How to Be Like Mike

by Pat Williams

  The Reds’ first spring training game of 2001 was coincidentally scheduled to be played at Rollins. The night before the game Bowden and Reds’ skipper, Bob Boone, contacted Bobby at training camp in Sarasota and told him to be dressed and ready to coach first base for the Reds.

  The bus rolled into the Rollins stadium. Manager Boone walked off, followed by Ken Griffey, Jr. , Barry Larkin, Deion Sanders, and Bobby Williams! The people skills of Bowden and Boone provided a major-league thrill for Bobby Williams (and his dad) that day.

  4. Character

  There is, in our day, only one kind of strength which is lasting—it is that proceeding from character.

  —ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

  historian

  General Norman Schwarzkopf is a true American hero because of his strong stand on the importance of character. He stated, “The main ingredient of good leadership is good character. This is because leadership involves conduct, and conduct is determined by values.”

  Character is a product of humility and integrity, of possessing the confidence to adapt to certain situations, as Jordan displayed in the 1992 Olympics and as Scottie Pippen did not in the 1994 play-offs.

  For all of Jordan’s apparent flaws, his recognition of these qualities—especially within the team dynamic—was unflinching. Sportswriter Jackie McMullan visited Jordan in Birmingham during his stint in baseball. It was the day after Pippen, feeling disrespected and petulant, had refused to play in the final minutes of a play-off game in 1994.

  “Can you believe that?” Jordan said.

  “No,” McMullan replied. “Can you believe it?”

  “Those guys,” Jordan said, “never realized what it takes to be a leader.”

  “The 1992 Olympics were dominated by the Dream Team, and Michael Jordan was the dominant player on the team,” said Sports Illustrated writer Jack McCallum. “However, MJ stepped back and let Magic Johnson run the show and be the team leader. MJ sensed that Magic was better than him at this function, and it would be best for the team if Magic had the lead role.”

  Integrity is everything. Without it, you go nowhere and lead no one.

  —Dennis McDermott

  AUTHOR

  5. Competence

  Leaders are made, not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.

  —VINCE LOMBARDI

  “MJ had the rare knack to be a great leader. He just outworked everybody,” said Brad Daugherty, a Cleveland Cavaliers center and Jordan’s North Carolina teammate. “He’d be the first and last in the weight room, on the floor—it didn’t matter. He just had the drive to outwork you. I learned about work ethic from Michael. He took me aside and gave me a lot of confidence. He’d stay on me. He’d compliment you if you did what you were meant to be doing and not the extra. He just expected you to do that.”

  Jordan demanded a great deal, but he’d earned that right. He was the franchise, the nucleus, and he’d proven himself. This is what we mean by competence: a strong track record. “You don’t become a leader because you say you are,” said former Detroit Tigers manager Sparky Anderson. “It’s much more what you do than what you say.” Jockey Willie Shoemaker stated, “The horse never knows I’m there until he needs me.”

  “It’s hard to lead unless you’re demanding of yourself,” said former NBA coach John Calipari. “You can’t demand anything of others until you’ve shown that you’re willing to do it yourself. That’s why MJ was a great leader.”

  The other facet of establishing your competence is a commitment to continual growth. For Jordan, that meant studying the opposition, educating himself on the nuances of the NBA. For the rest of us, it means reading and thinking and learning—both in and out of our chosen field—long after our formal education is complete.

  When you sell a man a book, you don’t sell him twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue. You sell him a whole new life.

  —Christopher Morley

  ACTOR

  6. Boldness

  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

  —JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

  writer

  Be willing to make decisions. Don’t fall victim to the ready aim-aim-aim syndrome. You must be willing to fire.

  —T. Boone Pickens

  BUSINESS LEADER

  Another of Phil Jackson’s strengths as a coach was his encouragement of debate. He wanted people—his coaches, his players—to express their ideas, even if it exploded into an argument. He wanted everyone to feel free to speak, to empty their minds, to contribute experiences that may be unique to them. This led to better thought processes. And it bred a team that was willing to take risks—another attribute personified by both Jackson and Jordan.

  “Above all, trust your gut,” Jackson said. “This is the first law of leadership. Once you’ve made your move, you have to stand by your decision, and live with the consequences, because your number-one loyalty has to be to the team.”

  “When I was coaching at Boston College, we had a senior named Dana Barros,” said college basketball coach Jim O’Brien. “Before the draft, a Bulls assistant coach called me about Dana. He asked, ‘Would Barros have the ability as a point guard to wave off Michael when he comes off screens, yelling and demanding the ball?’

  I said, ‘No he doesn’t. But I doubt your coaches do, either. ’”

  Back to Birmingham for a moment, to Jackie McMullan, who one night saw Jordan strike out three times until, finally, a pinch hitter was called in to avoid embarrassment. Afterward, McMullan asked how he felt about it.

  There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in the shallows and in miseries . . . and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

  —William Shakespeare

  “I like the challenge,” Jordan said. “The NBA is too easy for me.”

  Baseball, of course, was Jordan’s ultimate risk. It was also a bold statement about the leadership qualities of a man who refused to listen to anyone who thought he should take the easy way out.

