My Favourite Sportspeople

I spend a lot of time being negative on this blog – and in my proper, food-on-the-table job. It’s the nature of the beast to pick at what’s wrong. Conflict makes a better story – admit it, you know it does.

But there are some people even I, a world-weary, slightly cynical sports reporter won’t tear down. Heroes. People who helped start and continue my love affair with sports – they captured my imagination, made me believe not in them, but myself.

They come from around the world, play team or individual or team sports – sometimes two, or more.

Some had their finest moments at the Olympic Games, others World Championships, others in events that float by without being noticed by the majority of the world.

Some finished wowing crowds and dominating rivals years ago, others are just starting out.

Their common denominator – I love watching them in action. Love talking about them. Love thinking about them.

Oh, one warning – I’m only going to write about people who have been doing their thing in my lifetime. I don’t feel well informed enough to pass judgment on stars from the 1970s and earlier. I wasn’t around.

These guys and girls won’t appear in any particular order – if I think of one, I’ll write them up. Check it out every Wednesday. I’ll just try to keep from doing people from the same sport in consecutive weeks. No promises, but.

Michael Jordan

Sport: Basketball

Date of birth February 17, 1963

Place of birth: Brooklyn, USA

Listed height 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) Listed weight 215 lb (98 kg)

Pro career 1984–2003

Surprise, surprise … I start with arguably the world’s most famous athlete, ever.

The only one who can legitimately claim he has His Airness covered is Muhammad Ali and that would be by not much.

There’s not much I can write about Jordan that someone with more time, more qualifications and more ability to argue a case has already done somewhere else.

However, I can tell you why I love this guy – I was born in 1983, just over a year after Jordan hit the game-winning jumper in the 1982 NCAA Championship game against Georgetown. That makes me 27. Which means in 1993, I was in Year 5 at primary school.

The Australian sporting landscape of 1993 was far different from it is today – cricket was the ONLY summer sport while all four football codes scratched and clawed for attention during the winter.

But that year and for a couple either side, they were all playing for second, because BASKETBALL was king.

That’s not to see I’m some zealot who hates the football codes – in fact, I love ‘em.

Let me tangentize (yes, I know it’s not a word) for a moment – my favourite sporting team in the world is the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, the only sport I played with anything resembling ability was cricket and the majority of my money comes from reporting on football. But basketball has a special place in my heart and that’s because of none other than Jordan.

Without Jordan, basketball would have never obtained the popularity it did Down Under – Australia was the NBA’s biggest overseas market, EVERYONE had basketball cards, our national league games were on in primetime in front of sold-out crowds and there were at least two games from the States on every weekend.

Bliss for a sports-mad youth looking for something new. And all because of MJ.

When Jordan pulled the pin after winning the first of two career three-peats with the Chicago Bulls in 1993, it was the beginning of the end of basketball’s hold on the public imagination here. They guy was everywhere – Nike ads, Gatorade, God knows how many other products. His #23 Bulls jersey everywhere. Some of the marks couldn’t name the guy who wore #33 next to him. Oops … promised I wasn’t going to be negative here, didn’t I?

Back then, if you turned on a TV, Jordan was there. Picked up a magazine? Jordan. He was voted the most popular athlete in Australia shortly before his retirement. A bloke that we could see do his thing once a week, late at night, on tape delay.

And … it was enough. Every week he was out there, battling the Knicks or the Hornets (everyone’s second favourite team) or whoever. And winning. A real-life Batman.

It wasn’t just the results – it was the method. The unbelievable up-and-under lay-up against the Lakers in the 1991 finals. Six threes in a half against Portland 12 months later. Showing Charles Barkley who was the real MVP in 1993.

Sheer strength of will. He bent the game to his wishes like no other in any sport

The scariest thing? The 7-15 year-olds worshipping Jordan knew nothing of point scoring binges of the 1980s, the battles with the Bad Boys from Detroit or Larry Bird’s Celtics. Or The Shot. Or the 69 points in the Boston Gah-den.

However, disaster struck – Jordan, mourning the death of father, retired and went to play minor league baseball.

Basketball’s mini-Dark Age had come.

Jordan was to baseball what I was to my relatively low level of cricket – enthusiastic, serious, dedicated … but mediocre.

After whiffing fastballs and booting grounders  - and with baseball in a lengthy lockout – on March 18, 1995 Jordan announced his long-awaited return with a two-word press release. “I’m back.”

Nothing more needed to be said. People on every continent knew what it meant.

The comeback wasn’t an instant success – Orlando bundled Chicago out of the play-offs in the second round. 

In 1995-96, the Bulls, rejuvenated by a fully fit Jordan and new face Dennis Rodman (there will be a post on him soon, trust me), went on to a 72-10 record – better than anything ever achieved in NBA – before winning the club's fourth championship.

Two more seasons, two more titles – the last clinched with what was thought to be Jordan’s final shot in pro ball against the Utah Jazz.

A legacy was complete – 30.1 ppg career scoring average, six rings, five MVPs, six Finals MVPs and every individual honour except sixth man of the year and most improved. He even won the defensive player of the year award in 1988 – almost unheard of for a guard.

That’s without mentioning two Olympic Gold Medals, three All-Star game MVPs, a pair of dunk contest wins and 10 scoring titles.

And the adoration of millions of kids just like me worldwide. Chicago were never my favourite team – as I established in an earlier post, I’m a Lakers man. But I never, ever complained when Jordan was on TV – even if he was whipping my boys.

After some time out of the game, less than a fortnight after September 11, 2001, Jordan did what he always did for the US – and indeed, the world – gave hope. He suited up again ... with the Washington Wizards.

Wh-aaaat?

It’s true, it’s true. It looked funny, felt odd, but Jordan wasn’t that bad. It’s just that he couldn’t bend games to his will the way he did in his prime. He was solid and indeed, whipped some young bucks. After two seasons he hung ‘em up for good.

Since leaving the game, Jordan has had some nasty incidents – a paternity suit, divorce, a Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech some read as nasty and bragging.

I don’t care about that stuff. Couldn’t give a damn. The reason I’m writing about him was his heroics, not his personal shortcomings. We have them all. We are all human.

Although, seeing #23 in action sometimes, it made me wonder if we all were human.