Michael Jordan

by Roland Lazenby

  “It is not unusual for Mr. Jordan not to let someone know where he’s at for a couple of days, but certainly not for twenty-plus days,” Captain Art Binder of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department told reporters.

  Upon receiving the news, Michael left for North Carolina. Authorities soon connected the car to a badly decomposed body that had been found August 3 in a swampy creek near McColl, South Carolina. The local medical examiner later acknowledged that the remains had been placed in a body bag and left in the bed of his pickup truck for most of the day. South Carolina authorities eventually conducted an autopsy, took photographs, and determined that the victim had died of a single .38-caliber gunshot wound to the chest. On August 7, a part-time coroner had collected the jawbones and hands from the unidentified corpse and ordered the remains cremated.

  “It was my decision as to what I had to do,” the coroner, Tim Brown, told reporters after it was confirmed that the victim was Michael Jordan’s father. “I had a body that was decomposing and there was no means of refrigeration.”

  Stunned by the notification, the Jordan family began making hurried arrangements for a funeral that weekend at the Rockfish AME Church in Teachey. Meanwhile, authorities quickly tracked calls made from a cell phone in the Lexus to two eighteen-year-olds from Lumberton, North Carolina. On the same day as the Jordan family held the service in Teachey, authorities arrested Larry Martin Demery and Daniel Andre Green and charged them with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, and armed robbery. Green had been paroled two months earlier after serving less than two years for a conviction in Robeson County for assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and armed robbery, according to Robeson County sheriff Hubert Stone.

  James Jordan, according to investigators, had become a victim of circumstance when he stopped his car in a well-lighted place alongside Interstate 95 near Lumberton in the early morning hours of July 23. The teenagers were armed and had reportedly talked of robbing someone that night as they waited at a nearby exit, when Jordan apparently pulled off the road to rest, said Captain Art Binder.

  The two shot and killed Jordan and discovered who he was only when they looked in his wallet, Binder said. “Once they realized that it was Michael Jordan’s father, they wanted to make sure they tried to cover their tracks the best way they could. It took them a while before they decided South Carolina would be the place they would put the body.”

  They drove thirty miles to a remote area just across the South Carolina border, where they dumped James Jordan into the swampy creek. They kept the Lexus three more days, took videos of themselves boasting about the event, then left the car on a dirt road on the outskirts of Fayetteville, about sixty miles from where they dumped the body.

  “As this matter unfolds, you will find that what happened to Mr. Jordan was the kind of random violence that all the public are concerned and afraid of,” said Jim Coman, director of the North Carolina Bureau of Investigation. “It could have been any one of us.”

  The Speculation

  The circumstances immediately created an outbreak of conspiracy theories. Why was there a rushed cremation? Why wasn’t James Jordan reported missing? How could he have been gone for weeks without his family suspecting anything? Did the murder involve Michael’s gambling? How could his fifty-seventh birthday have passed with no one in his family even noticing that he was missing? The mystery deepened after Deloris Jordan told authorities that her husband had last spoken with her on July 26, and a local convenience store clerk reported that she had seen someone who looked like James Jordan with the two teens in her store several days after the reported crime date. Investigators later concluded that both were mistaken.

  The family, meanwhile, faced an emotional ceremony that Sunday, August 15. The church was packed, with many more outside as Jordan walked slowly to the pulpit to address two hundred mourners, including B. J. Armstrong, Ahmad Rashad, and David Falk. “I’ve always wondered how it felt to stand behind one of these,” he said with a slight smile.

  Jordan spoke softly, in a voice that cracked with emotion, of his father’s qualities. He thanked both his parents and talked of the efforts they had made to provide for their children’s upbringing and education and to encourage them to set goals to live by.

  “Don’t dwell on his death, but celebrate the life he lived,” Jordan said of his father.

  He then held his mother tightly, smiling and whispering in her ear as he escorted her out of the church to the graveyard. James Jordan was remembered by many in the community as the industrious young man eager to show that he knew how to get things done.

