How to Be Like Mike

by Pat Williams

  The word influence is the best one-word definition of leadership. Leaders are people who influence others to think, feel or act in certain ways.

  —Hans Finzel

  AUTHOR

  “The day after Michael had a big game in the finals, I was standing up and eating at Al’s Italian Beef on Taylor Street in Chicago,” said Bulls fan Steve Rodheim. “Standing next to me was a huge African-American policeman. We started talking about Michael and his performance. We talked about what Michael meant to the city of Chicago. I looked over and the policeman was sobbing. Big tears just rolling down his cheeks.”

  There is a story that writer Pete Hamill tells, set in the dusty hills of central Mexico. There, Hamill found a young boy herding goats, wearing a pair of tattered jeans, sneakers tied with twine, and a bright red T-shirt with Jordan’s No. 23 on the back. Hamill approached the boy and asked him how he’d become such a Michael Jordan fan here, thousands of miles from Jordan’s direct sphere of influence.

  Without heroes we are all plain people and don’t know how far we can go.

  —Bernard Malamud

  WRITER

  “Porque su papa fue aesinado,” he whispered. “Y todavia es el campeon de todo el mundo.”

  Translation:“Because his father was murdered. And he is still the champion of the whole world.”

  In compiling anecdotes for this book, I spoke to a fan named Jack Cory, who was at an archaeological dig in Israel, just north of Jerusalem, when he came across a pair of young men who had been digging for seven years.

  “Where are you from?” one of the men asked.

  “Chicago,” Cory said.

  And one of the men replied:“Oh! Michael Jordan!”

  In 1991, the Bulls were in Los Angeles to play the Lakers in the Finals. On the bus, the players were teasing each other about who knew the most famous people. The debate raged on and Michael remained quiet. Someone yelled, “How about you, Michael?Who do you know who’s famous?” MJ said, “Who do you want me to call?” Someone said, “How about Janet Jackson?” MJ placed a call and said, “Hi, Janet. This is Mike. Give me a call.” Someone said, “Aw, you’re just faking it.” Thirty seconds later, the phone rang. It was Janet Jackson. John Salley said, “That’s when we knew there was us, and there was Michael Jordan!”

  Tony Kornheiser, Washington sports writer, said, “I have a photo in my den that is very special. It was taken in a box on the night Jordan joined the Wizards. On the left is Ted Leonsis, then MJ, Abe Pollin and Bill Clinton. Let me tell you, Michael is clearly the focal point of the picture. You can tell that he is the sheriff.”

  Top-Selling Issues of the

  Chicago Tribune since 1986:

  1. Bulls Win 6th NBA Title

  2. Bulls Win 3rd NBA Title

  3. Bears Win Super Bowl XX

  4. Bulls Win 4th NBA Title

  5. Bulls Win 1st NBA Title

  6. U. S. Fighters Attack Iraq

  7. Bulls Win 2nd NBA Title

  8. Bulls Win 5th NBA Title

  Jordan is the anomaly, of course. Most of us are not afforded such great channels to influence people. We have to accomplish it on a smaller scale, amid our circle of acquaintances and family members and employees. But still, it is a crucial measure of our success as leaders: the attitude we leave in our wake. The example we set.

  The Presence of

  Greatness

  Few things are harder to put up with, than the annoyance of a good example.

  —Mark Twain

  Jordan’s influence on sport was as vast as any athlete’s in the twentieth century. It is difficult to even quantify Jordan’s effect upon the NBA itself. But the stories are universally glowing.

  Vinny Del Negro was playing for San Antonio shortly after Jordan came back from baseball. He was guarding Jordan when they both went after a loose ball, and Del Negro grabbed Jordan by the arm, holding him back, and the ball tumbled out of bounds.

  Jordan grinned. “You’ve learned a few things since I’ve been gone,” he said.

  “That stuck with me,” Del Negro said. “The way he said it. The look in his eyes.”

  At UCLA we have adopted twenty-three principles to guide our team. Why twenty-three? That’s in honor of Michael’s uniform number.