  “You must forget about being cautious, because if you don’t, you’re licked before you start,” Vince Lombardi said. “There is nothing to be afraid of, as long as you are aggressive, and keep going. Keep going and you will win.”

  Two more thoughts on boldness from successful football coaches. “Be right or wrong, but be decisive in your actions,” says Brian Billick. Chuck Knox adds: “Conservative coaches have one thing in common: they are all unemployed.”

  7. Being a Servant

  No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or to get all the credit for doing it.

  —ANDREW CARNEGIE

  “I remember Phil Jackson telling MJ that he had to trust his teammates,” said former Bulls forward Horace Grant. “Mike didn’t go overboard, but he’d invite guys to his room to play cards, just enough to let them know what he was about. To be a leader, everybody has to have respect for you on and off the court. You can’t just be a great player.”

  I am reminded of a saying we have in the Army:“Officers eat last!” Taking care of your soldiers is an act of stewardship.

  —General Colin Powell

  There is a well-documented incident that took place during the 1987–88 season, when Doug Collins was coaching the Bulls. Jordan came to practice in a bad mood. He was talking back to Collins. During a scrimmage, after a dispute over the score, Jordan unleashed a tirade on Collins.

  “Would you say that to Dean Smith?” Collins asked.

  “I’m leaving,” Jordan said.

  “We’re not through for the day yet,” Collins told him.

  “I’m out of here,” Jordan said.

  He picked up his bag and he stormed out of practice. On the way out, Collins muttered, “Nice leadership, Michael.”

  It became a story for the media. It was reported and debated for a few days, until
finally both men let it pass. But it was, Collins said, one of the first moments when Jordan recognized his impact, the magnitude of his stardom.

  Later, Jordan came to Collins and assured him it would never happen again.

  “I think this incident,” Collins said, “was a turning point in his career.”

  Team players recognize the greater good. For Jordan, that meant adhering to a team dynamic, refusing to allow diversions and even controlling such unbridled personalities as Dennis Rodman. “Michael would not allow any diversions on that team,” said former Dallas Mavericks general manager Norm Sonju. “He’d police that all by himself.”

  Sometimes, he even did it in the off-season. That summer in 1995, after Chicago lost to the Magic in the play-offs, the Bulls were gathering for informal practice sessions at ten in the morning every day. Some players would drift in later until, finally, Jordan grew tired of it and pulled his teammates into a huddle and said, “We’re all professionals. If we say we’re going to be here at ten, let’s be here at ten.” For the rest of the summer, that’s what they did.

  He was everything to the Bulls—a policeman, a catalyst, a communicator, a visionary. He carried a team. He carried an entire league. And of course he was unique; and of course he was incomparable. But I’m convinced that there are others out there who are willing to step forward, who are willing to shoulder the burdens that great leaders must bear.

  It’s up to us to find them. To develop them. And perhaps, to become them.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE SOCIAL

  GENIUS

  JORDAN ON RESPECT,

  TRUST AND LOYALTY:

  I just think you should respect the game. Be positive people. Certainly, you can act like gentlemen and professionals. You look at the great players and what they want to pass on as a legacy. They don’t take this game for granted. You don’t treat it like dirt. We’re being treated like doctors and lawyers because of the salaries we receive. So let’s act like sensible people.

  Only those who respect others can be of real use to them.

  —Albert Schweitzer

  This is a story from Birmingham, from 1994, when Michael Jordan was nothing more than another minor-league baseball T player striving for an opportunity. It was a brilliant afternoon, warm and sunny, and he was on his way to the ballpark, cutting through a sprawling suburban neighborhood. He passed a boy, ten years old, playing basketball in his driveway, alone. The boy’s name is not important. It could be any boy.

  What matters is what the man did next.

  He stopped the car. He got out. The boy considered him. The boy knew who he was.

  “Mind if I join you?” Jordan asked.

  The boy nodded.

  They played for twenty minutes, passing, rebounding, shooting, the world’s greatest basketball player and the boy, no one disturbing them. Then Jordan got in his car and drove away.

  The boy’s parents weren’t home that afternoon. When he told them, they didn’t believe him. No one believed him. It was like something out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

  “Finally,” said Birmingham Barons general manager Tony Ensor, “one of the neighbors verified his story.”

  At all of his camps, Michael Jordan will physically touch every camper. A hug, a pat, something. They all feel his touch.

  —Dick Versace

  NBA EXECUTIVE

  Here is the Michael Jordan we don’t see. Here is what exists beyond the iconography. It is not a prepackaged smile, not a silhouetted T-shirt slogan, not a commercial spokesman, not a towering image on an IMAX screen.

  No. Here is a man. And here is a child.

  It could be any child. Say a nine-year-old with disfiguring burns. Or a teenager in a wheelchair who can move nothing except his eyes. Or a Make-A-Wish kid crippled by a rare and terminal disease. Or one of the perfectly healthy kids at his summer basketball camp. Or the son of an opposing coach. The point is, it does not matter.

  What matters is what the man does next.

