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IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
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SportsTranscript
00:03Born into the heady ether of a new sports age, he played every game above the rim.
00:08Head bouncing, torso turning, legs pumping.
00:12He was bigger than life, a human billboard, the image of athletic perfection.
00:16The icon of icons.
00:19He was MJ.
00:21So good, so true, so just may have shaped immortals.
00:28Jordan with the steal.
00:30Jordan slams it again.
00:32Michael for three.
00:32Yeah, yeah.
00:34Jordan, look at that.
00:35Michael drives Wilkins in for left for that.
00:37Oh!
00:39Woo-hoo!
00:40Woo-hoo!
00:41When he came on the floor, people knew that they were in trouble.
00:44He shot Michael Jordan!
00:47Jordan!
00:49Even in a game, if I see him do something like that, I would just grab my face and be
00:54like,
00:54Oh my God, what did I just see?
00:56What?
00:59By Michael Jordan!
01:01His strength is like a big man.
01:03He's the strongest guard, I'm talking about body-wise, to ever play.
01:08Michael on the drive across the lane, turn around shot, got it!
01:11Sixty-three for Jordan!
01:13Michael was coming in from the side, and we were running down here to try to close him off,
01:18and next thing I knew, he was going by me.
01:23Uh, you're Larry Bird, of course he went by you.
01:27What?
01:28By the blue ring, Michael Jordan!
01:32Give me the ball for the last shot.
01:34I'll do it.
01:35It is my destiny to do it.
01:37I was made by God to take the last shot.
01:40Here's Jordan!
01:41Yes!
01:42Ahhhh!
01:43It's all over!
01:48Michael Jordan's last game.
01:49See, nobody, you couldn't put that in a movie and get away with it.
01:53Michael, what?
01:55Brings them to within one!
01:57It was one of those games that it felt like we had control of the game.
02:00And I wish I had a nickel for every time you can say that about a team that Michael played
02:05on.
02:05Malone is doubled.
02:07They swat at it and steal it!
02:08You get right to the last second he had the ball in that situation, and you expect the ball to
02:13go in the basket.
02:14Jordan!
02:15Open!
02:17Chicago with the lead!
02:19He loves to compete and rise to that moment that is presented to him, and I think he seeks that
02:25moment.
02:26The Chicago Bulls have won their sixth NBA championship!
02:32That last episode of my career ended the way that it began, and no one can ever say their career
02:42has ended that way or started that way.
02:56It's hard to overstate Michael Jordan's greatness, but he has done it at a time when everything has come together.
03:03Michael Jordan is CEO Jordan.
03:07MJ!
03:07Those are New York Jordans?
03:10He had all of the media exposure that the other guys before him didn't have on the internet, cable, satellite
03:18TV.
03:19Game four in Chicago.
03:21His internet isn't my internet. It's not our internet.
03:25The word, Michael.
03:27Yes, it was a national holiday. Michael did not take off, he just took off on the net.
03:31He became the Pied Piper. Television ratings followed him, fans followed him.
03:35They flocked into stores to buy anything that was endorsed by him.
03:41You better eat your eating.
03:42Michael Jordan created all kinds of fans, including a lot of women fans.
03:48Please welcome Michael Jordan.
03:56Jordan, to his credit, knew that every minute he was in front of a camera
04:00was an audition for another company.
04:02Here's a black man who's the most popular person in a white society.
04:06I mean, what bigger benefit for a company can there be to cross the racial divide with a guy who's
04:12popular everywhere?
04:16You think about all the things that Michael Jordan's influence, starting with the baggy shorts, bald head, the shoes.
04:22Money's gotta be the shoes.
04:24Shoes?
04:25You sure it's not the shoes?
04:27I'm sure, Ma'am.
04:27We see the powerful impact that he's had on our society and on our culture.
04:32Fortune magazine says Jordan is responsible for soaring revenues, an estimated $10 billion during his career.
04:42Ha!
04:44It goes across stories where friends of mine go to the heart of the Congo and they've seen kids in
04:51number 23 Chicago Bull uniforms.
04:54I thought Magic Johnson was the most famous basketball player in the world still when the Dream Team went to
05:00Barcelona.
05:01I'm mistaken.
05:02Michael was big enough that there were 40-foot murals.
05:05Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Jordan!
05:09Because I'm good enough, I'm small enough, and doggone it, people like me.
05:16Why does the other guy look like Jace Norman to me?
05:22More than liked, Jordan was adored.
05:25But the fallout from this idolatry had its negative side.
05:28For even as public Jordan mushroomed into a global marketing colossus, the private man shrank ever deeper into a glass
05:36-walled isolation chamber.
