ASPIRATIONAL
Aspirational
ALL I KNEW IS THAT I NEVER WANTED TO BE AVERAGE.
Whatever I was going to do, I wanted to do it my way. I just wanted the freedom to express myself. It wasn’t about trying to be different for the sake of being different. I just wanted to follow what I felt. My father put a challenge in front of me. I knew what he expected, but I expected even more. The expectations I had for myself were beyond my father’s expectations. My thoughts were way beyond the idea of preparing myself for a job so I could be like the guy down the street.
I HAD DREAMS. THEY WERE MY DREAMS, AND I HAD NO FEAR OF THEM.
I knew I was going against the grain a fair amount of the time, but I came to realize that was just part of the process. I know my parents worried about me amounting to anything, much less someone whose dreams extended beyond Wilmington, North Carolina. But I wanted to become more than a slightly better version of somebody else.
I WANTED TO APPLY MY CREATIVITY TO EVERYTHING I DID
I wanted others to see me as I saw myself. Fear of failure? Why would I have any? I didn’t know where my dreams would lead. I had dreams, but I didn’t have all the pictures, because they didn’t exist. So I could push ahead with my eyes wide open, take in whatever happened, and move on. I wasn’t limited by someone else’s view of how my dreams should look, or whether they were reasonable or not.
I COULDN’T HAVE IMAGINED EVERYTHING THAT HAS HAPPENED.
BUT DREAMS ARE LIKE THAT. THAT’S WHAT MAKES THE JOURNEY SO INTERESTING.
Put all the work in, and then let the future emerge. It’s what I did on the basketball court. I let the game come to me before I imposed my will. That’s a lot different than forcing the issue because you are worried about an outcome that hasn’t been determined yet. Anything can happen if you are willing to put in the work and remain open to the possibility. Dreams are realized by effort, determination, passion and staying connected to that sense of who you are.
WHY ME? WHY NOT ME?
If you want to win, you have to pay the price—it’s not that complicated. If somebody didn’t want to hear that from me, fine. But go play somewhere else. Come on, man. You might be sick, but you can still play. Just the threat of you being out there is greater than sitting in street clothes. I remember when we were playing Detroit, and one of our guys was bent over after getting hit. I said,
“DON’T LET THEM SEE YOU IN PAIN.”
YOU KNOW WHY?
BECAUSE THEY’RE GOING TO DO IT AGAIN, AND THAT’S GOING TO TAKE YOUR MIND OFF WHAT YOU NEED TO BE DOING.
Show that you can stand up to whatever they have to give. Let them know it’s not affecting you, and they won’t do it again. But every time you wimp out, bitch about it, or cry to the referee, all I’m going to say is, “Shut up. Let’s play.” You know what they’re trying to do. Don’t let it happen. Play right on through all that stuff.
That’s when the Chicago Bulls started to get tough—when everyone else learned how to play through all the crap Detroit threw onto the floor. When Scottie Pippen would be talking trash or getting involved in a fight, I would step in and let him know I was standing there with him. They won’t attack me because they know I’m not going to back down. And my game is definitely not going to change. You want to hit me every time I come into the lane? OK, then I’m going to the free throw line and knock down 85 percent. But I am coming back down that lane. There might not be other guys on my team coming back, but you can be damn sure I am.
FRED WHITFIELD I have run a basketball camp in my hometown in North Carolina for more than 20 years. The first year of the camp coincided with Michael’s rookie season. Out of the first 20 years, he had been there 18, and the only two he missed were summers when he was getting ready to play for the Washington Wizards.
EVERY YEAR HE FOUND A WAY TO MAKE IT—THAT’S MICHAEL
Every year we have what we call “The Greatest Pickup Game in the World,” because there are always about 15 NBA players at the camp. Michael would always show up joking, having a good time. One year, Lance Blanks, who was a friend of ours, came to the camp, just like he had been, only this time he was playing for the Detroit Pistons. He was drafted by Detroit in the first round of the 1990 NBA draft, and that following season was the year Detroit was swept by the Bulls in the playoffs.