  “He would keep you laughing all the time,” James Jordan’s seventy-one-year-old second cousin, Rev. Andre Carr of nearby Rocky Point, told the Tribune. “It seemed like he always had something funny to say. There was something about his spirit, his sense of humor that he was a friend of everybody. You’d meet him and it was like you knew him all your life. He was the type of father who liked everything to be uplifting. He was such a happy guy.”

  The following Thursday, Jordan released a statement through Falk’s office. “The many kind words and thoughtful prayers have lifted our spirits through difficult times,” he said. “I also want to express my appreciation to the local, state, and federal law enforcement officers for their efforts. I am trying to deal with the overwhelming feelings of loss and grief in a way that would make my dad proud. I simply cannot comprehend how others could intentionally pour salt in my open wound, insinuating that faults and mistakes in my life are in some way connected to my father’s death.” He targeted “unsubstantiated reports” as particularly galling for his family.

  Jordan had been scheduled to play in the Rose Elder Invitational Golf Tournament that Friday at Lansdowne Resort in Leesburg, Virginia. The following Tuesday he also faced a decision about whether to attend his own Michael Jordan/Ronald McDonald Children’s Charities Celebrity Golf Classic, at Seven Bridges Golf Club in Woodridge, Virginia. He ultimately decided to make a low-key appearance at both events, even as speculation over his father’s death continued to occupy the airwaves.

  “That’s what killed us about Norm Van Lier here in Chicago,” Phil Jackson recalled of the former Bulls guard turned broadcaster. “He was broadcasting theories about Michael’s father’s death and gambling and the NBA and all this stuff. Michael had to go talk to Van Lier and say, ‘Norm. Cool this stuff about gambling and the NBA and the grand scheme and all this other stuff about my father’s death. There’s no conspiracy going on here.’ That’s the paranoia that builds in people’s minds and sometimes drives you crazy.”

  From their earliest days together, Jackson had shown a strong intuitive sense of how to support and sustain Jordan. The coach had become Jordan’s companion and guide. And Jordan did the same for Jackson, as their ideas and separate visions had invigorated one another. But basketball had no place in Jordan’s thoughts as he struggled with his father’s death over the ensuing weeks.

  As training camp neared that fall, David Falk informed Jerry Reinsdorf that Jordan was prepared to retire. James Jordan’s death wasn’t mentioned as a reason, but the owner knew that the trauma of the loss was driving the decision. There would be immediate speculation that Jordan was retiring in protest over a contract that left him woefully underpaid. But Reinsdorf refuted that: “Michael said to me, ‘This is not about money. I don’t want to play basketball anymore. I want to be retired.’ ”

  “What do you want to do?” Reinsdorf asked Jordan.

  “I want to play baseball,” Jordan told him.

  The owner recalled that he asked Jordan if he had spoken with Jackson, and Jordan replied that he was hesitant to do that. “Knowing Phil, the psychology major, he was going to try to get in my head and see where I stood,” Jordan recalled.

  Jordan, though, knew what he wanted. While Jackson certainly knew how to push his buttons, the coach was careful to tread softly when they met. He pointed out that Jordan possessed a great gift fro
m God and that leaving the game would deny millions of fans the benefit of that gift. Jackson said he should think over his decision. But Jordan was firm. “No, this is it,” he said.

  Jordan had a question of his own for Jackson. He wanted to know how the coach would get him through another eighty-two-game regular season, because he had absolutely no motivation, saw no challenge in it. Jackson had no good answer. Jordan didn’t want to end his career on a down note, with declining skills and facing excessive criticism, the way Julius Erving had finished.

  So Jackson changed course one final time and asked Jordan if he had thought about a sabbatical. But that wouldn’t do. Jordan wanted no lingering, no loose ends. Jackson realized it then, and told Jordan he was on his side. Then the coach told him that he loved him and began weeping. Although he had braced himself for a difficult encounter, Jordan was caught off guard by the emotion, especially when he informed his teammates and coaches. Toni Kukoc, who had just come to the United States to play with the Bulls, had gotten particularly emotional, which struck Jordan in return. His other teammates seemed similarly affected. He realized then that people could spend years working together and not know the depth of their feelings for each other.