05:37He told me once that when he walks through a crowd, even if he appears not to be looking at
05:42the people in the crowd, he can feel every eye on his skin.
05:45And he said it's like a...
05:47Well, I'm alone again.
05:49I feel the burning, those eyes looking into me.
05:52If you're Michael Jordan, and you're that celebrated, and that good,
05:57the phone rings a thousand times a day with people who have ideas that they say are good for you.
06:05This is going to be really good for you.
06:06Ideas.
06:07It's not good for you.
06:08It's good for you.
06:11A thousand times a day, this.
06:13Say people are up 17 hours.
06:19Yup.
06:20So I call every minute, pretty much.
06:22He said, those two and a half hours on the court every game night is the most peaceful time of
06:28my day.
06:29He said, because it's like there are invisible walls around the court.
06:34It's the one part of my day that no one can touch me.
06:36No one can come up and ask for an autograph.
06:39No one can pitch a business deal.
06:40I'm meditating out there.
06:43On or off the court, Jordan guarded his carefully tilled public image.
06:48He has an awful lot of clout.
06:50And I've heard from more than one person.
06:52If you've heard of how he wants you perceived, then the word will get to you.
06:58We wrote a story about him in Sports Illustrated when he was trying to play baseball.
07:03And I think that the story was fairly sympathetic, but the cover was bag it, Michael.
07:08And he, to this day, will not talk to this magazine.
07:13Whenever Michael appears in public to come down from his hotel room, he is always dressed immaculately.
07:20Because he knows that there are people in the lobby that maybe are going to get a 20-second glimpse
07:26of Michael Jordan for once in their life.
07:28And he wants to portray a certain image in a certain class.
07:33I'm very image conscious. Probably more than I should be because I think it prevents me from being the fun
07:40person that people behind closer know.
07:43A lot of times, I'll dream of a bad alcohol.
07:46And in a dream, I can't stop drinking, and I'm embarrassing myself, and I'm going to lose everything.
07:52He says, when I wake up from that dream in a sweat, he knows that one slip-up, one mistake,
08:00can throw it all away.
08:02And I think he lived in terror of that for a very long time.
08:07To keep from living any part of that nightmare, Jordan enlisted the media in his efforts to stay balanced on
08:14the high wire.
08:15We protected him more than I'd like to admit.
08:17When his first child was born, he hadn't been married yet.
08:21He says to a couple of the beat writers, including me, I really would appreciate it if you didn't put
08:27that in the newspaper.
08:28Because we know he's had the baby, it was Juanita, who's, you know, became his wife, and they weren't going
08:32to get married.
08:33And so I say, sure, Mike, I'm not, we won't do it.
08:36And we don't, I mean, we just simply protect him, because he asked us, and because we were concerned as
08:41well about what the public reaction would be.
08:43Michael Jordan is the Teflon athlete of our generation.
08:48He fell off of Jordan.
08:50You couldn't win any points in the media if you said or wrote something bad about him.
08:55People didn't want to hear that.
08:57Certainly when it comes to Michael Jordan, I think that we're in some sort of national denial.
09:03Everybody made money through Michael Jordan.
09:06Nobody really wants to disturb this legend.
09:11Born in Brooklyn on February 17th, 1963, Michael Jordan was the fourth of five children.
09:18When he was still an infant, his father James and mother Dolores moved the family back to their native North
09:24Carolina,
09:25where they eventually built a home in the seaside town of Wilmington.
09:29As a kid, he watched Roots and sort of had a vague idea of what the whites did to the
09:35blacks in our country.
09:37And I think that he said he got a little angry, but his parents wouldn't let him carry it very
09:43far, you know.
09:45He would watch Roots, and his father would have his tongue sticking out while he was working.
09:51And whenever Michael would go to work, he'd have his tongue sticking out too.
09:54He kind of kept going, you know, constantly energetic, moving, involved.
10:00Always involved in sports, always involved in activity.
10:03I'd say mischievous would be the best word to describe him.
10:09One day, Jordan's youthful confidence was shaken to its roots.
10:14He was only about 12 years old.
10:15He and a friend of his were swimming out by Wrightsville Beach.
10:19They got caught in an undertow.
10:21And got swept out to sea.
10:23And his friend, a lot of fear of water came from him.
10:26I don't think he went back to the beach that much after that.
10:28If Jordan's interest in swimming dined with his friend, y'all had a natural hire due all comers.
10:35Especially his older brother, Larry.
10:37I grew up fighting against my brother.
10:39And that's the best way that you can learn competition.
10:42And it wasn't as good as he was.
10:46Uh, Larry just stopped growing.
10:48Beat your brother, you can beat anybody.
10:50He just was determined that he was going to win.
