Horace Grant and I never saw eye to eye because he was griping so much about what 1 was getting. There was a lot of jealousy on the Bulls by the end of that third championship season, and my relationship with Horace was tainting my relationship with Scottie. The harmony wasn’t great. John Paxson and I were very close. But there were a lot of issues. And I was exhausted.
In my mind, I retired long before my father was killed. That had nothing to do with me going to play baseball. I had decided to retire earlier that season. My father and I had been talking about playing baseball for an entire year, all the way back to before the 1992 Olympics.
After we won the first two titles back-to-back, the only reason I came back was to win three in a row, which was something Larry and Magic never did.
THAT WAS MY ONLY MOTIVATION.
My father’s biggest passion was baseball. He was the one who got me started in baseball, and it was my first love, too.
I was just tired of being around the team. I had been there before any of them, so I felt a certain seniority. But everybody wanted to take credit. They’d talk about how I never won anything until they came around. I wanted to see if they could do it by themselves, so that had something to do with it, too. I was just fed up with all of it.
TINKER HATFIELD It was a Sunday, and I was in my home studio working on the Jordan X, not knowing Michael wouldn’t even play in that shoe. Phil Knight called me and said, “Pack your bags. When you come In tomorrow, we’re flying to Chicago.”
He proceeded to tell me that Michael Jordan was going to announce his retirement from the NBA Tuesday morning. I was in the middle of designing the X, and Phil was treating it like the end of an era. He said what a great ride it had been. He was kind of sad and melancholy, but also a little bit celebratory, too.
I didn’t have that reaction. I wasn’t sad. I had the sense Michael was just taking a break. When Phil called initially, and I told him what I was doing, he said, “You might as well forget that.” But after I got off the phone with Phil, I actually went back to work on the shoe.
WE HAD A BIG ISSUE WHEN I RETIRED IN 1993. NIKE DIDN’T THINK THE JORDAN PRODUCT WOULD SELL IF I WASN’T PLAYING BASKETBALL.
I have always believed—even to this day—the brand can withstand me being in the public eye or me being out of the public eye, because there is an established style in the minds of the consumer.
If we maintain the same innovative technology and creativity, the brand is going to be around for another 20 years. I do believe that. The foundation has been laid, the effort made to make the brand different from anything else. People know that from Day 1, I have had input into these shoes. If I died tomorrow, I think the shoe would sustain itself in the market. We have built a brand based on basic values, old-school values. Those never go out of style.
It was a tough fight because all the projections indicated that the brand would not survive. At the same time, I was in the process of signing a new contract. Nike said if the sales were X amount of dollars, then they would guarantee me X number of years on the new contract.
We rolled the dice. I said I’d fund my own guarantee if they would commit enough marketing dollars to allow the brand to expand. So I funded my own guarantee in the last contract I signed—for 30 years.
I put my money where my mouth was. We took the money Nike owed me and bought an annuity that pays a set amount every year for 30 years. Nike guaranteed X amount of dollars for marketing, and that provided us the opportunity to continue to grow the company, which is how we got to where we are now.
BUT I HAD TO COMMIT WHEN THEY DIDN’T BELIEVE.
AUTHENTIC
THE TRUEST ATHLETES ARE GOING TO BE THE MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD PLAYERS BECAUSE THEY HAVEN’T BEEN GIVEN ANYTHING THAT THEY HAVEN’T EARNED.
Those guys are going to be more valuable to a team because they haven’t been softened by the spoils. They are more likely to be leaders because of what they have been through. They know their skill level. They have a foundation. They are more confident in what they can do because they have had to focus on their limitations.
The player with all the accolades who hasn’t done anything yet doesn’t have that base. Look at the Detroit Pistons. Every guy on that team has been traded how many times?
Who is the leader of that team? Ben Wallace. What do you think he does? He practices hard, he plays hard, he doesn’t miss games. He does all the little things. Everyone has to follow his example because if they don’t, then they are the problem. No one is ever going to point at Ben Wallace, just like they never pointed at me. He’s an All-Star, defensive player of the year, an extremely hard worker and a team player. It’s hard to point at somebody who is going to be there every single day.
WE HAVE BECOME A SHORTCUT CULTURE.
To a certain degree, we define success on the basis of fictional attributes. If a guy has commercials, a lot of money, the girls, the car, then he’s considered successful, whether his performance matches all those things or not.
