How to Be Like Mike

by Pat Williams

  Everytime I lose, I die a little.

  —George Allen

  FORMER NFL COACH

  Once Jordan played pool against Doherty and lost. Afterward, Michael tossed his cue onto the table and declared, “This table is not regulation.”

  To be successful you have to like to lose a little less than everybody else.

  —Phil Jackson

  In college, after a grueling practice, he would insist on running races in the parking lot against his teammates. “Michael would deny this, but he never won a race,” said UNC teammate Joe Wolf. “Buzz Peterson and Kenny Smith were faster and would always beat him. But afterward, Michael would always say, ‘Let’s go again. ’He knew that to get faster, he had to run against faster people.”

  He had a wicked memory. He never forgot a loss. And he never forgot to collect on a bet. Once he sent a clubhouse boy to collect five dollars from NBA veteran Vin Baker, on a bet that Baker insists Jordan lost. “Sometimes,” said ex-Bulls coach Phil Jackson, “he’d come to me and say, ‘Coach, you know, you still owe me two dollars. ’And it would be from some free throws he’d hit in practice months ago.”

  It wasn’t about the money, of course. It was about the trophy. It was about confidence and bragging rights. It was about the last word. When someone would offer to bet him on something, and they’d ask how much, Jordan would often reply, “Whatever makes you nervous.”

  One night, soon after he made his return to the NBA from baseball, Jordan sat down in the fourth quarter with the Bulls leading Utah comfortably. He had forty-nine points. He turned to the crew on press row and asked, “What’s the league high-scoring game this year?” Somebody called back, “Karl Malone, fifty-four points.”

  I love this game and I love competing. I love it when I get hit and when I hit back.

  —Steve Young

  FORMER NFL QUARTERBACK

  Jordan checked back into the game, scored three quick baskets, and sat down again. “Now the high is fifty-five,” he said.

  This is a man whose assumed name when he checked into hotels was that of the teammate, Leroy Smith, who beat him out for the varsity basketball team in tenth grade. He remembered criticisms that out-of-town reporters had written years before, and he remembered challenges that had been issued months before. In an interview with ESPN’s Dan Patrick immediately after the 1998 finals, Patrick joked about being able to take Jordan one-on-one, and Jordan challenged him right there.

  “Just minutes before, this guy hit one of the biggest shots in basketball history,” Patrick said. “Then he wants to play me just to shut me up.”

  He had a goal of dunking on every center in the league. He even dunked on his own teammate, Corie Blount, during a celebrity game. He spent a great deal of effort trying to dunk on the Hawks’ rangy shot-blocker, Dikembe Mutombo, and when he finally did, in a play-off game after Jordan emerged from retirement, he taunted Mutombo with a waggle of his finger.

  Before the first game of a Bulls–Miami Heat play-off series, Michael went out to meet the refs. He shook Keith Askins’s hand, but he ignored Alonzo Mourning. That was MJ’s way of getting into Zo’s head.

  —Ike Austin

  NBA PLAYER

  “I told you I’d dunk on you,” Jordan told him. “That’s why I came back.”

  “Michael would take any little thing someone said and create a challenge for himself to beat that person or team,” said Lakers center Shaquille O’Neal. “He kept his edge because he just made up stuff in his mind. You did not want to make Michael mad.”

  Jordan’s instincts led him astray at times. This was the side effect. With such a finely honed competitive instinct, it was nearly impossible to let go. Said Phil Jackson:“The greatness of Michael Jordan is his competitive drive. The weakness of Michael Jordan is his competitive drive.”

  When Jordan was embroiled in a controversy after taking a gambling trip to Atlantic City during an NBA play-off series against the Knicks, his own father admitted that what Jordan had was not a gambling problem, but a competition problem. “But if he didn’t have a competition problem,” James Jordan said, “nobody ever would have written about him in the first place, and he never would have gotten to the level he did.”