10:52And once he started to beat Larry, then, well...
10:56But Jordan's sense of his at-self was severely challenged during his sophomore year at Laney High School.
11:03He failed body-basket team.
11:04It was only probably five, ten.
11:07He was a sophomore that we had.
11:09But at the time, we really did not need God.
11:12He says, I looked at the list, and I went down.
11:14I went past the Jays, and I wasn't there.
11:17And I went back up again, and I wasn't there.
11:21He says, and I ran home, and my mom was at work.
11:24There was no one at home.
11:25And I went to my room, and I closed the door, and I cried so hard.
11:29I would venture that that was the first time that Mike had ever been told that he was not good
11:32enough to make a team.
11:33And it was tough, but being a competitor, he had something to prove.
11:38Jordan accepted the challenge and starred for the JV.
11:41The next year, he stood at 6'3 and played the varsity.
11:45By the end of the 1980 season, Jordan had established himself as a major college bet.
11:50His coming out party was for senior year when Dwayne and the staff recognized him at camp,
11:57and then he ended up at a five-star camp and really playing great.
12:01My guard camp, Sunday afternoon, the first day he was there, I was running the gym.
12:05He came through, and that night I went to Eddie Fogler, and Eddie said,
12:09did you see anybody you liked?
12:10And I said, Eddie, I think I just saw the best 6'4'' high school player I've ever seen.
12:14You couldn't get a ticket to see him play as a senior.
12:18Everyone from 30, 50, 60 miles around wanted to come and watch Michael Jordan play.
12:23Really?
12:26After averaging 27 points and leading Laney High to a 19-4 season as a senior,
12:33Jordan packed his bags and headed for the only college he ever seriously considered, North Carolina.
12:38He soon learned a history chapter.
12:41A couple weeks before practice started his freshman year, I said,
12:43Michael, you're going to have to do one thing.
12:45You're going to have to work a lot harder than you did in high school.
12:48And he said, I worked as hard as everybody else.
12:51And I said, do you want to be like everybody else?
12:54Number 23, Michael Jordan.
12:59The last thing I heard was, Buzz Peterson, Buzz Peterson, you know, you're never going to play in front of
13:03him.
13:04Every day we went on the court, I always reminded myself, I've got to be better than Buzz,
13:08I've got to outwork him, I've got to outplay him.
13:11Jordan's diligence earned him the respect of his coaches.
13:14And in the 1982 NCAA final against Georgetown, his jump shot with 15 seconds remaining
13:20lifted the Tar Heels to a national championship and unleashed a sixth dimension of talent.
13:27The confidence and the competitiveness really grew in huge leaps and bounds after that freshman year.
13:34He worked and improved his shooting, outside shooting, as he kept getting better every year he played.
13:42Gannon nearly loses it out.
13:43And he stole it now.
13:44Oh, they love that MJ up to the rafters.
13:48Michael in the locker room before practice would point to somebody and say,
13:52I'm going to dunk on you today.
13:54And, you know, it's like you didn't want to make eye contact with him,
13:57because you didn't want to get picked.
13:59Jordan pulls up on a three-on-two right now.
14:01Good!
14:03Oh, what a jam!
14:04You can imagine yourself as the opposing coach.
14:07And, oh my God, that was against my team.
14:10I can't be cheering for this guy, but you almost had to.
14:13Jordan, look at that!
14:16Holy cow!
14:17After an all-
14:18Oh, the Terrapins.
14:20Him and Lent Bias went back and forth.
14:22All-American sophomore season, Jordan was named player of the year as a junior in 1984,
14:29while leading North Carolina to a number one ranking, and a meeting with...
14:35Three and a half hours before the game, we have a pregame meal walkthrough.
14:39Pregame meal's over, we're all kind of sitting there, and Coach Knight goes down the list on who has who,
14:43and he comes to Jordan, and he gets this kind of sick look on his face, and he says,
14:48Dockage, you've got Jordan.
14:49I went back to my hotel room, and I threw up.
14:52But Dockage's defense helped hold Jordan to only 13 points as Indiana upset North Carolina.
14:59Jordan never played another minute for the Tar Heels.
15:01Before winning a gold medal that summer at the 1984 Olympics, he entered the NBA draft.
15:07I told the very Houston, and Sam Bowie by Portland, it was Chicago's pick.
15:13The Chicago Bulls pick Michael Jordan at the University of North Carolina.
15:20Yeah.
15:21Rod Thorne, who drafted Michael, said at the time that he's going to be a fine offensive player,
15:26but not the kind that you could build an entire franchise around.
15:29Nobody really knew how good Michael was going to be.
15:32What were the Chicago Bulls before him?
15:36Cows.