SUCCESS TO ME HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HOW MUCH MONEY YOU HAVE OR WHAT KIND OF CAR YOU DRIVE.
I ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW WHERE I FIT IN WITH THE BEST.
AUTHENTICITY IS ABOUT BEING TRUE TO WHO YOU ARE, EVEN WHEN EVERYONE ELSE WANTS YOU TO BE SOMEONE ELSE.
That doesn’t mean you don’t have to play fair or conduct yourself in a respectful manner. But it’s a lot harder to become the best you can be when you’re focused on trying to be the best version of someone else. There’s nothing authentic in that, and if it’s not authentic, then it’s not going to last.
TINKER HATFIELD First of all, I think he’s from another planet. Everyone in the rest of his family is about 5-foot-7 or 5-foot-8, and Michael’s 6-foot-6.
SO THERE WAS SOMETHING GOING ON IN THE COSMOS WHEN HE WAS COOKED UP. MAYBE IT’S NOT EXPLAINABLE.
When Michael’s father passed away, Howard White, Phil Knight and I went to the funeral in this little tiny church in North Carolina. People were crying, and it was like a scene out of a movie. There was a fire-and-brimstone preacher, and he asked if anyone wanted to come up and say something about James. Michael’s got two older brothers, an older sister, a younger sister, and they all are sitting there. All these famous coaches and other players are in the rows behind them. It was very emotional, almost intimidating.
Guess who walked up there and spoke? It was Michael. He hadn’t planned on speaking, but the preacher had kind of made this gesture to the audience. You could see that Michael just gathered something up inside of him. He got up and gave a beautiful eulogy about his dad, totally unprepared. I’m certain he just felt the strength in him to go up and do it. The rest of the family was just too broken up. He had the strength to not only go up there and deliver a beautiful talk, but to hold it all together. His voice wavered a bit, but he got through it. I ended up doing that at my father’s funeral, so I understand how difficult that was for Michael.
He said something when we were working on the Jordan XX that reminded me of that day. I was trying to get Michael to open up a little bit about who the mentors had been in his life. He talked about some of them, but he really focused on his dad. Then he said something that was very interesting. You would think that he learned from his parents how to be insightful and strong, with all that self-confidence. But none of his other siblings could do what Michael did that day in the church. They received the same lessons from the same parents, just like Michael.
He said, “You know, most of my family has not been able to get past my father being murdered. They still struggle with it to this very day. I looked at my dad, and I was able to think about him having had a good life, and also helping me have my good life. Then I was able to just put it all behind me and go on. I don’t struggle with his death and the way it happened. It’s time to go forward.”
GEORGE KOEHLER
MICHAEL IS VERY SELF-CONTROLLED, VERY CENTERED. IT’S ALL FROM WITHIN. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN HIM LOSE HIS TEMPER? NEVER.
Even with his father’s ordea
l, Michael could step back and take a longer view. Who wouldn’t want revenge? Who wouldn’t want to see those guys die? Michael was very calm and collected. He said, “It doesn’t bring my father back.” Michael didn’t go to the trial. I don’t know if that’s normal, but that’s Michael.
HOWARD “H” WHITE When you get to the idea of the highest vision of one’s self, that’s spirituality in its fullest expression. There aren’t many people who see themselves in that kind of light. It’s hard for a lot of people to see through difficult moments. Not for Michael.
MY FATHER ALWAYS SAID, ONLY BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL.
FRED WHITFIELD I can remember going down to the White Sox facility in Chicago with Michael. He was trying to improve the strength in his forearm.
THERE WERE 100 SHEETS OF NEWSPAPER IN A PILE, AND THEY HAD HIM GRABBING A SHEET, BALLING IT UP IN ONE HAND, THROWING IT IN THE TRASH.
I WATCHED HIM DO THAT FOR HOURS.
GEORGE KOEHLER What Michael did to get himself ready to play baseball was grueling. He would get up every morning and go to the complex in Sarasota where the White Sox had spring training. It was early, way ahead of the other players.
The hitting instructor was Walt Hriniak. Michael would go into the cage and take what baseball players called flips. Walt would flip the ball, and Michael would swing the bat, knocking the ball into the cage. He would do that for an hour to 90 minutes. Then the team would show up, and Michael would go through the regular practice, which ran about three hours. Then he would talk to the media for a few minutes before going back out for another half-hour to an hour, taking more flips.
