Being Michael Jordan
basketball players have dads who are struck down. Pippen’s is paralysed when he is a boy. Steve Kerr’s, a college professor, is shot in the head in Beirut. And Jordan’s dad is murdered as he sleeps by the roadside.
Jordan says that security man Gus becomes like a father to him. But the true father figure for these abandoned young men is coach Jackson. That is surely the true reason why Jordan refuses to play for Chicago if they get rid of Jackson. He can’t lose another father.
Jackson is the true hero at the centre of this tale. But even his love and compassion and stillness cannot save Jordan from the terrible bargain of fame. Michael was happier on a push bike, but there is no escape on a bike from the fan mob who say ‘‘You are missing out on life’’ if you don’t see Jordan play. So the bike is replaced by red and white sports cars with personalised MJJ1 number plates.
We would see this terrible pattern repeated in the journey and Orphean descent of Tiger Woods. His father Earl once said; ‘‘Tiger will do more than any other man in history to change the course of humanity … He is the Chosen One. He’ll have the power to impact nations. Not people. Nations. The world is just getting a taste of his power.’’
I always felt sorry for Tiger, and I feel the same compassion for Jordan. Jud Buechler admits that even his teammates were afraid of him. Will Perdue says he was ‘‘an arsehole and a jerk’’. BJ Armstrong says that with Jordan’s mentality of win at all costs, an oft repeated mantra by the man himself, ‘‘you can’t be a nice guy.’’
Jordan breaks down when he is confronted with the realisation that he is not viewed as a nice guy. Of course, he knows that of himself already. Driven ‘‘insane’’ when he is unable to win, he uses that insanity to drive his team-mates. It makes him unlikable.
And yet there is a beautiful young man prisoned inside. We see a glimpse of him when he is tossing coins, like the Cincinnati Kid, in a game against his security guard, before he is again consumed by the competitive urge. We truly see it when Jordan gets into the driver’s seat on the bus. It may be the happiest he looks in the entire series. You half expect him to sing, ‘‘The wheels on the bus go round and round.’’
But when Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are queueing up to touch the hem of your garment, when Nas and Justin Timerberlake and Spike Lee are cradling the very shoes that you wear, when Gatorade is showing a kid ‘‘dream that he is me’’ and promoting ‘‘Be Like Mike’’, then how is happiness even remotely possible for the person Oprah calls ‘‘the most famous man on the planet.’’
The Last Dance is one of the great docu series about sport. Yes, it lacked an ending. It failed to nail the final shot like Jordan did during his superman career. Hey Bill Winnington, ‘‘jump on my cape, but you need to hold on’’.
It should perhaps have finished with Jordan’s words at the end of episode six: ‘‘If I had the chance to do it all over again I would never want to be considered a role model. It’s like a game that’s stacked against me. There’s no way I can win.’’
When the Bulls win their third championship Jordan is crying on the floor of the changing room, hugging a basketball. It is a toy. It seems like he is hanging onto a childhood he can’t get back. Jordan just wants to be a kid again. Instead they turned him into Michael Messiah, the black Jesus of basketball, whose picture touches the Barcelona sky.
We can only weep for him.