  He hugs, he talks, he takes up twice the time allotted by the publicists and the agents for the Make-A-Wish children, until both of them are nearly in tears. (“This rips me up,” he says when he’s finished. ) The parents see it and say, “That’s the first time our child has smiled in three months.” He talks to the kids about getting good grades, about respecting their parents. The parents come back and say their children’s faces looked “like sunshine.”

  A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile, can work wonders and accomplish miracles.

  —William Hazlitt

  AUTHOR

  “MJ says he’s going to give me his shoes tomorrow,” one of the children says.

  “Right, sure,” thinks the parent, said an NBA assistant coach named T. R. Dunn.

  The next day the parent is leaving the building and here’s Jordan, passing him, saying, “Don’t forget to get to the ball boy and get a pair of shoes for your son.”

  While at North Carolina, circa 1983, he plays a game of HORSE with a six-year-old boy who goes on to become an announcer in Knoxville, Tennessee. When the boy’s mom comes to get him, she says, “Do you know who that was?”

  “I had no idea I’d been playing with Michael Jordan,” Deck Hardee says today.

  In 1992, in a Chicago suburb, Jordan tells his driver to stop in front of some children who have set up a lemonade stand. He rolls down his window, buys some lemonade, talks with them and leaves. The children are so excited that they bowl over their entire operation.

  The man is determined to do things like this. To pull a kid bedecked in Air Jordan wear out of the crowd to caddie for him at a celebrity golf tournament in Hilton Head, South Carolina. To open the gates of his house on Halloween for trick-or-treaters. To prove that he is something more than a shadowy logo on a T-shirt, more than a waggling tongue and a pair of legs scissoring through the free-throw lane. He notices the children with disadvantages, the shy ones who can’t push their way up front, the kids in wheelchairs who can’t get close. He picks them out. He crouches on the frozen ground until a disabled boy’s father can take a photograph.

  Michael Jordan was not good at saying no to people. He was known to stiff people, but they were always the powerful people. Michael always had an abundance of time for any person who was struggling, or who couldn’t possibly be of any personal benefit to him.

  —Bob Greene

  COLUMNIST

  “My son still talks about it,” one parent says.

  “I have three sons,” says NBA player Hersey Hawkins, “and every time MJ sees them, he remembers their names. That’s amazing to me. Sometimes I can’t even remember their names.”

  He has that kind of memory for faces, for names. He sees a girl at his camp and winks and tells her, “You look much better now that your braces are off.” He sees the same kid sneaking back into a massive line at an autograph session and says, “Isn’t this your second time?” He meets Larry Johnson for the first time, when Johnson is a rookie forward in Charlotte, and asks him, “How’s your mother? How’s Dorothy?”

  “I thought, ‘How does he know my mother’s name?’” Johnson said. “I thought about it the whole game.”

  He sees another rookie, Antonio Daniels, in a restaurant, and not only acknowledges him, but invites him over to eat at his table. He sees a broadcaster, Jay Howard, who wore a line of Jordan’s sweaters once, and from then on refers to him as“my sweater guy.”

  Without feelings of respect what is there to distinguish men from beasts?

  —Confucius

  He has a keen awareness for the dynamics of family—his own and others. A fan in Indianapolis sees him in a department store, his arms loaded with stuffed animals, and when the fan asks who they’re for, Jordan says, “Got to take care of my kids.” One day in Aspen, a boy asks him to sign his brand-new ski jacket and Jordan says, “Does your mother know I’m signing this jacket?”

  He ships a signed jersey to be buried with a dying boy in Seattle. He donates thirty-f
ive thousand dollars in auction proceeds to a foundation for a boy who died of brain cancer. He drives to a site near the old Chicago Stadium, in an inner-city neighborhood, where four boys wait on the corner to wave to him as he drives past. He nicknames one of them“Kool-Aid,” and every night, he leaves four tickets for “Kool-Aid” at will-call. Sometimes they’re seats upstairs, sometimes they’re near courtside. Jordan always pays for them himself.

  “MJ was always so aware of other people’s feelings,” said sportswriter Rick Telander. “He is a social genius.”

  One night in 1994, Birmingham plays a game at Nashville. The team bus is in centerfield, and Jordan is riding out to it on a golf cart, shrouded by security. A boy chases him. Security guards catch the boy and knock him down. This is not long after Monica Seles was stabbed during a tennis match, and no one is willing to take chances. The next day, the story comes out: The boy has a friend who died and who was a huge Jordan fan. The boy was sprinting out to invite Jordan to the funeral.

  MJ taught me to respect what you do and do the right thing. Basketball is my profession, and Michael taught me to respect it.

  —Derek Anderson

  NBA PLAYER

  The man has to do something. And so he issues a statement: I’m very sorry to hear of this tragic story. I wish I could be at the funeral, but my baseball schedule will not permit it. My thoughts and prayers will be with the family at this time.

  “He always knew the right thing to say,” said Chris Pika, Birmingham’s publicist in 1994.

  “Did You Think I’d

  Be Late?”

  “The sense of respect I get from the people—I get chill bumps,” Jordan said. “Sometimes, I’m misty-eyed, and it doesn’t have anything to do with whether it’s a big game or not. It just happens.”