15:37You have to remember, nothing before, nothing since.
15:42They have not played in the finals, much less won the finals, when Michael Jordan was not there.
15:49Remember that Chicago Knights are cold.
15:54And they can be full of despair.
15:57Veterans Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, he lifted the NBA and the game itself to unprecedented heights.
16:05Winning ten scoring titles, including seven straight, Jordan has the highest career average in league history, 32 points.
16:13He got 69 points in a game against Cleveland.
16:17He also had 18 rebounds.
16:20I said to my partner, do you realize we're watching a legend?
16:24This is like watching Babe Ruth.
16:26In 92, Portland had its great season, and they were going into the finals against the Bulls, and Clyde Drexler
16:32had a great season.
16:34And there was a lot of talk that Clyde would be the MVP.
16:36Before the game, Michael says, we'll show who's the best player in the league.
16:40And he gets 35 points in the first half of game one against Drexler, including six three-pointers with his
16:46famous sort of shrug.
16:48There's 12 for three! Yes!
16:52If he wanted to do something in a game, there was no stopping what he could do.
16:56Of his lust for winning when he led the Bulls against the Cavaliers in the first round of the 1989
17:01playoffs.
17:02There was three writers then traveling with the Chicago newspapers with the teams.
17:07And each of us picked the Cavaliers to win the series before game five in Cleveland.
17:11He points to the one guy who picked him in three, and he says, we took care of you.
17:15And then the other guy who picked him in four, he says, we took care of you.
17:19And he looks at me, and he points me in the eye, and he says, and today we take care
17:22of you.
17:23Inbounds pass comes into Jordan.
17:24Here's Michael at the foul line.
17:26A shot on Elo.
17:27Go away!
17:28The Bulls win!
17:29They win!
17:31People have no idea how...
17:33He was a great moment, but how hard could it be to make a shot against Craig Elo if you're
17:38a great player?
17:40...obsessed Michael Jordan is with winning at something.
17:43Not just beating you when he was in his prime, but humiliating you with putting you away,
17:48with putting you down, so that you were no longer a threat to compete with him again.
17:52Oh, and Reggie Miller came over, and Smith...
17:55Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:56He's a good mistake.
17:58Yes, sir.
17:59He ran right into him, and we got a brouhaha here.
18:02He's got a brouhaha.
18:03It's about nine to one doing practice, and we're playing up to 11 baskets.
18:07So I tell Michael, you've got to change to the other side, and he was extremely upset about that.
18:13But he takes the other team, and he wins with that team.
18:15He would cheat to win, and I say that in reverence.
18:18It was my mother and Michael and myself playing just a simple game of Go Fish or something,
18:23and I called him cheating my mother.
18:26And I said, are you that competitive?
18:28Are you going to cheat my own mother in cards?
18:30He said, you've got to be kidding me.
18:32Oh, yes.
18:33One day they fly into Portland, and the trainer notices that Michael is...
18:37Never play cards with Michael Jordan.
18:40...giving one of the baggage and use a $50 bill.
18:43Michael says, watch this.
18:45So they'd get down to the baggage area, and the bet is whose baggage is going to come out first?
18:51And guess whose luggage comes out first?
18:53Number 23.
18:54He scoops up about $1,000, puts it in his park, looks at the trainer, winks, and says,
19:00pretty good return on a $50 bill.
19:13That's great.
19:14He is so competitive.
19:16I can remember beating him in the game of pool three games in a row, and he didn't speak
19:19to me for 24 hours.
19:21Michael Jordan was on a bus, and players were sort of comparing how famous they were.
19:25Michael Jordan kind of sat there.
19:28Finally, somebody said something like, I bet even Michael can't get a hold of Janet Jackson.
19:33He took out a cell phone, dialed up, said, is Janet there?
19:38Just so it's MJ.
19:41Two seconds later, Janet Jackson was on the phone.
19:43This guy hated to lose anything.
19:46I mean, he had to be the first guy dressed.
19:49He had to be the first guy in the shower.
19:50He had to be the first guy out of the locker room.
19:52Everything had to be first.
19:55Never say Michael Jordan can't do something.
19:59I guess your only strategy to beat him is to, I don't know, say he's gonna win?
20:05I don't know.
20:08From doubters early on in my life and my determination to prove them wrong,
20:13starting from my high school coach that cut me to my principal who said that I should go to an
20:18Air Force Academy
20:20to guarantee myself a job after I finished college.
20:25If Jordan's rage to prove himself inspired his teammates, it could also burn them.
20:30I've seen Michael come in a lot of times and knock all the Gatorade's cups and go off and say,
20:37if y'all ain't gonna play, stay in the locker room.