  What you may not remember is that, in the midst of the Atlantic City controversy, the Bulls won that series against the Knicks. “The media ripped Michael,” said Knicks general manager Ernie Grunfeld, “but all that did was wake him up. He was saying, in effect, ‘I’ll always be there to do my job. And if you arouse me, I’ll really destroy you. ’”

  That’s the thing. Outside influences never affected his job. On a night during the 1992 NBA Finals in Portland, Jordan was sitting in his room with a few of his old friends from North Carolina, and they were riding him, talking trash about his game. This was around ten at night, and Jordan said, “All right, let’s see you back it up.” They drove to a Nike facility and Michael opened up the gym and they played pickup games late into the night.

  I want to be the best. Maybe not the best coach, but the best winner. You can name me the worst coach if you give me twenty rings. I want to win.

  —Doc Rivers

  COACH, ORLANDO MAGIC

  The next day against Portland, Jordan put up forty points.

  A healthy measure of competition, kept in perspective, is crucial. It breeds confidence, which helps us to overcome obstacles, to take risks, to allay our fears and to win. Six NBA championship rings were not attained by backing away from a challenge.

  Building Wings

  This was in Chicago, during a game between the Bulls and Hawks that came down to the final moments. There were twenty seconds left and Steve Kerr had the ball for Chicago and began to drive toward the basket, and as he did, Jordan, sensing Kerr’s move wasn’t going to work, called a time-out. After the time-out, the ball went to Jordan, isolated on Mookie Blaylock. He hit the shot. He won the game.

  He always wanted the ball in these situations. He almost always got the ball. When he didn’t, he was infuriated. During spring training in 1994, when Jordan was playing baseball, he played in a pickup basketball game. He scored every basket, but on the last play, his manager, Terry Francona (against whom Jordan spent the entire season embroiled in an ongoing game of Yahtzee), missed a wide-open shot that would have won the game.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” Jordan said. “In any game, I take the last shot.”

  He was supremely confident. He never considered that he could be denied the basketball, or that he could be denied his shot. In Game Three of the 1991 NBA Finals, when the Bulls faced the Lakers, the Los Angeles coaches specifically instructed their players not to allow Jordan to touch the ball on Chicago’s last possession. “The play started,” recalled Lakers assistant Bill Bertka, “and Michael got the ball, raced down the court and scored. The Bulls won and went on to sweep us. That was so typical of MJ.”

  There’s an elation to winning.

  —Joe Paterno

  So typical that a nearly identical scenario had occurred in 1989, with the Bulls leading the Knicks 3–2 in a play-off series. Late in the game, the Knicks led by one, and New York coach Rick Pitino called time-out. “Whatever we do,” Pitino said, “we’re not going to be beaten by Michael Jordan. Do not allow him to catch the ball. I want two of you to deny him, and if he does get it, double-team him immediately.”

  Jordan fought off the defenders. He got the ball. He dribbled through a trap, got fouled, hit both free throws, won the game and ended the series.

  Once, in the fourth quarter of a game against Phoenix, Jordan stood next to former Suns coach Cotton Fitzsimmons on an inbounds play and declared, “Cotton, I want you to know it’s all over now.”

  “My rookie year with the Clippers, we’re up on the Bulls at home by five with forty seconds left,” said the Memphis Grizzlies’ Lorenzen Wright. “We had the ball out of bounds. We inbounded into the backcourt, which gave the Bulls the ball. Michael hit a three. Then Michael intercepted Rodney Rogers�
�s pass and hit a shot at the buzzer to tie it. We went ino overtime and the Bulls won. What an introduction to Michael.”

  “My rookie year, we’re in Chicago and up by one late in the game,” said the Hawks’ Chris Crawford. “MJ hit a bank shot to put the Bulls up by one. Then we came down and Steve Smith got fouled. He hit them both and we’re back up by one. The last play of the game MJ hit a jumper and the Bulls won. MJ walked off the floor like it was no big deal—just another day at the office. He had forty-nine that night.”

  I think I’m lucky. I was born with very little talent, but great drive.

