Even though Peter and Rob had been there, and we knew they had excellent skills, the stability wasn’t there. The finances were not there. Building a corporation solely on Michael meant he had to be willing to give his time and commitment.
I TOLD HIM, “YOUR OBLIGATION IS TO BASKETBALL, THOSE ARE YOUR SKILLS, THAT’S YOUR GIFT.”
He was going to have to rely on somebody else to dictate every inch of the business, and I don’t believe in giving anybody that kind of power. You can’t do both—run a company and play basketball—and do both of them well. Nike had a corporation before Michael came along, and it had many resources. We were looking long term to when the ball stopped bouncing. I think we were just trying to help him make good solid choices for the long term.
I always wanted to know what successful people used when they were evaluating a deal or making a decision. I was with Coca-Cola early in my career, and they would put me on a dog-and-pony show all over the country to meet bottlers. It would take almost eight days. I’d go into supermarkets, everywhere, shaking hands.
On one of those trips I was in Omaha, Nebraska, and I had the opportunity to meet Warren Buffett. He invited me out on his boat. First of all, I don’t like boats. Now this is the richest guy in the world, and he’s the largest shareholder for Coke.
I said, “Mr. Buffett, I don’t mean to offend you, but I’m afraid of boats.”
He said, “Don’t worry, we have lifejackets.”
I told him, “You’re going to have to give me two to get me on that boat.”
He said, “This boat is not going to sink.”
I said, “That’s what they said about the Titanic.”
I asked him about his decision-making process.
“Mr. Buffett, you are very successful, and obviously I have heard a lot about what you have done. What do you think about when you make decisions? What’s your thought process?”
He says, “Not much. Whatever my gut tells me, that’s what I do.”
I thought that was pretty wild, because up to that point no decision I made had involved a lot of statistical analysis, or a lot of weighing of the pros and cons. I was just asking myself, “What do you feel?”
ONCE I MADE A DECISION, I DIDN’T THINK ABOUT IT AGAIN.
It was strictly off gut. That’s how I made the decision to go with David Falk; that’s how I evaluated deals before I signed my contracts. If I thought the money was cool, great. I didn’t think about it again from that point forward.
It’s still amazing to me that given the decisions Warren Buffett makes, and the money that transfers with those decisions, that he still goes with his gut.
I JUST FELT GOOD HEARING THAT FROM A GUY LIKE HIM.
TINKER HATFIELD One of the first times I met with Michael was at his townhouse in suburban Chicago. What I remember is that Michael was in the middle of a table tennis match with Charles Oakley. They were playing in the basement—one guy is 6-foot-6, the other 6-foot-9—and they could barely stand up straight. As Howard White and I walked down the stairs, we could hear them. It sounded like a wrestling match, with bodies flying. I thought they were going to fight. That was my first real introduction to the essence of Michael Jordan. I certainly didn’t expect some second-rate townhome in the middle of suburban sprawl, but that’s where Michael lived.
There was nothing cool about it. I was really surprised by that, and maybe even impressed. He’d signed a huge contract with Nike, a big deal with the Chicago Bulls. He had scored 63 points in Boston Garden against Larry Bird, and he’s still living in what was basically an average apartment. I remember thinking, “That’s kind of cool. He’s not too big-headed or full of himself.”
Years later, Michael talked about how he had been taught by his dad, and later Dean Smith, that you needed to earn everything in life. Even his first house after he got married was a normal place. It wasn’t anything special whatsoever, and he was a major superstar by then. That’s an interesting aspect to Michael.
I’ve always been very conservative financially. That came from my advisors, and I listened to them because I was scared. My parents always told me, “You don’t want to waste everything you have made. You don’t want to be like some of these guys at the end of their career with nothing to show, looking for work.” Now that was scary for me, the idea that at some point in time I would have to go get a job.