  Johnny Bach recalled Jordan informing the coaching staff: “He said, ‘I’m gonna retire, guys.’ I couldn’t believe it. We wished him luck. It was a shattering day.”

  On October 6, 1993, Jordan publicly announced his retirement from the Bulls. “I would’ve made the same decision with my father around,” he said during the announcement.

  “Five years down the road,” he said, “if the urge comes back, if the Bulls will have me, if David Stern lets me back in the league, I may come back.” The comment would spark yet more intrigue and speculation that Jordan, during his discussions with David Stern, had been told to retire, perhaps even forced out.

  Dave Kindred again weighed in: “Was there a trade-off? ‘Hey, MJ, you ‘retire,’ we drop the ‘investigation.’ Was Jordan advised/ordered by NBA commissioner David Stern to go away—go play baseball or something—and let the gambling stories die?”

  Sports Illustrated also noted the speculation that Jordan was leaving to avoid the NBA’s latest investigation of his wagering and that Jordan didn’t mention his gambling in the news conference.

  Falk and Stern both said emphatically there was no link between Jordan’s gambling and his retirement, with Stern adding that for anyone to even suggest that was “scurrilous and disgusting.”

  Stern told reporters that the league’s latest investigation of Jordan was now closed, emphasizing that he was certain Jordan had never bet on NBA games and was not suffering from gambling addiction.

  Much later, in a 2005 interview with Ed Bradley on 60 Minutes, Jordan appeared to finally acknowledge the problem. “Yeah, I’ve gotten myself into situations where I would not walk away and I’ve pushed the envelope,” Jordan told Bradley. “Is that compulsive? Yeah, it depends on how you look at it. If you’re willing to jeopardize your livelihood and your family, then yeah.”

  As Sonny Vaccaro observed, Jordan was so big, so important to the NBA, he was the only player who could have survived the gambling mess. A lesser player would have been suspended, Vaccaro said, adding that the NBA chose to deal with it by shutting the books on its inquiry.

  It seemed highly unlikely that David Stern would have forced Jordan from the league. Jordan, however, would later express anger with Stern for not doing more to take on the conspiracy theorists who tied James Jordan’s death to his son’s gambling debts, even though nothing in any investigation pointed to that possibility.

  The move to retire came so swiftly that he had no time to notify his mother, who was in Africa. “I was in Kenya with Michael’s mom and a group of school kids,” recalled Bulls vice president Steve Schanwald. “It had been so peaceful out there. We were on safari in a remote portion of Kenya, living in tents. No newspapers, no radio, no TV, no nothing. I told the people that the world could be coming to an end, and we wouldn’t know. Two days later we flew back to Nairobi, back to civilization for the first time in about ten days. I got off the plane and got on the bus that was going to take us to have lunch. The bus driver was reading a newspaper, a tabloid called the Daily Nation, Kenya’s national newspaper. On the back page, there was a picture of Michael, and the headline said, ‘Michael Jordan Retires.’ I thought it was somebody’s idea of a bad joke. But two days earlier, Michael had announced his retirement. Apparently, Michael’s mom didn’t know. I went up to her and thanked her for lending us her son for nine great years. She said, ‘What are you talking about?’ I said, ‘Mrs. Jordan, your son retired two days ago.’ She said, ‘He did? I don’t believe it!’ So I went and got the newspaper and showed her. That was how we found out about Michael retiring.

  “That night at dinner I bought some champagne for everybody and we toasted Michael on his great career. But by the time I got back to Chicago, the festive mood was gone. People were definitely depressed. It happened with such suddenness, it was so out of the blue, that it kind of took the wind out of people’s sails.”