  —Anthony Quinn

  ACTOR

  On what was supposed to be a day off for him before the 1996 play-offs, Jordan arrived at the gym wearing a pair of sweatpants and worn-out canvas sneakers. He wanted to join the team’s scrimmage, but Phil Jackson had insisted that he sit out, take it easy. Jordan couldn’t resist. He laced up his canvas sneakers and barged onto the court.

  “Michael was all over the place, making steals and blocks,” recalled his former teammate, John Salley. “One play he made a steal and dunked right over me. As he’s soaring over me, he said, ‘Try to block this one. ’ I thought to myself, now I understand.”

  While the law of competition may be hard sometimes for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.

  —Andrew Carnegie

  Former Bulls teammate, Charles Davis, understood as well. He said, “When I practiced against MJ I never backed down because he wouldn’t allow you to. If you slacked off against him, he’d bury you because he felt you were cheating him. Michael knew the harder he was pushed in practice, the better he’d play in the games.”

  “Michael’s rookie year in Chicago, we came out of training camp one night and we’re walking to my car,” said former Bull Rod Higgins. “It was late and dark and we heard a dog bark.

  “I said, ‘Michael, do you hear that dog?’

  “Michael said, ‘Yeah. ’

  “Then the barking got louder and closer and out of nowhere we saw this big German shepherd running after us. We started running around the car. Michael left me in the dust. Even threw a couple of elbows at me. He wasn’t going to let the dog or me beat him.

  “Michael ended up jumping on the hood of my car. He left a dent in it. Finally, the dog left. I guess he had bigger fish to fry.”

  “Michael had a mean streak,” said ex-Bulls coach Doug Collins. “He could be vicious. All the great geniuses of the world were like that. We’re talking about the Einsteins, the Edisons, the Roosevelts. These people came across something and worked to perfect it. You played one-on-one with Michael, and he was not going to let you score.”

  We cheat ourselves when our self-esteem falters. Lack of confidence is the primary reason that we shy away from competition, and without competition, there is no possibility for success. But confidence can be built—if we are willing to face those things we fear, and if we are willing to take the risks. For most of us it is not a matter of playing hurt, or taking the final shot, or fighting for victory in such an overt sense. It is more subtle, something that exists in the environments we cohabit, in the classroom or the boardroom or the sales floor. It is an urge to succeed that overwhelms our urge to take the easy way out.

  Franklin Roosevelt was the only person I ever knew—anywhere—who was never afraid.

  —Lyndon B. Johnson

  Historian Jeffry D. Wert observed that trait in studying the life of Confederate General Robert E. Lee: “A Texan in the Confederate Army compared Lee’s temperament to that of ‘a game cock. ’ The mere presence of an enemy aroused his pugnacity,” he wrote, “and was a challenge he found hard to decline.” General James Longstreet described this trait in Lee as “headlong combativeness.” Lee’s battle correspondence bristles with words like “destroy,” “ruin,” “crush,” and “wipe out” when referring to what he wanted to do to Union armies.

  If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time, and build your wings on the way down.

  —Ray Bradbury

  AUTHOR

  “We had beaten the Bulls regularly through MJ’s first six seasons,” said former Detroit Pistons general manager Jack McCloskey. “After we beat the Bulls in the 1990 play-offs in Detroit, I saw Michael outside the arena, leaning against a pole. I stopped and talked to him. He was really dejected. He said, ‘Jack, are we ever going to beat you guys?’ I told him to hang in there. The rest is history.”

  “I will die with no bullets in my holster,” Jordan said. “Like with injuries, you have to ask yourself what they mean. How bad are they? One time I sprained my ankle, and my whole foot was huge. It happened in a game, and I retaped it, laced up my shoe and kept playing. We traveled home and I kept it in ice and elevated it, iced it the whole next day, and that night I scored sixty-four against Orlando. . . . It’s all a mind game. Maybe some of it is genetic. I don’t know if you can teach it, because it’s internal. . . . I hope people who hear my stories can look inside themselves and maybe push a little harder.”