ROD HIGGINS One day, another Bulls player, myself and Michael went to lunch. Michael ordered his meal, and he knew exactly how much it cost. The bill comes and it is $70 or $80. Michael says, “Here’s my $15 plus tip”
The other guy says, “No, we’re splitting it three ways,” Michael says, “No way. I ordered $15 worth of food, and that’s all I’m paying. I’ll break out the calculator.” The dude actually broke out a calculator one day when we were eating lunch. The other guy, our teammate, got so upset they were about to fight. The guy thought Michael was trying to show him up. Michael said, “Fine, we’ll be two fighting guys right here in this restaurant, but I know one thing: I’m putting down $15 plus tip on this table, and I’m done. I didn’t order those shrimp cocktails.”
He was very frugal. He knew he was going to be making a lot of money for a lot of years, but he was not about to spend it before he earned it. He never took money for granted. His parents were hard-working people. Michael definitely paid attention.
Initially, yes, I had those urges. I bought a fur coat, some things like that. After you get over the idea that you have some money, and you have the right people around you, you start to understand what’s excessive, what’s reasonable, what’s needed, what’s not needed. I was blessed with that supporting cast. I wanted to feel like I earned the money before I started spending it. I’m still aware of what money is and what it means. I’ve seen a lot of people who had opportunities to be successful and wealthy, but they made critical mistakes. I live by example. I pay attention to those things. These days, we have a lot of kids who don’t think about tomorrow, or what could happen. That’s how they have been brought up. If they don’t have an understanding of what could happen, then they better have really good support systems—and some of them don’t have either. Money never drove me. Sure, I wanted to be successful. I wanted the nicer things that success brings. But my passion was pure. The way I played, and the way I go about things, has never had anything to do with money.
MOM He still has a budget. He disciplined himself with money. He spends money here and there, but believe me, he has a budget. He knows how much he’s going to spend, and that’s it. I often told him about Joe Louis, the boxer. He died homeless. Didn’t even have money to bury himself. No discipline. No direction. It’s not how much money you have; it’s how you maintain what you have.
TINKER HATFIELD I got to know Jim Riswold of Weiden + Kennedy, and he started asking me how we were creating the shoes. I don’t think that had happened before. The ad team never had any interest in how the whole design process evolved. Jim’s approach and creativity became the fourth leg at the table.
When Jim came up with the Mars Blackmon campaign, it was like, “Wow.”
MICHAEL’S GOT THIS GOOFY, COMICAL SIDE THAT IS IN DIRECT CONTRAST TO HIS VICIOUS, COMPETITIVE NATURE.
You have to be careful with him because he’ll rip your throat out to beat you at a game of h-o-r-s-e. But it’s pretty interesting how the two ends of the spectrum come together to create this guy.
When I was younger I didn’t really fit in, so I was a jokester. Laughter always makes it easier to get in with a group.
I never take anything so serious that I can’t laugh. I always felt that if I could laugh and joke around, then I could fit anywhere. Once I’m accepted, then I can show all sides of my personality. When I meet people, the first thing I want to do is make them laugh because it takes the pressure off for both of us.
Now they can be a little more at ease, and better understand who I am as a person. Laughter has always been the way people can get to know me, and it’s the way I try to get to k
now them. It takes the walls down a little bit so the real person can come out.
TINKER HATFIELD
WHEN YOU DO SOMETHING THAT CATCHES THE HEARTS AND MINDS AND IMAGINATIONS OF PEOPLE AND IS REALLY SPECIAL—AND I’M SURE THIS IS THE SAME WITH WRITING A BOOK OR MUSIC—
WHAT DO YOU DO FOR AN ENCORE?
Sometimes the encore is harder than the initial body of work. To some degree, Michael has always had an encore. He has continually surpassed the expectations of others, no matter how demanding they had become. It’s part of his appeal.
With the Jordan IV, I wanted to get further into performance innovation, which was essentially what Michael was doing on the basketball court. I mostly focused on the upper. The Jordan IV was the first time we used what is called an over-molded mesh. Most people would not spend a lot of money on a basketball shoe with a mesh panel. Even though it’s a good idea, because it’s breathable and makes the shoe lighter, it cheapened the shoe a little bit in the minds of some consumers.