20:40Michael wanted to always raise the level of intensity of practice himself.
20:44I've seen him have many fights with many a player.
20:47I put a screen on him and hit him pretty hard and he got mad because he said we were
20:52setting moving screens.
20:54He said they were illegal and the coaches weren't calling him.
20:56He said if you keep doing that, you know, I'm gonna take things into my own hands.
21:00Phil Jackson was never the coach of that team.
21:03Michael Jordan was the coach.
21:04Jordan was the one who yelled at them.
21:06Jordan was the one they feared.
21:08Jordan was the standard they had to live up to.
21:10Michael is just, he's killing Bill Cartwright all the time.
21:13In the locker room, in front of everybody.
21:15Cartwright gets Michael aside.
21:18And he says, look, if you ever do anything like that again,
21:22you will never play basketball because I'm gonna break both your legs.
21:25He said some things to me that I really didn't like.
21:28Robert Paris, Robert Paris also had to say, look, Mike, I'm gonna kick your, you know what.
21:38And I couldn't take it.
21:40If you let him ride you, he'll ride you to the moon.
21:43He will ride you right out of the NBA and out of your mind.
21:48Pause, pause, pause.
21:48Phil put Steve Kerr opposite of me, but he was giving Steve all the calls.
21:53And I'm getting like really ticked off.
21:55So I started playing very, very physical.
21:58Well, Steve started giving me a hard foul.
22:01Next thing you know, I hauled off and just whacked him right in the eye.
22:04And Phil threw me out of practice and I get home and I'm just like really hurt.
22:10They gave me Steve's phone number and I got his answering machine.
22:13And I said, Steve, I am so sorry.
22:15You know, my anger got the best of me.
22:19After every fight I've ever seen him in, he's always apologized.
22:22He never wanted to hurt you.
22:24He had to do whatever he had to do to make you raise your stakes that much higher.
22:31Michael's very, very, very loyal.
22:34He's loyal to his friends, to where he comes from, to teammates.
22:40People who he thinks have the same kind of spirit and drive that he has.
22:46My mother had passed away.
22:48My first time back at work, I see this big crowd of people.
22:51Michael, Jordan, and Magic Johnson are surrounded by this pack of m****s.
22:56One way in the tunnel.
22:57I'm dashing the other way.
22:59All along.
22:59All of a sudden, I hear somebody call my name.
23:03I turn around.
23:04There's Jordan.
23:06I said, Andrea, I just wanted you to know how sorry I am about your mother.
23:10I was shocked.
23:12That told me more about Michael Jordan as a person
23:14than any other dealing I'd had with him in the seven years that I covered him in Chicago.
23:22That's great.
23:23Get the **** out of the wagon.
23:25We knew how dangerous he was.
23:27And we knew going into the playoffs that we had to do something special.
23:31And so we very definitely devised what we called the Jordan rules.
23:35Every time he came to the basket, as opposed to giving up layups and dunks,
23:41because that would energize their team and give them momentum,
23:45we would rather send him to the foul line.
23:48It was important that we mentally intimidated him.
23:51Whether we get to knock him down.
23:53You know what I mean?
23:54You know what I mean?
23:55Laying beer, Rodman, and my horn would just knock him right on his back.
24:05That's what that means.
24:07Now the guys that look mean, nasty, ugly in his face.
24:11Oh.
24:12In July of 1989, Doug Collins was replaced by assistant coach Phil Jackson,
24:17who had an idea how the Bulls might win.
24:20I called Michael in and told him basically what I saw as a problem with it.
24:24That Michael Jordan didn't make his teammates better,
24:27that he wanted to score all the time,
24:29and that he wouldn't pass the ball to certain people.
24:32And there was a feeling that he was not quite good enough to win a championship.
24:37Everyone's saying that a scoring leader can't be an NBA champion.
24:40I never believed that.
24:42He came upon in his life, in his career, like,
24:45man, if I don't trust these guys, I don't think I'm going to win that championship.
24:49And once he decided to do that, the sky was the limit for our ball club.
24:54The Chicago Bulls advance to the NBA championship round.
25:01After defeating their nemesis, the Pistons, for the Eastern Conference title in 1991,
25:06the Bulls charged to a three games to one lead over the Lakers in the finals.
25:11In game five, Jordan was faced with the ultimate sacrifice.
25:16Phil Jackson will tell you that during the huddle of the final game against the Lakers,
25:21he finally had to get in Michael's face.
25:24I mentioned to him that John Paxton was open.
25:27Michael made a point of finding John Paxton in that fourth quarter for four jump shots in a row.
25:32And that really kind of sealed the factor that he was a guy who was willing to give the ball
25:37up
25:38at a time when he knew that he had to do whatever it took to help his team win.