  —Steve Lavin

  UCLA BASKETBALL COACH

  Jerome Williams, the Detroit Pistons forward, saw Jordan in the locker-room hallway after the Bulls had beaten Indiana in 1997 to make the NBA Finals. Williams was standing around, waiting for his ride, and Jordan walked past and greeted him and said, “I just wanted to tell you that you had a good year. You’re a hard worker. You’re going to make it.”

  “I’ll never forget that,” Williams said. “On MJ’s big day, he encouraged me.”

  He did the same for so many of his teammates. With encouragement, with influence, he elevated their game. He empowered them. Jud Buechler, an unspectacular but steady member of the Bulls’championship teams, still remembers the first practice after Jordan came back from retirement. Jordan threw a pass, Buechler hit a shot, and Jordan gave him a high-five. A high-five from Michael Jordan, Buechler thought.

  “I thought I was larger than life,” Buechler said. “I was ready to dive for loose balls, run through a wall. One little compliment from a guy like that is huge. If you’re Michael Jordan and you come to practice and start giving guys compliments, it goes a long way.”

  “Late in my career, I was with the Cavs and we were playing the Bulls,” said former NBA player Scott Brooks. “I’m standing at the top of the circle during a free throw, right next to Michael Jordan. I thought, This is kind of cool. Michael says, ‘What’s up, Scotty?’ I thought, He knows my name. Then he says, ‘Scotty, you’ve had a great career. You should be proud of what you’ve accomplished. ’We were down by thirty at the time, but still—that made me feel so good.”

  We are all afforded this position at some point: with our children, with our employees, with those who respect our accomplishments. It is up to us to empower those who will eventually inherit our tasks, just as it is up to us to accept the advice of those who came before us.

  “If I had been born on an island, learned the game all by myself and developed into the player I became without ever seeing another example, then maybe I would accept being called the greatest,” Jordan said. “But I have used all the great players who came before me to improve upon my game. And somewhere, there is a little kid working to enhance what we’ve done. Unless they change the height of the basket or otherwise alter the dimensions of the game, there will be a player much greater than me.”

  Just as Jordan emulated Walter Davis and David Thompson before him, so do Grant Hill and Kobe Bryant and the hundreds of other journeyman pros in the league attempt—if even for a moment—to approach Jordan’s genius. Even just to play against him was a thrill for the NBA’s next generation; there was always that romantic hope that they might absorb the tiniest sliver of his magic.

  “I always dreamed of playing against Michael Jordan,” said forward BenWallace.

  “When I first came into the NBA,” said ex-pro Tom Tolbert, “I found myself watching MJ in amazement. That’s not what you should be doing, but I felt like a fan.”

  When Don Reid was a rookie in Detroit, his coaches specifically warned him not to stare at Jordan. “I still did it,” he said.

  “I’ve saved every tape of every game I’ve played against Michael,” said NBA veteran Dana Barros. “I’m saving them to show my kids.”

  Jordan’s legacy in the athletic world is so immense that it transcends the boundaries of his sport, or even his gender; the fact is, by serving as an example, he subtly changed the attitude of many modern athletes. The list of those who cite Jordan as a role model is virtually endless.

  “I don’t even know if he knows this or cares, but I have tried to emulate him on and off the field,” said Derek Jeter, the New York Yankees shortstop, who first met Jordan when they played together in the Arizona Fall Basebal
l League. “He carries himself in a classy, dignified manner, and I think a lot of athletes could learn from his examples as a player and entrepreneur.”

  When you are in the presence of greatness, drop your pail in their well! You may never get a second opportunity. Greatness surrounds you like winds, every day. Your responsibility is to harness it, pull it toward you, and absorb it.

  —Mike Murdock

  AUTHOR

  One night, my son Alan, then eleven, was watching the Bulls play the Magic. He leaned over to my wife and said, “Michael doesn’t have any tattoos, does he? I like that.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t have worked so hard to present a positive image,” Jordan said. “But our thinking was always that people wanted to see a positive role model, someone who gets along with everyone.”

  “I want to have a positive impact on the players of today and the future,” Jordan said, “but I worry some about money dominating the sport. I guess you can say that I’m part of it, but I have never let money affect the way I approached the game. It was far more important for me to know that I was going to be remembered for the way I played the game and not the commercials I made.”