I wanted the shoe to be lighter, with features no one had done before. So instead of starting with some kind of romantic story of Michael’s life or something I saw him do, I started from a technical perspective. I couldn’t do a normal mesh, so we dipped this mesh into a vat of soft plastic, then blew air through it to clear out all the plastic in between. So now the mesh was coated, and it became a design feature. We also developed a multi-port lace-locking system. I had invented what we called lace locks, and in the IV we did an elaboration on the theme. You could lace through any of nine ports, so you had 18 different positions. It was a little bit more of a technical story, and a little less of a personality story, but that’s where Michael was at that time in his life. He was mastering different phases of his game as a player, and growing into these different roles of husband and father off the court. He didn’t want this particular shoe to be too fashionable, because we had come out with the III with all the luxurious leather. This shoe was about getting back to work, being a little more utilitarian, while doing a couple things no one had done before. It reflected his state of mind.
HIS MINDSET WAS ABOUT GETTING BACK TO THE BASICS.
The decision to stay with Nike was behind him, but everything was ahead of him on the basketball court.
My father didn’t believe you could rely on people to do things for you because they were not going to have the same passion for getting it done right. A great example: If something was broken in our house, my father would teach himself how to fix it. We had a one-level home. Now my father could have found an architect to draw up plans, and a builder to add a second floor onto our house. He did it all himself.
We went through certain winters with plastic up because my father was doing all the work. He’d come home after working all day, and work on the house. When he was done, he knew it was done right. That was him. That was the way he approached everything. His taxes? He understood everything about his taxes. He would work with the guy who prepared his returns, but it was going to be done the way my father wanted it done. That was his nature. My mother was the same way. How could their kids not have the same approach, be it in school, a job, or playing a game?
IT ALL CAME DOWNSTREAM FROM THEM.
MOM Mr. Jordan tore a whole roof off the house. Everybody in the neighborhood thought he was crazy. But it’s about having a support system. We were together. He knew I was there to support him. I said, “Of course, you can do it.” If no one else believed in you, then I wanted everyone in my family to know I was there, and I believed in them. If you fell on your face, then you had someone there to pick you up and encourage you. Thai’s family.
HOWARD “H” WHITE Michael is methodical. Same meal before every game, always a steak. I told him once, “You know, they’re doing things a little different these days. Guys are eating a Cobb salad, nice spaghetti dinner.” And he tried that. But he said, “In the fourth quarter, that’s gone. The steak gives me fuel in the fourth quarter.” Possibly. But remember the idea of “earned.” That is what we were taught way-back-when, and he is an old-school, fundamental, by-the-books guy.
THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS. THERE IS NO WAY AROUND WORKING HARD. IT’S STRAIGHT FORWARD WITH MICHAEL.
He’s not altering his approach to please you. And he discovered something about the game that wasn’t about him. Winning became about everybody working. He believes that if everyone around him is willing to work hard, there will be rewards. That’s the essence of greatness. I don’t care if you are talking about Louis Pasteur, George Washington Carver, Alexander Graham Bell. There is something to going step by step by step by step. Michael has allowed himself a simplistic approach. Obviously he has made a lot of money, drives the greatest cars in the world, has a great place to live.
BUT DESPITE THE FAME, POWER, FORTUNE, HE’S STILL A VERY SIMPLE GUY.
Until the Jordan III, I had to walk around in the shoe and break it in a little bit before I could play. When my foot perspired, the leather expanded. By the end of the game, the shoe looked like I had been playing in it for 10 weeks. So each year we were looking for materials that had more stability, so that at the end of the game the shoe retained its structural integrity.
Nike started taking high-speed films of my feet as I played. They even dissected the shoe to see where my foot movements were weakening the structure of the shoe. It was fascinating to me, and Tinker was the force behind it all. We went to podiatrists to determine the stress points on my feet and where they were impacting the shoe.