25:42The Chicago Bulls have won their first ever NBA championship.
25:49After Michael won the first title, he seemed to say,
25:51okay, I'm just going to kick everybody's ass.
25:53There's no one out here who can stop me.
25:56There's no one here who can stop my team if I am the team player that I should be.
26:02The penultimate kind of moment for him as a leader.
26:06As the last of the first three-peat championships against Phoenix,
26:11we've won two games out in Phoenix.
26:13We couldn't finish him off in Chicago.
26:17We have to go back to Phoenix now.
26:20We're straggling out to the plane.
26:22On the plane, strides Michael Jordan.
26:26Can of beer in his hand.
26:29Big cigar.
26:30And he stopped and he looked around.
26:32And he said, anyone that doesn't think we're going to win the championship,
26:38get off the damn plane.
26:42And he said, let's go boys.
26:44I didn't even pack for two games.
26:45Let's go out there and win this game and fly back tomorrow night.
26:48Yeah, I don't think anybody got off.
26:50Packed him for three!
26:51Yeah!
26:53Yeah!
26:54He hit the three!
26:55Because Jordan had so passionately embraced the team concept,
27:00the Bulls won three straight championships.
27:03But soon, very soon, the team would have to adjust to life without him.
27:11This up makes the eight o'clock tee time.
27:15Eighteen holes of golf.
27:17Come back and scores twenty points in the first half of our game.
27:21We go back to the hotel.
27:23Guess what we do?
27:24Play cars all night again.
27:27The third night comes around.
27:30And I'm sleepwalking now.
27:32You know, because I got to get some rest.
27:34Uh-uh, MJ.
27:36You gonna stay up all night with me.
27:38I said, Michael, I can't do what you do.
27:46To me, it wasn't a surprise that he got in trouble gambling,
27:50because he goes all out.
27:51He's the ultimate chase better.
27:53Lose, double up. Lose, double up.
27:55The team won the first championship.
27:58He got invited to the White House.
27:59And Michael says he's not going.
28:00And the team's in a turmoil.
28:02And the day his team was going to the White House,
28:04Michael Jordan was, you know, in this game,
28:07gambling with one guy who was a convicted drug dealer.
28:10Another guy, Bale Bondsman, was funding the game,
28:13who originally got murdered by his associates.
28:15And then it turns out that, you know,
28:17he wrote a check for his gambling losses,
28:19which is, you know, it was a paper trail he, you know, was naive about.
28:23A crack had formed in Jordan's carefully constructed facade.
28:28Six months after the Bulls' first championship,
28:30a book detailing Jordan's rough treatment of teammates
28:34and the special treatment the club accorded him
28:37hit the New York Times bestseller list.
28:39Its title, The Jordan Rules.
28:42Paxson has the flu and it's about 103 degree fever.
28:45And he comes in, gets his medication, goes home.
28:48Now, Jordan gets it a couple of days later,
28:50calls in, they send the trainer out to his house.
28:52In 1993, another book claimed Jordan lost a million dollars on the golf course.
28:59Meanwhile, the media, once Jordan's vigilant protector,
29:04feasted on a report that he gambled the night before a playoff game in New York.
29:08All he wanted was just some respect about the issue.
29:11Hey, I went down Atlantic City. I didn't do anything wrong.
29:14I didn't mispractice.
29:15What are you getting on me for?
29:17As soon as he went to the golf course and started losing too much money to please us,
29:20he was pilloried for, oh, is your gambling really under control there, Michael?
29:24As the story gained extended life, Commissioner David Stern was forced to take a closer look.
29:30While Jordan simmered and the media swarmed, a former U.S. federal judge was hired to conduct a league investigation.
29:38I don't think he regrets the gambling. I think he remains angry that the gambling is what people tried to
29:44bring him down on.
29:45He felt like that he had been over backwards for the media so much that it really hurt him to
29:51have anything negative come out about him.
29:55One North Carolina state investigator described the murder of James Jordan as something that could have happened to any one
30:01of us.
30:02But in this case, the shooting victim was the father of Chicago Bulls superstar Michael Jordan.
30:09He and James were alike, and they ran around together. They buddied up together.
30:15I have no doubt he was closer to James than anyone else in his life.
30:19And here's his best friend and his dad gets murdered.
30:22It brought on an onslaught of absurd media attention.
30:25People trying to link his father's death to the fact that he had gambled.
30:30Everything just sort of...
30:35How would Michael Jordan of all people not have money to pay back debts?
30:40What?
30:42Really?
30:42Closed in on Michael.
30:44When I lose the sense of motivation and the sense of to prove something as a basketball player,
30:51it's time for me to move away from the game of basketball.
