jordan signed on with the Bulls, he began a marketing relationship with Nike that was to last throughout his career; Nike released a sport shoe called Air Jordans. As for his performance as a player, he was soon unrivaled as an unstoppable force. As his coach, Kevin Loughery later said to Bondy in the Daily News, "If I put him with the starters, they win. If I put him with the second team, they win.… No matter what I do with Michael, his team wins."

Chronology

1963	Born in Brooklyn, NY
1970	Moves with his family to Wilmington, North Carolina
1979	Is cut from his high school varsity basketball team
1982	Scores game-winning basket in NCAA championship game for the University of North Carolina
1984	Plays on gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic basketball team in Los Angeles
1984	Signs as a player with the Chicago Bulls
1984	Plays on the gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic basketball team
1985	Named NBA Rookie of the Year
1987	Breaks Bulls record by scoring 58 points in a single game
1987	Breaks the record again by scoring 61 points in one game
1987	Breaks NBA record by scoring 23 points in a row
1990	Scores his career best of 69 points in a single game
1991	Scores his career best of 19 rebounds in one game
1992	Plays on gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic basketball team in Barcelona
1993	Father James Jordan murdered
1993	Announces retirement from playing basketball, briefly plays baseball
1995	Returns to playing basketball
1996	Named one of the top 50 basketball players of time
1997	Called by People one of the Most Intriguing People of the Century
1998	Publishes autobiography, For the Love of the Game
1999	Named the 20th century's greatest athlete by ESPN
1999	Retires again
2000	Becomes part owner and director of basketball operations for the Washington Wizards
2001	Comes out of retirement to play for the Washington Wizards
2002	Again announces retirement

Related Biography: Father James Jordan

James Jordan was in the habit of driving long distances overnight, stopping only for brief naps in his car, rather than staying in hotels. "Oh, I know he's stopped in Lumberton before," his brother, Gene Jordan, told Kevin Paul Dupont in the Boston Globe after James's death. "I'm sure he's pulled over at that exact spot before. A hotel room? That wasn't James, uhuh. After Michael's fame and everything, people used to ask him, 'Are you going to get a bodyguard? He'd laugh at that. Stopping at the side of the road was nothing for my brother. He didn't think anything of it. He figured he didn't have an enemy in the world."

Not enemies, but thieves took James Jordan's life as he napped in his car on a Lumberton, North Carolina roadside in the early morning hours of July 23, 1993. James Jordan was on his way home from the funeral of a former coworker at the General Electric plant where he used to work. After the killing shot to the chest, the thieves took off in James Jordan's car, later stripping it, and then dumping Jordan's body in a nearby creek, where it was found a week and a half later. Jordan would have turned 57 less than two weeks after the day he died. "The world's lost a good man," Gene Jordan told Dupont.

James Raymond Jordan was born on July 31, 1936 in rural North Carolina, the first child born to sharecropper William Jordan and his wife Rosa Bell Jordan. He began a career at General Electric in 1967, moving up to become a parts department manager. He retired from GE in the late 1980s, at which time the Jordan family moved from Wilmington, North Carlolina, where Michael Jordan grew up, to the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina.

Those who knew both James and Michael Jordan noted that Michael was very much like his father. Both had shaved heads, and both stuck their tongues out when concentrating on a difficult task—in Michael's case, when lining up a shot. Their handwriting was alike enough that many people couldn't tell them apart. Proud supporters of Michael Jordan's basketball playing from the beginning, James Jordan and his wife, Michael's mother Deloris, never missed a game Michael played in during his time at the University of North Carolina.

James Jordan was buried alongside his grandfather and parents in the graveyard of the Rockfish African Methodist Episcopal Church in Teachey, North Carolina. His tombstone reads simply, as reported by Dupont, "James Jordan, 1936-1993."

Jordan was slowed at the beginning of 1985-86 season, when he suffered a stress fracture in his foot. Nevertheless, in 1986, he scored 63 points in a playoff game against the Celtics. In 1988, he was named NBA Defensive Player of the Year, leading the NBA in steals. He also earned MVP honors at the 1988 All-Star Game, held that year in Chicago. Another gold medal at the Olympics followed in 1992 when he again played on U.S. Olympic Team. By 1993, Jordan led the NBA in scoring, and been named the NBA's Most Valuable Player 3 times. He was also earning $30 million a year, not including millions of dollars more he earned endorsing products.

Tragedy Strikes

In the summer of 1993, Jordan's high-flying career came to a crashing halt with an event that was to forever change his life. In the very early morning hours of July 23, 1993, Jordan's father, James Jordan, was making a long drive from the North Carolina coast, coming back from a friend's funeral, when he stopped on a roadside in Lumberton, North Carolina. There he hoped to grab a few minutes of rest before driving the last 130 miles home. But it was not to be. He was set upon by a pair of robbers, shot once in the chest, and killed. The 18-year-old murderers did not know who their victim was; they wanted nothing more than his car and whatever valuables it might contain. They stripped his car, and dumped his body in a creek near where they shot him, and there he was found 11 days later.