  A chapter in author Roland Lazenby’s book about the Bulls, Blood on the Horns, detailed Jordan’s tough persona with his teammates; the New York Knicks gave a copy of the book to all of their players, hoping it would rub off. “MJ was Bobby Knight in short pants,” Lazenby said.

  It leads us back to Jordan’s tireless practice habits, to his relentless work ethic—another of his legacies to the league’s next generation. There was a time in 1993, Lazenby says, when the Bulls hit a lull in the schedule. They were tired of practice, tired of training, tired of each other. Coach Phil Jackson called for a practice, and the players sat in the training room and complained. Finally, Jordan said, “Let’s go, millionaires,” and on to practice they went. “He knew that, as a pro, that was your obligation,” Lazenby said.

  “I was a freshman at North Carolina, and we heard Michael was coming to practice,” said NBA player Antawn Jamison. “Coach Smith let us play practice games that day. Everyone acted like it was a real game. MJ made everyone play at a higher level. Everyone elvated their game because no one wanted to disappoint him.”

  “When your best player puts it on the line every day, the other guys can’t cut corners,” said longtime NBA coach George Karl. “It’s leading by example. They have to work at the same level as the top guy. That’s what Michael did in Chicago and that’s why the Bulls were so successful.”

  In 1996, after the Bulls swept the Magic in the playoffs, Michael told me, “Hang in there and don’t get down. Your time is coming.” I never forgot that.

  —Shaquille O’Neal

  In April 2001, my wife Ruth and I flew to Boston for the Boston Marathon. Just prior to the flight, I began to experience flu-like symptoms. As hours passed and the race drew near, I was faced with the decision: Should I immediately return to Orlando, or should I “tough it out” and stay committed to the race?

  It was more than my resolute, competitive nature that carried me to Hopkinton to participate in the race. During six of the most grueling, arduous hours of my life, it was the indelible image of Michael Jordan in the unforgettable “sick game” in the ’97 finals against Utah that inspired me to finish the race. My mantra:“If Michael can play sick, then I can, too!”

  What mattered more than money to Michael was respect. And reputation. The first time the Bulls’ longtime broadcaster, Johnny “Red” Kerr, noticed this was in 1990, when Jordan refused to relent during a meaningless game against New Jersey. When it was over, Jordan told Kerr’s wife that every game mattered, and that no matter the size of the crowd, he was striving to play that unattainable“perfect game.” He figured he owed at least that much to the fans who adored him.

  The Power of Michael

  This was in 1992, in Barcelona, the NBA’s Dream Team on the cusp of the Olympics. Michael Jordan, Julius Erving, NBA coach Chuck Daly and television announcer Jim Gray were afforded the opportunity to play golf at a special course in the Pyrenees Mountains of Spain. Jordan, of course, has a strong affinity for golf. The only entry to this course was by helicopter, so the foursome left the hotel at 7:30 A. M. , flew for an hour and a half, and set down at this golf club nestled in the mountains. There was no sign of people as they teed off, barely even a sign of civilization, except for a couple of club members. By the third hole, however, a small crowd began to gather;by the sixth hole, there were thirty people. By the ninth hole, there were a hundred people, and more straggling in from the surrounding mountains. By the fifteenth hole, the entire course was mobbed, people watching from fairways and greens, trampling all over the course. By the eighteenth hole, the crowd was five and six deep, nearly fifteen hundred people fighting for a glimpse. By the time the helicopter took off to bring them back to Barcelona, the crowd was swarming, people grabbing hold, desperate for a second’s view.

  “How did this happen?” Jim Gray said. “That’s the power of Michael.”

  “To many, Michael Jordan is the prototype of a hero . . . the Sir Galahad riding to the rescue . . . and it has elevated him to such high proportions,” wrote the Chicago Tribune’s Sam Smith. “He’s a Prince Charming, a storybook character, one of those things people carry in their hearts and their hopes.”

  Certainly, no athlete of his time has aroused as much passion from his fans as Jordan. Just ask the lady in Denver who lay down underneath the team bus and refused to leave until Jordan signed an autograph. Or ask Jordan himself, who has seen people nearly faint at the sight of him. They are rendered helpless and speechless, minds frozen in terror and wonderment, unable to convey a single coherent thought.