If you haven’t swung a baseball bat in a while and decided to pick one up and swing it for 15 minutes, your hands would have blisters. His hands were so raw from taking flips that the calluses would rip open every day.
When he came off the field, I don’t know how he could have held anything, much less a bat. The trainers would put a clear, rubberized patch over the inside of his hands. Then they would wrap his hands in gauze and tape.
HE LOOKED LIKE A PRIZEFIGHTER.
The next morning, Michael was back in the cage, swinging a baseball bat for hours. And he never missed a day. Not only did he not miss a day, but he never said a word about his hands. The trainers knew because they were the ones patching them up every day, but Michael never said a thing.
WHEN YOU’RE MICHAEL JORDAN, THAT’S HOW YOU GET READY. ONCE THE ON BUTTON IS PUSHED, THERE ISN’T AN OFF BUTTON.
I KIND OF LOST CONNECTION WITH THE BRAND THE YEAR I PLAYED BASEBALL, BECAUSE WE CAME OUT WITH A SHOE I DIDN’T APPROVE. I HAD SOME DIALOGUE WITH TINKER IN THE EARLY STAGES OF THE X DESIGN PROCESS, AND HE THOUGHT WE WERE IN AGREEMENT. I ALWAYS LIKED MY SHOES CLEAN-TOED. WHEN I SAW THE FINAL VERSION OF THE X, IT ALREADY WAS IN THE MARKETPLACE, AND IT WASN’T CONSISTENT WITH THE WAY I THOUGHT THE SHOE SHOULD LOOK.
THERE WAS A STRAP OF LEATHER GOING ACROSS THE TOP OF THE TOE. THERE WERE A BUNCH OF THEM IN THE MARKET AT THE TIME, BUT WE CAME BACK OUT WITH THE CLEAN-TOED VERSION. I NEVER WORE THAT SHOE. TINKER THOUGHT HE KNEW WHAT I WANTED, AND EVERYONE WAS WORRIED BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT WE HAD CONFUSED THE CONSUMER BY COMING OUT WITH TWO VERSIONS. BUT I WANTED THE SHOE TO BE RIGHT.
TINKER HATFIELD The Jordan X turned out to be fairly commemorative because on each stripe was one of Michael’s accomplishments. That was a time when many people at Nike didn’t want to do any more Jordan shoes. The thought was.
“HE’S RETIRED. LET’S MOVE ON.”
Even Phil was lamenting the end of an era.
THAT WAS THE OVERWHELMING AND PREVAILING ATTITUDE AT NIKE IN 1994:
IT’S OVER. IT’S DONE.
I felt like I was at a point where I had enough clout that I could keep the development of the Jordan XI going single-handedly. I chose to keep a certain percentage of my time dedicated to keeping the brand alive.
I remember talking to Howard White over and over again. I kept asking him if MJ was talking about coming back, and Howard would always say, “He’s done. He’s out, Tinker.” Having said that, Howard did say, “I think it’s OK that you keep this thing going, even if he doesn’t play again.” I think Howard had a feeling similar to mine, that maybe—whether Michael ever played basketball again—the brand could stay alive, I know I totally believed that.
So we fast-forward a few months. The X is put to bed. Begrudgingly, there is some activity on the part of our marketing and sales force. Europe didn’t order any of the Jordan X. Zero. To a lot of people it was like, well, he’s done, so we’re done. Nike’s a fast-moving, ambitious, forward-thinking kind of place, so the sense was that it was time to figure out something else to do. But I was thinking about Michael coming back to basketball.
I THOUGHT WE SHOULD PULL OUT ALL THE STOPS AND MAKE A SHOE OUT OF MATERIALS THAT HAD NEVER BEEN USED IN A BASKETBALL SHOE.
I was looking at nylons you would find on high-end backpacks. I thought about how this shoe could be designed kind of like a convertible car, where you had this shiny body. I even wrote it down: “It’s got rubber on the bottom, then it has a cloth top.” I sketched up a car to explain the thought process, and why the shoe started looking the way it was looking.
Sometimes when I had people going my way, I would hit them with one last thing. The Denver International Airport had just been built, and it was shiny with a cloth top. So I was even trying to use architecture as a way to tell a bit of a design story.
