Having decided to write a bio this week about one of my sporting heroes there was really one player I could write about – the one and only Michael Jordan.
Born: 17th of February 1963
Full name: Michael Jeffery Jordan
Place of birth: Brooklyn, New York, United States.
Family: Wife – Yvette Prieto & Children Jasmine, Marcus, Jeffrey, and twins Victoria and Ysabel.
Michael Jordan is a former American basketball player, Olympic athlete, businessperson, and actor.
He’s considered the best basketball player ever and has played from mid 1980’s to the late 1990’s.
Michael Jordan is the most famous and richest former NBA player. He played for 15 seasons with Chicago Bulls and won 6 championships. He also won the most valuable player award 5 times.
Early life:
He has been competitive from a young age and always wanted to win everything.
He had a stable family growing up, his mum, Dolores was a bank teller who had written loads of books, his dad, James, who was a maintenance worker turned manager at General Electric. He has 4 siblings – Larry, Deloris, Roslyn, and James Jr.
Michael’s dad introduced him to baseball as well as basketball; even building him a basketball court in their garden. Sadly, his dad was murdered in the summer of 1993 when 2 teenagers shot him in his car in an apparent robbery as he was driving from Charlotte to Wilmington. He was missing for 11 days until his body was found in a swamp. The teens were convicted of first-degree murder and a life sentence in prison.
College career:
In 1981 he enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and became an important member of the school’s basketball team. He scored the winning basket at the NCAA division championships in 1982. He got player of the year in 1983 and 1984. He left college and joined the NBA in 1984 and continued to play basketball professionally.
Basketball career:
He began his career when he was drafted at Chicago Bulls and he was 3rd to be picked overall which is quite impressive for a rookie. At the start of his NBA career he proved himself on court and scored an average of 28 points per game in the season. He got rookie of the year award and was selected for the all-stars game.
He became the first Wilt Chamberlain to score more than 3,000 points in a season. Jordan was the main part of the team’s success.
During 1984 he made his first appearance at the Olympics games as a member of the U.S. Olympics basketball team. It was held in LA and they won the gold.
He joined Washington Wizards in 2000 as a part owner and as president of basketball operations. In 2001 he announced he would join Washington Wizards for his 14th season in the NBA. He said that he was planned on donating his basketball salary to help those impacted by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He then started playing for the Wizards for 2 seasons before officially retiring in 2003.
What’s he done since?
Since retiring in 2003 he has built an impressive lifestyle having secured lots of deals with major companies such as Nike, Coco-Cola, McDonald’s, Chevrolet, Ball Park Franks, Gatorade and many more. A personalised signature shoe referred to as the Nike ‘Air Jordan’ has now been turned into a whole brand known as ‘Jordan Brand’. He also appeared in a Basketball Bugs Bunny commercial. From 2015 he has been making $100 million dollars a year just from Nike itself. His net worth is now believed to be $2.1 billion thanks to the skyrocketing value of his NBA team. He bought Charlotte Hornet in 2010 for $175 million. He has also devoted some of his time and resources towards charitable groups.
If you want to find out even more about Michael Jordan there’s a documentary on Netflix all about Chicago Bulls, I really enjoyed it as it shows how the team all came together. It was a bit hard to get into at first but then couldn’t stop watching it. I would definitely recommend it.
