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his team together was to recognize Jordan’s leadership qualities, his overriding passion. Before the competition began, he pulled Jordan aside and told him he might make an example of him as a way to motivate some of the less driven players on the team.
    The morning of the gold-medal game, Knight had prepared an elaborate pep talk, full of hyperbole and euphemisms. But when he walked into his office that day, someone had dropped a yellow piece of paper on his chair.
    “Coach,” it said. “Don’t worry. We’ve put up with too much garbage to lose now.”
    It was signed, “The Team.”
    The Team, Knight understood, was Jordan. And so Knight never gave his speech. He never had to.
    The USA led Spain by twenty-seven points at halftime, and Knight leaned over to Jordan and shouted at him, as a ploy to avoid a second-half slump, “When are you going to start setting some screens?”
    Jordan smiled. “Coach,” he said, “didn’t I read some place where you said I was the quickest player you ever coached?”
    “Yeah,” Knight said. “What’s that got to do with it?”
    “Coach, I set those screens faster than you could see them.”
    Michael Jordan is one of the greatest competitors I’ve ever seen in any sport. And he looks like he’s always enjoying it.
    —JohnWooden
BASKETBALL COACH
    Lesser players with lesser resolves and flagging spirits have slogged amid Knight’s prickly nature, disturbed by his constant ribbing. Not Jordan. In the grizzled eye of the beast, he made heady pronunciations and cracked bold one-liners, engulfed and shielded by his passion for the game.

D on’t wish it were easier. Wish you were better.
    —Jim Rohn
author and speaker
    A s the dutiful, sometimes distracted and rather harried father of nineteen—yes, you are reading that right—biological and A adopted children, it is an element of my duty to douse the fires that sprout forth in youth. So a few months ago I made a speaking appearance in Gainesville, Florida, then went off to fulfill my commitment as a father by springing for dinner for my twin South Korean sons, Thomas and Stephen, who were mired in summer school at the University of Florida.
    We met at a Mexican restaurant. We sat, and as the waitress slid bowls of nacho chips and salsa in front of us, I asked howschoolwas going, and the trouble began.
    “Dad,” Stephen said, “Thomas isn’t doing so well.”
    I turned to Thomas. He said nothing. So I turned back to Stephen. “Since you seem to be your brother’s spokesman this evening,” I said, “perhaps you can tell me why he’s not doing so well.”
    “Thomas is burned out,” Stephen said.
    I pivoted back to Thomas, who wore a despondent frown. He nodded. “Dad,” he said, “I’m burned out on school.”
    “So?” I said.
    “So I think I need a summer off.”
    Burned out? I thought. Thomas was taking a few paltry summer session credits, and he was burned out. I straightened. My voice tightened, wrapped in the paternally stern tone of a father who had heard this a thousand times before.
    “Tom,” I said. “Get over it.”
    Before he could speak again, I was in the midst of a rather dutiful lecture about responsibility, about dedication, about the constancy of work. “I haven’t had a summer off in forty-five years,” I said. “And neither will you. So get used to it.”
    I am happy to report that Thomas got an A in summer school. And neither he nor Stephen will ever dare to use the phrase “burned out” in my presence again.
    Genius, Upgrading Genius
    M ichael Jordan’s sophomore year at North Carolina ended with the Tar Heels losing to Georgia in the NCAATournament’s Elite Eight. There were four weeks left in the semester, and Dean Smith went out of town to recruit, leaving Roy Williams in charge. “The big push has to be on school,” Smith told Williams. “No basketball. And besides, they’re tired. They need a break.”
    So Williams met with Jordan and told him to shut down for a