It was impossible to look at James Jordan and not smile–inwardly at the very least. Here was the fellow who had won the lottery, the working stiff who would never have to work another day in his life. Except for one thing: unlike most lottery winners, James Jordan could claim to have in some way earned his good fortune. He had hit the genetic lottery, fathering a child who could one day become the world’s greatest athlete. And praise whatever god one holds dear, it came to pass. He not only had watched it happen but made it happen–if one believes the later testimony of the son himself. He certainly helped establish a solid foundation that could be built upon.
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The deepest incentives that drive a person are open to interpretation, and the more the subject insists on a single explanation the better off everyone else usually is to look elsewhere. But in the relationship between Michael Jordan and his father there seemed to be a real give-and-take, a cause and effect. It wasn’t that Jordan became a great athlete because his father demanded it (as is the case all too often; see last week’s Sports Illustrated cover story on tennis player Mary Pierce), and it wasn’t that he made his greatness a present to his father, as a way of granting recognition (remember Britt Burns’s performance while his father was dying). It seemed simply that Michael Jordan became a great athlete because, well, that’s what he was, and his parents had worked to give all their children the confidence and the self-esteem to pursue their true natures.
Aside from the odd cameo appearance in an advertisement, this was one of the few times James Jordan sought the limelight. He didn’t seek to share his son’s fame. What self-respecting father does? Fame hadn’t been for him, but he had done his job–done it well–and it was therefore for his son. And while he wanted to be there to share the experiences, he never horned in. He was there, sitting next to Michael, when Michael tearfully embraced the NBA championship trophy in 1991. But he appeared in few of the photographs that went out over the wires that night. Such a skill he had for drifting into the background, for allowing his son the maximum independence. Yet there seemed no doubt that the solid values he instilled were part and parcel of what made Michael Jordan great.