NO ONE SAW ALL THE WORK WE WERE DOING AWAY FROM THE GAME.
THEY KNEW ABOUT MY WORK ETHIC, THE WAY I PRACTICED, HOW HARD I PLAYED, THE FACT I WAS ALWAYS TRYING TO IMPROVE MY GAME.
But it didn’t stop in the gym. Sure, I was interested in the style of the shoe, and I wanted everyone to be able to see my life in each shoe. But more than anything, I needed the shoes to work for me on the floor. If my performance could be positively affected by the way the shoe was built, then I was willing to listen to every idea. From that standpoint, we weren’t just making a shoe that looked good. It was always about performance first.
TINKER HATFIELD The Jordan III had an interesting new approach, and the IV was a little bit of a reversal back to utilitarian technical design. So with the fifth shoe, I wanted to do something that not only added technical elements, but had a style of its own—again matching up with Michael. We put clear rubber into it and added flames so the shoe had this fighter plane story. It also was the first time anyone ever molded foam into a shoe upper.
I had designed the shoes Michael J. Fox wore in Back to the Future II. There was clear molding that allowed the light to come through, which got me thinking about making a clear rubber outsole.
A LOT OF PEOPLE CALLED THIS THE GLASS-BOTTOM SHOE.
It was the first basketball shoe that had a clear outsole. We actually used reflective material on the huge tongue, so anytime there was a flash of photography or light, the Jumpman would produce an explosion of light.
This was meant to be kind of like coming out again, not only with the performance aspects, but with showy, interesting features. The reflective tongue, glass bottom, flames, molding—it had so much going on. And so did Michael. The shoe came out in February 1990, and Michael was a complete player. The team was on the verge of a championship, and he was in between his first two Most Valuable Player awards.
BEFORE I EVER PUT PEN TO PAPER ON THIS ONE, I THOUGHT ABOUT HOW HE PERFORMED LIKE A FIGHTER PLANE.
He would be floating around the edges of the game and come out of nowhere to attack. The British Spitfires and American fighter planes from World War II had nose art on them. The pilots would paint flames or tiger teeth as a way to frighten the enemy a little bit, but also to individualize their efforts.
As I worked through the design of the shoe, I thought I’d try to make it look a little bit like a fighter plane. Not literally. I don’t like to do literal translations, but more subtle suggestions that this shoe is aggressive. I actually reversed the nose a
rt because, sometimes before Michael would start his move to the basket, he’d fake first. So it was actually about stopping before the other guy could stop. The developers were all irritated because it was so difficult to create a midsole that had flames on it. We literally didn’t know how to do it at the time.
I’m very secure in my ability to focus on what I want. If I have an agenda or a goal, no one is going to deter me from what I want to do. When I’m trying to make a statement or prove something, I might joke around with you, but don’t confuse that with changing my motivation.
I’M STILL GOING TO GET UP AND WORK OUT IN THE MORNING, AND DO THE NECESSARY THINGS.
IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING ELSE YOU WANT TO DO, FINE. I’LL CATCH UP WITH YOU. BUT I AM NOT GOING TO BE TALKED INTO LOOKING THE OTHER WAY.
When I got to a point where I was a senior partner on the Bulls, the guy who had been there the longest, I started to exert my leadership vocally. I guess you could say I became a tyrant, or at least that’s how some people chose to interpret those actions. That’s not how I viewed it.
I knew what it took to come from where we were in 1984. I had put in the time, and I had earned the right to let my teammates know what I expected of them. And it was no more than I expected of myself. I played in front of 8,000 people a night in the beginning, and that never determined how hard I played. It’s easy when 18,000 show up, and every game is sold out. It’s not hard to find your motivation in that environment. I was playing when the Stadium was half empty, and my effort was exactly the same. If you can’t play in front of a full house, then you have to get the hell off the floor. I don’t know what motivates you if that doesn’t do it.
Driven from Within Page 5