Now Lance had been coming to my camp for three or four years. He had played against Michael in these pickup games, and they had become friends. But in 1991, Isiah Thomas and all the Pistons guys walked off the court past the Bulls bench before the final game ended. Well, Lance didn’t know what to do. He was a rookie on a championship team. He figured, “I better follow Isiah because I’m a rookie.” So he walked right by Michael and didn’t offer congratulations, nothing.
The camp was a couple weeks after the Bulls beat the Lakers for their first NBA championship. Michael is sitting in this high school locker room when Lance walks in the door. Michael curses Lance up one side and down the other. He said, “I thought we were friends. We’ve been coming to Fred’s camp for years, having fun, and you’re going to walk off the court without saying a word? I thought we were bigger than that. I’m getting ready right now to go out there and bust your ass right here in front of everybody. I’m going to embarrass you today.”
And he did. He killed Lance. Michael went at Lance like they were playing Game 7 of the world championships. Michael had to have 45 points on the kid. It was intense. And for like 10 years, I didn’t see Lance again. It’s like he just fell off the map on me. When Michael, Rod Higgins and I went to the Wizards, we were at a pre-draft camp. Lance had just been hired by San Antonio as a scout. He came up arid apologized to Michael, Lance had lived with it all that time. He hasn’t been to my camp since that day.
Michael said, “No problem. We’re way past that. I just want you to know, man, in this game people are going to win and people are going to lose, but if you have friendships in this thing, you have to have respect for your friends.”
I had known Lance forever. We finally got through Detroit, swept them on their home floor. Lance walked off the floor as the clock wound down, just like the rest of them. We used to play together every summer. What happened? All of a sudden you don’t like me, or you let yourself be influenced by those guys? I saw him later that summer, and took off on him.
TINKER HATFIELD Before we started working on the Jordan VI, Michael came up to me and said, “No more tips. When I buy my Italian shoes, I don’t like a tip on the shoe. I like them real clean,” I had clear orders to create a shoe with a clean toe, which made the VI maybe the first modern basketball shoe without a tip or extra reinforcement around the toe.
Since he would still sometimes blow these shoes out in the course of a game, the clean toe became a starting point for the shoe. I stayed with the clear rubber, but we had some reports that the bottom was attracting dust for kids playing on courts that weren’t clean. The dust would stick to the clear bottom and make it a little slippery. That never happened in an NBA game because the floors are spotless. So I put a little solid rubber in there, so kids who were playing on a floor that wasn’t spotless would have enough traction.
I asked Michael if he ever had trouble getting into his shoes. He said yes, so we put a couple holes at the top of the tongue so he could put his finger in there. He suggested we put one in the back, too. We called that piece a spoiler. It was designed to be like the spoiler on the back of a sports car. Michael had a slant-nosed Porsche at the time, so the spoiler became something that you could put your fingers through and pop the shoe on real fast.
SPORTS CAR MEETS BASKETBALL SHOE WITH A SPOILER ON THE BACK
That was the first shoe that had any sort of molded structure in the back. I remember Michael telling me to be sure to position it in such a way that it didn’t hit his Achilles when he flexed his foot.
A leader has to be willing to sacrifice to help everyone else get to where a team needs to go. No one could take days off with the Bulls
because I never took a day off. Horace Grant and I had a falling out because he wanted a day off here and there, and I would chastise him for it. I challenged Orlando Woolridge early in my career, and he wanted to fight me. I earned that responsibility. I wasn’t making anything close to my value on the basketball court, but I never allowed that to affect the way I played.
MY GAME WAS NOT CHANGING, AND YOU NEVER HEARD ME COMPLAIN ABOUT WHAT I WAS BEING PAID.
Once I signed a contract, I moved on. So how could anyone else come to our team and gripe about how much money they were being paid? Pippen never complained about his contract until I was gone. No one complained, because I never complained about it.
ONCE I GAVE MY WORD, AND SIGNED ON THE DOTTED LINE, I STUCK WITH IT.
THAT’S WHAT LEADERS DO.
