CHARLOTTEANS OF THE YEAR
M I C H A E L J O R DAN
In a turbulent year of protests and a pandemic, he reminded us what greatness looks like
THE YEAR IS 1992. I live in a suburb of Chicago where kids ride bikes with skinned knees and little parental supervision. A visit to the McDonald’s at the top of the Sears Tower is a rite of passage for every kindergartner, and the whole neighborhood is abuzz when someone’s mom gets tickets to The Oprah Winfrey Show. Every third-grader I know can sing the “Be Like Mike” jingle by heart, and not just because we like orange Gatorade. Mike’s our hometown hero with the famous tongue wag who wears the sneakers that make you fly. Michael Jordan turned ’90s kids like me into basketball fans. But as so many of us cheered for His Airness, others wondered why he seemed to shy away from what they rightly considered far more important than basketball or business success: matters of social justice. This year, Jordan finally entered that arena, and at 57, three decades after his peak as an athlete, reminded us why he’s still the Greatest of All Time.
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CHARLOTTEMAGAZINE.COM // DECEMBER 2020
WHEN THE LAST DANCE AIRED on ESPN this year, millions tuned in every Sunday for five weeks, and not just because there weren’t any live sports on TV. The Bulls’ run of six titles over eight seasons remains one of the greatest feats in professional sports, and for those of us who grew up cheering for them, the show allowed us to go back in time. When the NBA first approached him about a film crew following the Bulls during the 1997-98 season, Jordan says then-Commissioner David Stern told him if nothing came of the footage, at least he’d have some great home movies to show his kids. “It turned out to be true,” he tells me via email, “only the rest of the world got to see those home movies, too.” Jordan’s three older kids, Jeffrey, Marcus, and Jasmine, got to see a new side of their father. “They knew me as Dad, with the perks of free sneakers and Bulls’ tickets and some sense that their lives were different than some of
their friends’ lives. All these years later, they had great reactions to things they might have remembered but not fully understood.” Jordan’s competitiveness is legendary, and his rivalry with the Detroit Pistons’ Isiah Thomas, a Chicago native, was fierce—that much we knew. But we didn’t know all the details of his relationships with teammates Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, and Steve Kerr. The stories weren’t all flattering. MJ mocks general manager Jerry Krause’s height and punches Kerr in practice. But the documentary makes us consider whether that was part of Jordan’s greatness, too—his willingness to command respect at the cost of being liked. And that underscores one of the biggest contradictions of Jordan’s life, one that The Last Dance doesn’t hesitate to address. As the most prominent Black athlete of his era—maybe of all time— Jordan steered away from politics and advocacy for Black Americans during
COURTESY KENT SMITH/NBAE VIA GETTY IMAGES
BY TAYLOR BOWLER
