Excellence Like This Useful Every Day

Today the impeachment trial, a tale of human failure, is scheduled to begin. But it is excellence, not failure, that most Americans have on their minds this week. It is Michael Jordan who dominates the airwaves and the water cooler conversations.

Jordan has a magic that transcends basketball, transcends the realm of the sports fan, transcends American culture, transcends race, transcends business, transcends political power games.

Michael Jordan’s name ranks in rarified company: Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Muhammed Ali.

These men did not become legends because they were flawless human beings. They became legends because they developed the magic of pure excellence. This did not come easily for any of them. Jordan was a determined little kid, shooting hoops on a lonely neighborhood court, long before he was a world-renowned athlete, floating toward the basket before a screaming crowd.

We need the kind of excellence Jordan embodies. Need it in basketball. Need it in politics. Need it in a great many realms.

When Jordan announced his retirement Wednesday, he thanked his fans and said it had been an honor to give us an escape from the 9-to-5 grind. And, he said that now he wants to work at being a parent, a job that challenges everyone who undertakes it, even Michael Jordan.

What a classy exit. His words had a refreshing candor, a simple truthfulness to them, like a high-arching, game-ending shot that finds nothing but net.

Now he joins the rest of us, raising kids and looking for new heroes. They’re out there, if we know what to look for.

Jordan’s magic was not an excellence rooted in moral perfection. Neither Jordan, who has a fondness for gambling, nor Babe Ruth, who had a fondness for the bottle, would qualify for sainthood. But that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, because he drove himself to such a level of purity, in his chosen field, that people willingly overlooked the human frailties common to us all.

What Michael Jordan had was talent - that, and an extraordinary level of discipline. Few of us are so fortunate.

But all of us have the same opportunity, whether we’re working at being a better mechanic, a better politician, a better dad, a better teacher, or a better weekend athlete. We don’t need to be perfect to earn a bit of self-respect or even some applause on the humbler courts where most of us spend our lives. And we certainly don’t need to demand perfection of each other. But we should never apologize for harboring high standards, nor should we hesitate to celebrate those who have the discipline to be the best.