They set a standard, and everyone has to live up to that standard if it’s a good standard. It’s the same in every great organization.
And it’s exactly the same approach we have taken at Brand Jordan. It goes back to me, Tinker and Mark Smith. If we all agree to the standard, relative to what a particular shoe is about, and it’s in line with what the company is about, who’s going to try to change that? We’ve built the standards. We’re leading, not following. We’ve earned the right to define the road ahead.
Whoever comes in has to live up to the same standard. They have to be as dedicated as I am. They have to put in the same effort. They have to have the same understanding of what our products are about. It’s not about applying colors to something and selling it. It’s about building a quality shoe with a style that is different and unique. If you don’t have that same vision, then you’re not going to be here, at least not as long as Tinker, Mark and I are still around. You have to rise to our level. We’re not going to drop down to yours. I apply that standard to whatever I do.
MOM I remember when the Bulls starting winning championships, and the press started saying that Michael wasn’t being paid enough money. I would tell him that his word was his bond. “You signed a contract, not knowing how your skills would develop, not knowing who was going to surround you. You agreed to that contract, and you have to honor that contract. If Mr. Reinsdorf decides the team had a wonderful year, and he wants to redo your contract, fine. But don’t make it an issue because then you are not living up to your responsibility.”
What is for you, nobody else can have. What is not meant for you, you cannot have. They will print whatever they will print, but a contract is an agreement. When you have a good heart, stay committed and focused on what is right and honest, everything will come to you. Michael earned every bit of it. I tell people, do you know about the ice packs on his knees, how he hobbled out of the Stadium some nights, barely able to make it home?
I remember that day in Utah. I’ll never forget that day. I told him, “Don’t play tonight. You are too sick.” And what did he do? The best came out because you find that little bit of strength when you keep going inside, looking for it. That’s determination and focus—the idea that he wasn’t going to give up until he had given his last. That’s life.
GIVE IT YOUR BEST, AND ALL THE OTHER THINGS WILL COME TO YOU.
HOWARD “H” WHITE Go back to any religion, and the core principle is that God is within us. If you take an orange, all you have is a sphere, a round piece of fruit. If you take the peel off, then you have something to eat, something that can nourish you. And inside that you have seeds that you can plant so you can eat forever. That’s essentially who we are, but we rarely get to the seeds because we spend so much time focusing on the exterior.
Rarely do people get to those seeds that can light up the world. MJ saw himself as far more than what others said about him. Now, this is the interesting part. He became able to see himself. The true art of meditation is being able to look out past all the words, actions and events, and back in at yourself. The responsibility is vast for those who can do that. Michael not only played up to the expectations of people, but he exceeded our expectations for him. To be great in athletics, your opponents have to have the idea that they have to play their very best. Everybody understood what Michael Jordan was bringing to the table. Again, it could have been a game, a shoe or anything else, but Michael was bringing everything he had all the time. When the other side knows it has to be prepared to give its very best at every moment, they often stumble. It’s unnatural to play that way, particularly against someone who is simply expressing who he is in that moment. Michael didn’t have to think about anything. The way he played was who he was.
It was self-expression in its purest form. So once Michael starts making things happen, the other guy figures he has to try harder. Michael was Michael. He never had to think about playing harder or lifting his game.
Go back to that playoff game in Chicago against Cleveland in 1989. The Bulls had a chance to close out the series at home, but Michael missed his free throws. Not just one. He couldn’t make free throws that day, which is something that never happened.
Now the series goes back to Cleveland for a deciding Game 5. We’re sitting in his room and Michael says, “Let’s watch a movie.” There was just a black screen as we waited for the movie to come on. He was fixed on this empty television. I finally had to say, “Hey, are you all right? Are you with us?” Was he watching the game on that black screen? Was he visualizing what was about to happen? That was the day he hit the shot over Craig Ehlo to win the series.
WERE ALL OF THESE THINGS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN?
SOME THINGS ARE MEANT TO BE.
I TRULY BELIEVE THAT.