After the death of his father, the steam went out of Jordan's career. "When my father died," he explained to Bondy in the Daily News "there was a different emphasis on everything." Jordan no longer felt the same fire to play basketball. He announced his retirement, and then went into seclusion. "There's nothing left to prove," he told Filip Bondy in the New York Daily News.

Back in the Game

After a brief attempt to start a baseball career, Jordan roared back from retirement in 1995, again playing for the Bulls. His first season back, he was named the NBA's Most Valuable Player. In 1996, he was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. He was named the NBA's Most Valuable Player again in 1997. In 1999, he "retired" again at 36 years old but stayed in the game as an owner and executive when he became part owner of the Washington Wizards in 2000 and director of basketball operations for the team.

Jordan, however, found it impossible to stay off the court. He was 38 years old when he announced the end of his second retirement, saying that he would play for the Wizards. NBA rules required that he sell his ownership stake in the Wizards before playing for the team. He also had to give up his management position with the Wizards to avoid a conflict of interest created by being both a manager and a player.

Space Jam

In 1996, at the height of Michael Jordan's fame and popularity, Warner Bros. Released a feature film that featured Jordan as a live-action character in a cartoon world. Actually, he wasn't a character at all; he just played himself along side such cartoon notables as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.

Directed by Joe Pytka, and featuring the voices of, among others, Billy West and Danny Devito, Space Jam was Jordan's first feature film appearance, and a rather unusual one at that. The film features a tongue-in-cheek treatment of Jordan and his career as a superstar and a pure fantasy plot involving a parallel cartoon universe. When a group of Looney Tunes cartoon stars, including Bugs and Daffy, are kidnapped by some evil aliens, the cartoon characters hatch a plot to free themselves using the basketball talents of Michael Jordan., which he displays to good effect in the film's finale.

The film's animators smoothly combined live-action footage with hand-drawn and computer-generated animations, allowing the cartoon characters to travel from their cartoon universe to ours, and to pull Jordan from our universe into theirs. Space Jam, declared Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, "is a happy marriage of good ideas—three films for the price of one, giving us a comic treatment of the career adventures of Michael Jordan, crossed with Looney Tunes cartoon and some showbiz warfare…. The result is delightful, a family movie in the best sense (whichmeans the adults will enjoy it, too)."

Awards and Accomplishments

1981	Breaks record at McDonald's All-American game by scoring 30 points
1982	Scores winning points in NCAA championship game
1984	Named college Player of the Year
1984	Wins Olympic gold medal with U.S. basketball team
1985	Named NBA Rookie of the Year
1986-87	Named to the All-NBA First Team
1987	Winner, Slam Dunk Contest
1987-88	Named NBA Most Valuable Player
1987-88	Named NBA Defensive Player of the Year
1987-88	Named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team
1987-88	Named to the All-NBA First Team
1988	Wins Slam Dunk Contest
1988	Named NBA Most Valuable Player
1988	Named NBA All-Star Games Most Valuable Player
1988-89	Named to the All-NBA First Team
1988-89	Named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team
1989-90	Named to the All-NBA First Team
1989-90	Named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team
1990-91	Named NBA Most Valuable Player
1990-91	Named to the All-NBA First Team
1990-91	Named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team
1991	Leads Chicago Bulls to their first NBA title
1991-92	Named NBA Most Valuable Player
1991-92	Named to the All-NBA First Team
1991-92	Named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team
1992	Wins Olympic gold medal with U.S. basketball team
1992-93	Named to the All-NBA First Team
1992-93	Named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team
1995-96	Named NBA Most Valuable Player
1995-96	Named to the All-NBA First Team
1995-96	Named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team
1996	Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History
1996	Named NBA All-Star Games Most Valuable Player
1996-97	Named to the All-NBA First Team
1996-97	Named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team
1997-98	Named NBA Most Valuable Player
1997-98	Named to the All-NBA First Team
1997-98	Named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team
1998	Named NBA All-Star Games Most Valuable Player

Before Jordan could play again, he had to get back in shape, shedding 28 pounds, and undergoing a training regimen that included practicing with increasingly experienced

basketball players. As he said on his Web site: "It was definitely tougher to come back…than I had expected. After taking time off the sport, I had to work much harder to get my body back into shape. My body is also a lot older than it used to be…that that's ok. I came back for the love of the game.…"

Jordan stepped onto the court as a player once again in the 2001-02 season, but after a knee injury requiring surgery forced him to miss 20 games the following season, he again announced his retirement. "At the end of this season, I'm not looking to enter another contract," he told the Washington Post 's Steve Wyche in November, 2002. "Right now I want to finish this year out and hopefully fulfill my obligations and let this team take its own course." He also indicated that he would resume his managerial role with the Wizards, and other sources reported that he planned to repurchase the ownership stake in the team that he had given up in order to become a player.

