that afternoon. At breakfast I chatted up coach Doug Collins and his assistants, Johnny Bach and Tex Winter, both of whom spun more stories than Scheherazade, and I even collected a quote or two from Jordan. That sort of impromptu meeting rarely happens these days. While reporters may graze away at the make-your-own-waffles station, players are eating in a private room or skipping breakfast altogether. But the Bulls in those days were a young team—Jordan, Pippen, Horace Grant—and they made their own waffles.
Jordan was in his fifth season, engaged in the heavy-lifting process of trying to get a championship ring. He had no peer as a player, but there was still a resistance to him. Was he a
winner
, like Bird andMagic? He had become the individual face of the NBA, so seemingly comfortable in the spotlight that few people remembered that he had once been a tongue-tied kid who in 1985 was so nervous that he couldn’t get through his lines in his first McDonald’s commercial.
Although Jordan was cordial, he was not particularly enamored of me at that moment. About seven weeks earlier I had come to Chicago to do a story on Jordan, and he invited me to his suburban townhouse to hang out with him and his boys. One of the delightful aspects of Jordan’s life at that point was how close he had remained to his boyhood chums, who included Adolph Shiver, Fred Whitfield, and Fred Kearns. It was a variation on the customary leader-of-the-pack syndrome that so often gets star athletes into trouble. Some athletes cannot or will not disentangle themselves from their past and end up giving too much money and too much power to guys who shouldn’t be around. But Jordan’s circle consisted of good guys and solid citizens, the whole scene a kind of early
Entourage
, African American style, without the Cristal and the blow. (Whitfield is today president of the Charlotte Bobcats, the franchise partially owned and run by Jordan.)
At the end of the afternoon, a young lady, Juanita Vanoy—who later became Mrs. Michael Jordan, and, years after that, the very rich ex–Mrs. Michael Jordan when she received about $168 million in a divorce settlement—came down the stairs holding a baby. I was astonished because I hadn’t heard that Jordan was a father, and we spent the next thirty minutes billing and cooing over the kid.
Later that night, at the game at Chicago Stadium, Tim Hallam, the Bulls’ PR chief, collared me and said: “You know, Michael expects that you won’t write that he has a son.” Tim was just doing his job.
“But, Tim, I saw the baby,” I answered. “We talked about diapers and stuff like that. He didn’t say anything about not writing it.”
“Well, he told me to tell you that. A couple other guys know it and haven’t written it.”
To me, it was a journalistic dilemma, not a moral one. The list of human beings who have had children out of wedlock is quite long and includes friends and relatives of mine. What did I care? But I didn’t see how I could hide the fact that Jordan had a baby—what was he going to do, store Jeffrey Michael in a closet?—so I put it in that week’s story as the last paragraph.
I was criticized in Chicago both for burying it and for writing it at all. And Jordan let it be known that he was upset. But those were different times, when détente was possible between journalist and subject, and he let it go.
Anyway, at breakfast that morning in Cleveland, the Bulls left, and a teenager stealthily approached the table and grabbed a utensil.
“Look!” he shouted. “Michael Jordan’s fork! Michael Jordan ate with this fork!” He stuck it in his pocket and walked out of the restaurant.
I’ve thought about that fork from time to time. Does he still have it in a collection somewhere? Is it on eBay? Encased in glass at his law office?
When you hung around Jordan, your story quite often almost wrote itself. A year earlier during a visit to Chicago, I was waiting for Jordan after
Jordan was in his fifth season, engaged in the heavy-lifting process of trying to get a championship ring. He had no peer as a player, but there was still a resistance to him. Was he a
winner
, like Bird andMagic? He had become the individual face of the NBA, so seemingly comfortable in the spotlight that few people remembered that he had once been a tongue-tied kid who in 1985 was so nervous that he couldn’t get through his lines in his first McDonald’s commercial.
Although Jordan was cordial, he was not particularly enamored of me at that moment. About seven weeks earlier I had come to Chicago to do a story on Jordan, and he invited me to his suburban townhouse to hang out with him and his boys. One of the delightful aspects of Jordan’s life at that point was how close he had remained to his boyhood chums, who included Adolph Shiver, Fred Whitfield, and Fred Kearns. It was a variation on the customary leader-of-the-pack syndrome that so often gets star athletes into trouble. Some athletes cannot or will not disentangle themselves from their past and end up giving too much money and too much power to guys who shouldn’t be around. But Jordan’s circle consisted of good guys and solid citizens, the whole scene a kind of early
Entourage
, African American style, without the Cristal and the blow. (Whitfield is today president of the Charlotte Bobcats, the franchise partially owned and run by Jordan.)
At the end of the afternoon, a young lady, Juanita Vanoy—who later became Mrs. Michael Jordan, and, years after that, the very rich ex–Mrs. Michael Jordan when she received about $168 million in a divorce settlement—came down the stairs holding a baby. I was astonished because I hadn’t heard that Jordan was a father, and we spent the next thirty minutes billing and cooing over the kid.
Later that night, at the game at Chicago Stadium, Tim Hallam, the Bulls’ PR chief, collared me and said: “You know, Michael expects that you won’t write that he has a son.” Tim was just doing his job.
“But, Tim, I saw the baby,” I answered. “We talked about diapers and stuff like that. He didn’t say anything about not writing it.”
“Well, he told me to tell you that. A couple other guys know it and haven’t written it.”
To me, it was a journalistic dilemma, not a moral one. The list of human beings who have had children out of wedlock is quite long and includes friends and relatives of mine. What did I care? But I didn’t see how I could hide the fact that Jordan had a baby—what was he going to do, store Jeffrey Michael in a closet?—so I put it in that week’s story as the last paragraph.
I was criticized in Chicago both for burying it and for writing it at all. And Jordan let it be known that he was upset. But those were different times, when détente was possible between journalist and subject, and he let it go.
Anyway, at breakfast that morning in Cleveland, the Bulls left, and a teenager stealthily approached the table and grabbed a utensil.
“Look!” he shouted. “Michael Jordan’s fork! Michael Jordan ate with this fork!” He stuck it in his pocket and walked out of the restaurant.
I’ve thought about that fork from time to time. Does he still have it in a collection somewhere? Is it on eBay? Encased in glass at his law office?
When you hung around Jordan, your story quite often almost wrote itself. A year earlier during a visit to Chicago, I was waiting for Jordan after
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