  “People just seem to talk a little faster when they talk to me,” Jordan said. “They’ll stutter a little bit and they’ll be hurrying up what they say, like they have to say it very quickly, without pausing. I just try to listen the best I can. I don’t consider it any kind of power on my part. I really don’t. It’s them assuming something about me.”

  My wife named a cat after Michael.

  —Drew Goodman

  DENVER NUGGETS’ BROADCASTER

  And the way Jordan combated this fear was by being unassuming, by ingratiating himself to people even in the briefest of interchanges. He’d combat their nervousness by displaying a coolness of his own, something that touched hundreds of fans who were afforded the unique opportunity of meeting Jordan. Like Bill Holmes, whose son, on his first day as a ball boy for the Bulls, missed the train to Chicago Stadium. When he arrived, Jordan considered him, coolly. “Who are you?” he said.

  “I’m a new ball boy.”

  Jordan wrapped him in a playful headlock. “You’re fresh meat,” he joked. “But you’re at home here.”

  He had an easy way with people, a power to connect with them. Sportswriter Jon Saraceno took his son to meet Jordan at a Sports Illustrated dinner. Jordan signed Sebastian Saraceno’s book, then asked him, “Are you going to be in school tomorrow?”

  When Jordan left, Jon Saraceno looked down at his son and saw he was crying.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “I just met Michael Jordan,” Sebastian said.

  Jean Morse took her ten-year-old son to an IMAX theatre showing of Jordan’s movie, and the lights went down, and in walked Jordan. The crowd exploded, and amid the din, Jordan picked out Jean Morse’s son, bent down, looked him in the eye and asked, “Do you have all your homework done?”

  “My son was awed,” Morse said.

  When I was at Tennessee, we visited Michael at his office in Chicago. He made us feel right at home the whole time.

  —Chamique Holdsclaw

  WASHINGTON MYSTICS

  So was mine. His name is Richie, and one spring he was a ball boy for a Bulls-Magic game, and I introduced him to Michael Jordan. As Richie stood in frozen reverence, Jordan passed on this advice:

  1. “If you want to do something and you love doing i
t, then do it.”

  2. “Whatever you choose to do, work hard at it.”

  3. “You’ve got to get it done in the classroom to be successful.”

  I think those mantras have been burned in Richie’s psyche ever since.

  This was something Jordan did often, making an extra effort with children. He never let it overwhelm him. He understood his impact was phenomenal. He’d ask the autograph-seeking kids who would hang outside the arena door during morning practices, “Why aren’t you in school today?”When a road game forced him out of town on Halloween in his first year as a pro, he left a note for the children who knocked on his door:“Kids, sorry I missed you. If you still want to trick-or-treat, come back in three days.” When two young boys knocked on his front door, asking Jordan’s wife if he could come out and play, Jordan had just pulled into the driveway on his way home from the golf course. He got out and handed each of them a golf ball.

  At his summer basketball camps, the kids often surveyed him with paralyzing awe. “But he makes people forget he’s Michael Jordan, and makes them feel like they’re the important person,” said Donna Biemiller, who’s worked at Jordan’s camps. “At camp, they’re so scared, but he allows the kids to relax with his sense of humor, and they have a memorable moment with him.”

  “I see people getting so nervous to meet me, and I know that I’m just some person, so why should I be nervous?” Jordan said. “If they’re nervous meeting me, and I know that they have no reason to be, I have no reason to be nervous meeting anyone.”

  Michael runs a summer fantasy camp in Las Vegas for executives who pay twenty-five thousand dollars to play with MJ and other celebrities. Jordan is totally hands-on from 7:30 A. M. one-on-one games to late-night card games. Everyone stands in line to get a photo with Michael, including the coaches, some of the biggest names in the business.

  These were not obligatory efforts, either. It mattered to Jordan to make a difference. On numerous occasions Jordan met with dying children before an All-Star game or a play-off game. Often, sessions that were supposed to last ten minutes went on for half an hour or longer. Jordan would sign autographs, pose for photos, learn names and include them in the conversation. Sometimes he came away with tear-stained eyes.