TINKER HATFIELD
I THINK HE’S JUST DEADLY, COOLLY EFFICIENT
You kind of wonder at times if he doesn’t have a little more perception than most of us. Not only does that give him more confidence, but it probably also increases the amount of times he’s right. His technique on the floor when he played was perfect. His shot, his follow-through, the way the ball rolled off his fingers—he was a meticulous player. There are other players like that. But there are no other players who combined that meticulous approach with an ability to play like they had eyes in the back of their head. Michael made decisions that you just didn’t have any idea where they came from. And that combination just doesn’t exist.
Michael could be unconscious and at the same time see things that no one else could see. And it’s the same off the court. You just have to sit back and marvel at it. That’s just way different than anyone else. You can go down the list of all the great players in the world. There are some who are meticulous and perfect in the way they play their game, and there are others who are all over the place. But the very best player who ever played the game was the rare person who had the ability to do both, at all times.
GEORGE KOEHLER You would think that with everything going on in Michael’s life, particularly when he played, that somebody would be doing all the little things for him. No. When Michael would lay out his clothes before a trip, he would put everything together. There’s the jacket, there’s the shirt, there’s the tie, there are the socks, the cuff links are already in the shirt, the shoes—it was one complete outfit, each one laid out on the floor. To give you an idea of how extreme he was, Michael would actually put everything on to make sure it was right. Then he would take it off, put it back on the hanger and pack. Who thinks like that?
I FOCUS ON THE LITTLE THINGS.
LITTLE THINGS ADD UP TO BIG THINGS.
FRED WHITFlELD MICHAEL’S WHOLE BEING IS ABOUT LOYALTY AND WINNING.
HE REALLY FEELS LIKE YOU CAN’T RIDE THE FENCE. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE LOYAL TO WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN, AND THE ALWAYS BELIEVE YOU’RE GOING TO WIN. THAT’S PROBABLY WHAT I HAVE LEARNED FROM HIM OVER ALL THESE YEARS.
I was really close to Ralph Sampson. Ralph had a big Puma contract coming out of the University of Virginia. He was Puma’s man. When I would go up to Boston with Ralph, we’d go to the Puma warehouse. I would do the same thing when I’d go out to Nike with Michael. They’d say, “Whatever you want, pick it out a
nd we’ll ship it to you.” I had my closet separated out, half Puma, half Nike. I had 25 or 30 pairs of Pumas, Clyde Frazier’s in every color. Then I had all my Air Jordans, Nike stuff.
Michael comes to my apartment in Greensboro one time. We’re getting ready to go out, and he says, “Man, it’s kind of cold. Can I borrow one of your jackets?” I said, sure, go in my closet. He went in there and saw everything separated out. He’s in there a little longer than necessary, and here he comes out of my room.
He’s taken all my Puma stuff, brought it out into the living room and laid it on the floor. He goes into the kitchen, gets a butcher knife and literally cuts up everything. This was like his second or third year in the league. He literally took a butcher knife, and he ’s inside the suede shoes, ripping, cutting. When he’s all done, he picks up every little scrap and walks it all down to the dumpster.
He says, “Hey dude, call Howard tomorrow and tell him to replace all of this. But don’t ever let me see you in anything other than Nike. You can’t ride the fence.” From that day forward, I’ve never worn anything that wasn’t Nike. That’s the degree to which he believes.
IF YOU WALK INTO A ROOM WITH MICHAEL THE FIRST THING HE’S GOING TO DO IS LOOK AT YOU FROM HEAD TO TOE. HE’S GOING TO LOOK AT YOUR FEET.
If you’re not dressed appropriately, he’s going to let you know. Mike Phillips is a sax player with Hidden Beach Records. We signed him at Brand Jordan. Before he signed with us, Mike showed up one day with Reeboks on. He’s in the limo with Michael, and Michael says, “Fred, you can’t bring this guy around wearing those shoes.” I mean, he gave Mike Phillips the blues. I said, “Mike, you have to throw those shoes away. We’ll get you some new ones tomorrow.”
Driven from Within Page 6