30:54I needed a change.
30:57I just felt I was being engulfed by the success that got at that time.
31:03People were coming in and saying that this is...
31:05Clearly he was being driven from the league for other reasons,
31:10whether it was his gambling or something else.
31:12I laughed at the time.
31:13Two days after Jordan retired in October of 1993,
31:18Stern announced his four-month investigation had turned up no evidence
31:21that the Bulls star violated league rules.
31:24But it was too late.
31:26The following spring, Jordan tested himself in a new career.
31:32I watched him play baseball.
31:33We met afterward.
31:36We went in the bar and then he came to my room.
31:38We talked for hours into the night.
31:40And I was just telling him, like, what a waste.
31:43Why would you give up being the best player in the game?
31:47I think he took a thought in a joyride and a hobby
31:51that somebody who had a legitimate chance of playing in the big leagues might have taken.
31:57He knew people were going to get on him.
31:59His dad wanted to play baseball.
32:01That's the reason.
32:02Not because Michael wanted to play it so much.
32:04Because his dad wanted him to give it a shot.
32:07He said, you know, I get up every morning.
32:09I get in the car and I look over and my dad's there.
32:13And I forget that we're going to get this done.
32:17And I think it was classic morning.
32:19His dad always did crossword puzzles.
32:21I looked up there one morning and there he was doing a crossword puzzle.
32:25And I never saw him do one when his father was alive.
32:29Those minor leaguers were the best thing that happened to me.
32:32It was their true love for the game.
32:34And I lost that.
32:35And I found it again, playing minor league baseball.
32:38Michael Jordan is returning.
32:41He released a press release today.
32:42It's a quote.
32:43I'm back.
32:44When he came back from baseball, all of a sudden you see him trying to get the
32:47His people make fun of Jordan's baseball career.
32:53For a guy who hadn't played in 15 years and he was in his 30s.
32:58He actually did pretty well.
33:07He could have gone right to the majors if he didn't get the strength.
33:10Now instead of knocking somebody's confidence, he's trying to help them raise their confidence.
33:13The 5.5 Michael Jordan.
33:17It kind of liberated him.
33:18But, you know, you really didn't know the effect of what it all meant until he won a championship on
33:26Father's Day.
33:27An emotional moment for Michael Jordan.
33:31The tears are flowing.
33:34That was the first time I realized that he wasn't there, you know.
33:39And it was a very touching situation.
33:42It was very hard for me to deal with it at that particular time.
33:44In his first full season back in 1996, Jordan had not only led the Bulls to another title,
33:51but he had a record, the best in NBA history.
33:54He won a spot on the all-defensive team for the seventh of nine times.
33:59And by adding a twisting fadeaway jumper to an offense that once relied on power and flight,
34:05Jordan at 33 stood alone.
34:08It's almost like he allowed us to doubt him.
34:11And then he came back and said, okay, I've shown you all that stuff.
34:14I've been through that.
34:15I'm a human just like you.
34:18But I'm still the best.
34:21With Michael, if he's going to do something, it's not worth it for him to just do it.
34:26He has to win at it.
34:28In fact, he's taught our children that.
34:30My kids love to play basketball.
34:32They ask me to come up and watch him play one-on-one.
34:34I tell my youngest to come over and sit down.
34:36When I talk to him about being able to accept losing but yet still competing,
34:41I say, watch, I'm going to go out here and I'm going to play your brother
34:43and I'm going to show you exactly what it's all about.
34:46So I'm playing him pretty serious.
34:47And I know that at any point in time, I can steal the ball and I can go in and
34:51win the game.
34:52But my oldest kid, he had a basket.
34:53So it's 4-2.
34:55I got to get serious here because I'm really trying to improve the point to my kid.
35:00So the oldest fakes one way, head and shoulder fakes and throws up the most luckiest shot you've ever seen.
35:07And it goes in.
35:08And I'm pissed.
35:09And I look back at my son.
35:10He looked at me and said,
35:12Next.
35:14And I look and I turn away and I smile.
35:16I'm saying, you know what?
35:17That's my son.
35:19Because that's exactly what I would say.
35:20Well, I wonder how he thinks about his sons now.
35:28Jordan vowed to observe the factories in question after the playoffs, but never did.
35:33What?
35:34If Michael Jordan had said,
35:36Look, Nike, you can have everybody else in sports, but you can't have me.
35:42Unless all these questionable practices are cleaned up.
35:45I think he would have gotten pretty close to immediate action.
35:48I know that he is very concerned with what's happening over there.
35:52And if there continues to be a need for him to go over there, he will eventually do that.
35:57He has to do what every other elite person does that is a member of a race.