  When I was in college, I found out that the MVPs and all-league team and all that are hugely political. So I decided that if I win every game, that becomes historical fact, not anyone’s opinion.

  —Bill Russell

  Early into his second year as a professional, Jordan broke his foot. The Bulls wanted him to sit out the season, many observers said, because they wanted to improve their status in the NBA draft lottery. Jordan refused. He couldn’t accept the idea of purposeful defeat. Even though the Bulls were nearly twenty games under . 500, he still thought he could lead them to the play-offs. And he did. And in a play-off series against the Celtics, Jordan had his first transcendent moment on the national stage, scoring sixty-three points in defeat.

  His mind-set was at least part of what made him as successful as he was. He was completely uncompromising. This kind of mind-set, this obsession, fuels winning in sports. Grove couldn’t accept the idea of losing.

  —Jim Kaplan, AUTHOR

  ON HALL OF FAME

  PITCHER LEFTY GROVE

  He played to win. His urge was strong enough to deny sickness and pain, to turn them from debilitating factors into kindling for his fury. Once he left a play-off game against Atlanta on a stretcher and came back to score twenty in the fourth quarter for the win. Before the legendary Sick Game at Utah in the 1997 finals, Jordan’s anger was directed toward the Bulls franchise, toward the team doctors who couldn’t heal him fast enough, toward the choice of team hotel in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, which led Jordan to eat the lousy pizza he’d consumed the night before, and which, in Jordan’s mind, had made him sick. “He used all this stuff to motivate himself,” said Chicago sportswriter Rick Telander. “To play with an edge.”

  Sports columnist Mike Lupica once had a Jordan motivation experience: “In 1996, MJ was back from baseball and came to NewYork for a game. The Bulls practiced at the Reebok Club on the west side of Manhattan. Michael came out and headed to the bus when he saw me off to the side. We chatted and then he said, ‘Last year on your television show, you said I’d lost a step. Do you still think I’ve lost a step?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t. ’ He smiled like a ten-year-old and walked to the bus. I thought, ‘There is nothing he won’t do to motivate himself. ’”

  On Valentine’s Day 1990, Jordan’s uniform was stolen before a game at Orlando. “I’m not mad at you,” Jordan told Magic trainer Keith Jones, “but you all will have to pay.”

  “And we did,” Jones said.

  When the Bulls played the Nets one night, with the Nets streaking and the Bulls in the midst of a lull, New Jersey Nets broadcaster Mike O’Koren declared to Jordan during a pregame interview that the Bulls would lose.

  Jordan was tying his shoes. He looked up and said, “What?”


  “The Nets are going to beat you tonight,” O’Koren said.

  “No,” Jordan said. “That’s not going to happen.”

  He had thirty-five points after three quarters. The Bulls won easily. Late in the game, he hit a shot to seal the victory and backpedaled downcourt and looked over at O’Koren and shook his head.

  Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.

  —William Shakespeare

  He wore a small pad on one of his knees, and if his knee hurt, he’d switch the pad from one leg to the other so the other team wouldn’t know if he was injured. He would come back and play the next day on sprained ankles, on sore feet, on bad knees. “His pain threshold was remarkable—so far beyond normal players,” said former Bulls general manager Rod Thorn. “He just wouldn’t be left out. He had to compete and beat you.”

  Former NBA player Kenny Smith remembered, “When I played at North Carolina, all the NBA guys would come back to play in the summer. During the scrimmages, Michael would never leave the court. Not even for a drink of water. Between games, he’d stand out at mid court. I asked him why and he said, ‘I don’t need water. I don’t need anything. I’m not leaving the whole time. ’”

  When we learn to take chances, when we learn to see past our fears, we reach a point of near-invincibility. Certainly, we cannot avoid losses, and we cannot eliminate setbacks, but they will begin to slide off our backs. And then anything is possible, because we believe it ourselves.