When we are young, we admire our sports heroes. We also have a great many of them. For me there were Dodgers, Olympians, and Knicks. Things change when you are an adult. It becomes more a matter of being in awe of a skill set. I've enjoyed watching and have been enchanted by Dan Marino and Tiger Woods. But as a Bulls season ticket holder, someone who saw Michael play in person over 200 times and watched him, I guess, over a thousand times on tv, it is almost impossible to describe the feelings one has for a super-star who plays for your home team. Being a Bulls fan during that era was quite frankly, a lifetime highlight. It sounds trivial - but, it wasn't. How and why people can become so enthralled with their home team, be it baseball, soccer, football or any other sport is a fascinating topic. And how anyone could have his "will" to win, to never lose, to always be so competitive is almost incomprehensible. So, I opened this book with enthusiasm. Over the course of more than 600 pages, the author tries to find the "why" behind Michael, and points in many directions. Likely, it was his desire to overcome his older brother Larry one-on-one in the backyard and earn his father's respect. Everything else, every player, every teammate, every coach is part of the picture, but certainly not the answer. His ability to manufacture extreme motivation out of long-past slights was part of the process. But, again, why? I'm not sure that is ever answered.
Perhaps it's easier to set forth those things that surprise someone who has a good feel for the story. I knew that his dad was no saint, but the degree of his depravity is a bit surprising. His oldest daughter accused him of molesting her, he was fired from GE for theft and only escaped jail because he was Michael's dad. He was a thorn in the side of Nike, ran a business they created for him into the ground and is credited with causing so much trouble that Michael lost the one sanctuary he could rely on - his family. He was facing a Chicago area paternity suit at the time of his murder. I don't remember that Doug Collins was, during his first NBA stint, not a particularly good coach, or that almost all of Michael's teammates didn't like him. I never realized just how serious the gambling was. Also, the Sam Smith book 'The Jordan Rules' which shed light on Michael's obsessions and difficulty as a teammate apparently tore the team apart. Everyone was angry and pointed fingers at each other about leaks. It was part of the reason Paxson retired and Grant and Cartwright left. Jackson and Krause fired Johnny Bach for being the 'leaker', when it turned out that Jackson was Smith's primary source. The Bulls team that Michael retired from the first time was a dysfunctional mess. When he came back, he was meaner, more intimidating; he, along with Jackson, totally dominated the second championship team. I never knew what an SOB Reinsdorf was; he had to 'win' every negotiation and told MJ after the 1996 $30m contract that he would regret paying him that. This, perhaps is the biggest shocker. No matter how good a businessman Reinsdorf is or was, pre-MJ the franchise was a joke. He may have been one of the luckiest people on the planet - Jordan 'made' him. Yet, sadly, MJ was no hero, as he proved with his Hall of Fame induction speech. And that returns us to the most important take-away when reading about athletes. They are unfailingly human. It is what they do on the court or inside the lines that moves us. There has never been anyone like Michael Jeffrey Jordan and I'm glad that he and I came to Chicago at the same time.
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