36:04That's another political situation.
36:06They have to put their money, their power, and their intellect into a system and bring about change.
36:15I think it's a little bit unfair to lay it on Michael Jordan and say,
36:18Okay, wait a second.
36:19You're African American.
36:21You're the biggest icon.
36:22Then everything you should do should be for the betterment of all of your people.
36:26The primary responsibility of leadership in America is to integrate the money.
36:33Michael Jordan had a $10 billion impact on the total economy.
36:38That in itself is a major contribution.
36:41If you become too political, if your profile allows people to criticize you for taking a political stand,
36:47it may impact on your ability to sell them sneakers or computers or hamburgers.
36:52I think he's socially active already.
36:55Michael Jordan already said, Republicans buy shoes too.
36:59And why should an athlete be held to that standard?
37:03If everyone's an activist, nobody's a real activist.
37:09This may not be loud and standing on the top of a roof saying,
37:14Hey, look at me. I'm supporting this or this or this.
37:16I know of too many instances where Mike has shown up and done things.
37:23Whether it be school programs, reading programs, money donated, time put in with kids and so forth.
37:30There is a whole lot of life that Michael Jordan has left where he can have tremendous economic and social
37:37and political impact if he chooses to.
37:40And I think it's fairly small of everyone to tell him how he should live his life unless we are
37:46all willing to be told how we should live ours.
37:49We do this again for the second time.
37:52I am here to announce my retirement from the game of basketball.
37:55You know, my life will take a change.
37:58And a lot of people say, well, Michael Jordan didn't have any challenges away from the game of basketball.
38:03Well, I dispute that.
38:05More than golf awaited Jordan when he retired.
38:08In January 2000, he endorsed Democrat Bill Bradley for president.
38:12And that same month, after not receiving any offers of an executive role or part ownership with the Bulls,
38:19Jordan became president of basketball operations and part owner of the Washington Wizards.
38:24I have an attitude about the way I play.
38:26I have an attitude about the way I win.
38:28My job and my responsibility with this organization is to see if I can pass that on to the players
38:32in those uniforms.
38:34You look at the nature of this franchise and I just say, why do you want to do this?
38:37Why would you do this given all that you've accumulated and all that you've become?
38:40And he said, what am I supposed to do at this age, play golf every day?
38:44The competitive urges don't go away because you take a uniform off.
38:48Chief among Jordan's competition are two executives with whom he maintained an uneasy relationship as a player.
38:56Bulls owner, Jerry Ryan, and Jerry Kraus.
39:00I don't think Michael's ever really liked Jerry Kraus.
39:02And then Jerry makes a comment, I'd like to win a championship without Michael.
39:06When Michael's gone, let me see if I can muster up a championship team without the great one.
39:10I wanted Michael to stay as long as possible. Michael made my life a lot easier.
39:14Michael made my kids' lives a lot easier and my pocketbook a lot easier.
39:18Anybody who thinks I want Michael to leave...
39:19You didn't make his life much easier.
39:22...doesn't have their heads on straight.
39:24The Bulls treated Jordan unfairly, given his stature.
39:28I think Jordan thinks so too.
39:30It would be the pleasure of his life to not only build Washington to win it, but just beat the
39:36Bulls to death.
39:37Every time they play, beat them by like a hundred points.
39:40This is his way of turning against Reinsdorf and sticking it to him.
39:45To take his celebrity, his presence, to Washington D.C.
39:50When all of his life, professionally, he's been associated with the Chicago Bulls.
39:55But Jordan came under scrutiny as the Wizards continued to flounder.
40:00A lot of the criticism he's taking in Washington has to do with he's not visible.
40:03He's not in the owner's suite watching the game so people can see him.
40:08Part of the reason he's not there is because he's not a very good loser.
40:12He's pounding the desk and screaming and cursing and tearing up stuff.
40:16But I think rather than have those cameras zeroed in on him, he watches in his office.
40:21Mike has always been cool and he doesn't show getting frustrated unless he wants to.
40:29But inside, he's got to be like, sitting in the box and tear like, ugh!
40:38And you know, you know he wants to get down there and play.
40:41His will to win and his belief in himself is just unparalleled.
40:50Chicago novelist Scott Turow wrote,
40:53Michael Jordan plays basketball better than anyone in the world does anything else.
40:58Indeed, Jordan was voted the best athlete of the 20th century by our panel of experts.
41:03That he could not do the same on the baseball field, the golf course, or in the corporate boardroom is
41:09not relevant, except to Michael Jordan.
41:11As he said in his second NBA season when predicting his scoring titles, championships, and early retirement,
41:17it's all within my mind.
41:19For SportsCentury, I'm Chris Fowler.
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