You might ask the same thing about the yellow lawn mower on the inspiration board [pages 144-145]. I thought it was interesting that someone was thinking that even a very pedestrian, everyday utilitarian piece of equipment could be designed to be cool. I remember feeling compelled to defend the use of patent leather, nylon cordura, clear outsoles and carbon fiber plates.
That’s a lot for people to absorb, but I was saying, “Look, there are designers out there designing lawn mowers to look like sports cars. It’s OK. This is the kind of direction I want to take.”
GEORGE KOEHLER Baseball was a bonding experience for Michael. It was a team. It was like a family that did everything together. Not to knock the NBA, but there are a lot of egos involved on an NBA team, because there can be significant differences in what guys make.
NBA guys get into the locker room after a game, shower, talk to the media, and most of them leave separately. In baseball, when the game was over, the players would sit in the clubhouse for a couple hours. They’d drink a couple beers, play dominos, spades or gin.
THEY’D MAKE A PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICH.
When somebody left, the others would ask where he was going. These guys were 18- to 25-year-olds, and they were just trying to make it.
Michael had more money in his pocket than some of those guys made in a year. I saw guys get up in the morning and walk a mile to Denny’s because they had a $1.99 breakfast. And we weren’t staying at the Ritz-Carlton, so it wasn’t like there was room service in those hotels.
FRED WHITFIELD Everyone said Michael bought the team a bus, but he worked out a deal where he bought it and sold it back to the team when he was finished playing. They used to travel around in this little white school bus that would break down all the time. He got a better bus, but it wasn’t like the John Madden cruiser.
These guys would play games at 7 o’clock at night because the days were hot as hell. Then at 10:30, when the game was over, you would shower and drag your own bag to the bus. Then sometimes there was an 11-hour drive all night. It was pretty much like Bull Durham.
I HAD NO IDEA OF COMING BACK.
I DON’T THINK I WOULD HAVE COME BACK IF THERE HADN’T BEEN THE BASEBALL STRIKE. THEY STARTED THROWING ME INTO THAT DISPUTE, SOMETHING I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH. I WAS HAVING FUN DOWN THERE PLAYING BASEBALL. AND IT WAS AN OPPORTUNITY TO PROVE SOMETHING. I WAS GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME. ALL I NEEDED TO GET THAT URGE BACK WAS TO HANG AROUND THE BASKETBALL COURT FOR A WHILE.
I REMEMBER GOING TO BIRMINGHAM AND BEING BORED TO DEATH.
MICH
AEL LOVED IT. HE TRULY LOVED IT. BUT IT WAS A LITTLE BIZARRE.
Those guys had old cars parked in the players’ lot, and Michael was parking his Porsche out past the outfield. He’s got his 911 Porsche, while these guys are driving old Volkswagens.
The team came to North Carolina on one trip, and we all went to watch Michael play. The Barons were staying at the Days Inn.
ONE YEAR EARLIER, MICHAEL WAS STAYING AT THE RITZ-CARLTON IN MARINA DEL RAY, CALIFORNIA, AND NOW HE’S AT THE DAYS INN IN RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA.
He was cool with it, though. But it was really weird. Unbelievable.
It was good for him to get away, but I think he still had a burning desire to get back to basketball. He had a basketball at the house in Birmingham. And he’d go play ball with the guys on the team. They’d go to local parks in Birmingham and play pickup games. It was almost like going back to high school. Michael was just a regular guy. He could go out to dinner without being mobbed. Less than two years earlier, there had been a banner of Michael hanging off a 10-story building in Barcelona, with presidential-like motorcades taking the Dream Team to and from practice. It’s hard to explain how different it all was.
GEORGE KOEHLER Everywhere Michael went, everyone would ask for autographs. We would get to the clubhouse, and there would be six baseballs in a tube sock with the top tied closed. They would be at Michael’s locker. The umpires would ask for autographs. If Michael didn’t sign a thousand balls, it was a bad day.
Some teams would put up extra bleachers or seats when Michael came to town. He loved it. He didn’t care about the expectations. What did he hit, .202? There’s probably a half dozen guys making a million dollars in the big leagues hitting .202. And that was just one year for Michael. Those other guys had been playing their whole life. Michael hadn’t played since he was 15 or 16 years old.
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