Jordan is married to Juanita Jordan. They have two sons, Jeffrey Michael and Marcus James, and a daughter, Jasmine Mikail. His leisure pursuits include shopping. "I am a huge shopper," Jordan said on his Web site, "although it is hard for me to go to malls and stores since I am easily recognized. Therefore, I do a lot of my shopping through catalogues. I love shopping in New York City and some stores will even open on their off hours for me." Jordan also enjoys playing golf. In fact, he said on his Web site, "When I'm not on the court, you can probably find me on the golf course. However, I am a total hack! For the most part it is a great mental sport that allows me to relax and get away."

Jordan is also involved in many business ventures and charities not related to basketball. Among them, a chain of restaurants located in Chicago, New York, Chapel Hill, and in Connecticut. Among the charities he supports are Make-A-Wish, Ronald McDonald House, and the Boys & Girls Clubs. "It is very important for me to give back to others," he explains on his Web site. "My wife and I also give to many local charities which benefit children."

Career Statistics

Yr	Team	GP	PTS	FG%	3P%	FT%	RPG	APG	SPG	BPG	TO	PF
CHI: Chicago Bulls; WAS: Washington Wizards.
1984-85	CHI	82	28.2	.515	.173	.845	6.50	5.9	2.39	.84	3.55	3.50
1985-86	CHI	18	22.7	.457	.167	.840	3.60	2.9	2.06	1.17	2.50	2.60
1986-87	CHI	82	37.1	.482	.182	.857	5.20	4.6	2.88	1.52	3.32	2.90
1987-88	CHI	82	35.0	.535	.137	.841	5.50	5.9	3.16	1.60	3.07	3.30
1988-89	CHI	81	32.5	.538	.276	.850	8.00	8.0	2.89	.80	3.58	3.00
1989-90	CHI	82	33.6	.526	.376	.848	6.90	6.3	2.77	.66	3.01	2.90
1990-91	CHI	82	31.5	.539	.312	.851	6.00	5.5	2.72	1.01	2.46	2.80
1991-92	CHI	80	30.1	.519	.270	.832	6.40	6.1	2.28	.94	2.50	2.50
1992-93	CHI	78	32.6	.495	.352	.837	6.70	5.5	2.83	.78	2.65	2.40
1994-95	CHI	17	26.9	.411	.500	.801	6.90	5.3	1.76	.76	2.06	2.80
1995-96	CHI	82	30.4	.495	.427	.834	6.60	4.3	2.20	.51	2.40	2.40
1996-97	CHI	82	29.6	.486	.374	.833	5.90	4.3	1.71	.54	2.02	1.90
1997-98	CHI	82	28.7	.465	.238	.784	5.80	3.5	1.72	.55	2.26	1.80
2001-02	WAS	60	22.9	.416	.189	.790	5.70	5.2	1.42	.43	2.70	2.00
2002-03	WAS	18	17.1	.454	.385	.733	4.30	2.8	1.67	.39	1.72	2.20
TOTAL		1008	30.7	.500	.328	.835	6.20	5.3	2.40	.85	2.76	2.60

After finally retiring as a player, Jordan looked forward to spending more time with his family "as well as trying to live for the moment and enjoy each day as it comes," he said on his Web site. He also planned to play a lot of golf.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Periodicals

Bondy, Filip. "Out of This World: In Redefining Greatness, Michael Jordan Made a Lasting Impact on an Entire Generation." Daily News (January 13, 1999): Special, 2.

DeShazier, John. "Rare Air; Jordan Soared to Unforeseen Heights, Standing Head and shoulders Above the Rest in the NBA." Times-Picayune (October 31, 1999): C16.

Dupont, Kevin Paul. "Cold Blood in Carolina; Family, Friends and Townspeople Try to Make Sense out of a Senseless Killing." Boston Globe (August 29, 1993): Sports, 47.

"Jordan Stuns Students at his Prep Alma Mater." Chicago Sun-Times (November 16, 1993): Sports, 1.

Wyche, Steve. "Jordan Says This Will be Final Season." Washington Post (November 29, 2002): D1.

Wyche, Steve. "Jordan Will Return, Play for Wizards." Washington Post (September 24, 2001): D1.

Other

"Biography for Michael Jordan." Internet Movie Database. http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Jordan,%20Michael. (December 6, 2002).

"Michael Jordan—One on One." Michael Jordan Official Website. http://www.sportsline.com/u/jordan/2001/oneonone/index.htm. (December 6, 2002).

"Michael Jordan—The Player." Michael Jordan Official Website. http://www.sportsline.com/u/jordan/2001/player/index.htm. (December 6, 2002).

"Michael Jordan Player Info." NBA.com. http://www.nba.com/playerfile/michael_jordan/?nav=page. (December 6, 2002).

"Space Jam." Suntimes.com. http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1996/11/111505.html. (December 6, 2002).

"Space Jam (1996)." RottenTomatoes.com. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/SpaceJam-1073294/about.php. (December 6, 2002).

Sketch by Michael Belfiore