  Perhaps the greatest emptiness was felt by the NBA’s leadership, who now had to replace the greatest attraction in basketball history. Ironically, there were also reports that Stern had asked Jordan not to retire, but neither man discussed the moment in detail. That question would linger forever, another knot in the great mass of Jordan’s resentment.

  Chapter 30

  THE DIAMOND DREAM

  STEVE KERR ARRIVED in Chicago not long before the Bulls opened their training camp in 1993. A free agent guard with slow feet, a shock of blond hair, and a deadly shot, he brought a mix of eagerness and concern to the task of making the roster. He’d heard all the stories circulating around the NBA about how difficult it was to be Jordan’s teammate. But within a week of signing his contract, Kerr saw the Jordan factor mysteriously disappear.

  Instead, his only MJ connection over the coming weeks would be a glimpse of Jordan when he slipped in to observe the practices of the team he had just deserted. The void Jordan left was profound. He had long hinted at his departure; now, soon after the announcement, he was back, as if to ascertain exactly what his absence looked like, in hopes that the finality of it might actually help him find his way. By his own admission, the newfound family time that he could now embrace did nothing to ease his mental state. He was still grieving—something his public and the media had failed to recognize—and trying to formulate a direction for his new life.

  “He came every once in a while,” Kerr remembered. “He would just come in and watch practice. I think he just wanted to see the guys and stuff. So we saw him a few times. He came to some games that year, sat in a suite at the United Center.” Even this silent specter on the sidelines at practice seemed intimidating, a reminder of how the team was about to evolve.

  “I think it really sort of became Phil’s team at that point,” Kerr observed. “Even though I wasn’t there before that, I’m sure Phil was dominant and his presence was felt before that, but it really became Phil’s team after Michael retired because it had to be. He was the dominant presence. The characters, the egos we had on the team… we had some great players. But, you know, Scottie was never a guy who was going to seize control of a team from a leadership standpoint. He was everybody’s favorite teammate, but one of the reasons for that was he was vulnerable. And Phil was not vulnerable.”

  Some observers had underestimated Jackson, suggesting that his success was a function of Jordan’s ability, but they had failed to grasp just how dominant a personality the coach presented. That became essential on a team whose best player was beset by insecurity and was battling management over his pay. A few years earlier, Pippen had insisted on a long-term contract that quickly became obsolete as the league’s salaries grew. Although the team did agree to return money that he had deferred, Reinsdorf was not going to renegotiate.

  “I think Scottie was vulnerable because he was human,” Kerr explained. �
�It’s the reason everybody loved him. You know, he signed that long contract. He was clearly underpaid. It was tough for him to live with that. He felt like he wasn’t appreciated. All the feelings that are associated with almost every human being, that was Scottie, and that’s why we all really appreciated him, because we felt we were more like him, even though we weren’t physically. We were all more like him emotionally than like Michael. Michael didn’t even seem human, he was so confident and so strong.”

  Jordan would quickly begin to appear considerably less superhuman. He had been lost since his father’s murder in August, and each succeeding account of the details served to intensify his grief, as he would acknowledge later. Yet he was also drawn to it, pausing whatever he was doing whenever another story about his father and the subsequent arrests popped up on television.

  Jordan had rarely projected frailty or weakness, but now he was privately in search of relief. Word began to circulate that fall that, with Reinsdorf’s blessing, he had been showing up at the White Sox training facilities at Comiskey Park to take batting practice on the sly. In typical Jordan fashion, he was there five days a week, sorting out a game he hadn’t played in more than a decade, with the help of White Sox players Frank Thomas, Mike Huff, Dan Pasqua, and Julio Franco. He had his sights set on returning to the game his father had loved dearly and had continued to talk about, even as Jordan had come to rule basketball.

  “It was really his father’s dream that he play baseball,” Phil Jackson observed months later. “His father wanted to play pro ball and did play semi-pro. When his father passed away, I think Michael was kind of living out his father’s dream. That’s one of the things I thought when I heard it. ‘Jeez, this guy wants to go play baseball in the major leagues?’ But then I realized basketball players are always fantasizing that they could play baseball.”