September 12, 2009 in Sports

Jordan has the last word at enshrinement

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SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Michael Jordan’s thank you list went well beyond friends and family.

There was the coach who cut him. The player who dissed him. The media who doubted him.

Anyone who provided Jordan with motivation to become a better player – perhaps the greatest one.

Jordan recalled all of it Friday night, when he joined David Robinson and John Stockton, a pair of his 1992 Dream Team teammates, and coaches Jerry Sloan and C. Vivian Stringer in a distinguished class enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame.

Jordan insisted during a press conference that the weekend wasn’t just about him, but he was clearly the star.

Jordan cried before beginning his acceptance speech, then entertained the crowd with memories of any slights that inspired him to get to basketball’s birthplace:

•The coach who cut him from the varsity as a North Carolina schoolboy.

“I wanted to make sure you understood: You made a mistake, dude.”

•Isiah Thomas, who allegedly orchestrated a “freezeout” of Jordan in his first All-Star game.

“I wanted to prove to you, Magic (Johnson), Larry (Bird), George (Gervin), everybody that I deserved (to be there) just as much as anybody else, and I hope over the period of my career I’ve done that without a doubt.”

•The media who said Jordan, though a great player, would never win like Bird or Johnson.

“I had to listen to all that, and that put so much wood on that fire that it kept me each and every day trying to get better as a basketball player.”

•Lastly, Utah’s Bryon Russell. Jordan recalled meeting Russell while he was retired and playing minor league baseball in 1994 – and with Sloan looking on in horror – told of how Russell insisted he could have covered him if Jordan was still playing. Russell later got two cracks at Jordan in the NBA Finals, and he was the defender when Jordan hit the clinching shot to win the 1998 title.

“From this day forward, if I ever see him in shorts, I’m coming at him,” Jordan said.

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