Michael Jordan: The early years.
Michael Jordan was one of five children born to James and Delores Jordan.
He was born February 17, 1963 in Brooklyn. The Jordans' felt that the streets of Brooklyn were unsafe to raise a young family of five children. Instead of trying to endure the streets of Brooklyn, the Jordan family moved to Wilmington,
North Carolina. James got a job in Wilmington as a mechanic and Delores got a job as a teller at United Carolina Bank. The Jordan's always stressed the value of manners to their children. The above examples typified Michael Jordan's early years.
Michael's first love.
Michael always had an eye for baseball. He played as an outfielder and as a pitcher. When he was twelve, he was the top player in his league. Michael had his picture placed in the Morning Star, which is Wilmington's newspaper. By the age of fifteen, he wasn't the star in baseball he once was. He was still very good, but he had lost some of his focus. Later, in his high school career, he dropped baseball to pursue another interest.
Basketball and Michael.
When Michael was younger he adopted the game of basketball. Mike used to work with his father in the garage. While working with his father, Michael picked up the habit of sticking his tongue out in an intense situation. When
Michael reached the ninth grade, he tried out for basketball. Coach Lynch,
Michael's coach, cut Michael which in turn may have made the best player alive today. Michael then took practicing basketball to another level. He played his brother Larry whenever he could. Michael never expected what would come in the near future.
The College Years.
Michael Jordan went to the University of North Carolina as a basketball recruit. Even thoug...
... middle of paper ...
...adership was back. In one game Michael showed flashes of his old self. Michael scored 55 points in a game at Madison Square
Garden in New York. A few weeks later, Michael, a very superstitious man, switched his number from 45 to 23. Although the Bulls were defeated by the
Orlando Magic in the playoffs, the Bulls went on their best winning streak of the season.
Accomplishments.
Michael Jordan has been called the best basketball player ever by Magic
Johnson. Jordan has led the NBA in scoring an amazing seven times. Jordan is only the second player to score 3000 points in one season, with the other being
Wilt Chamberlain. Mike was voted Defensive Player of the Year in 1988. Jordan has been Most Valuable Player of the NBA finals three times. He was Sports
Illustrated Sportsman of the Year in 1991. Jordan has also received three MVP awards between 1988 and 1992.
Major league scouts had come to watch a shortstop whom they had heard was an excellent fielder and consistent batter. They were quickly distracted from this responsibility however by the performance of the man on the pitcher’s mound. Fernando Valenzuela was a pudgy teenage boy who had grown up on the dusty baseball fields of northwestern Mexico. From a young age, he had dreamed of playing professional baseball and he was about to get his chance. Less than two years later, he became the only player to win the Cy Young award as well as the Rookie of the Year award...
Pennsylvania in the western part of the state. Dan grew up in Parkview Avenue in
In the history of business, there has been a clear record of industry heads finding something or someone as a mainstay and bedrock for their respective companies or corporations; there is often a chief product that keeps many businesses afloat, even in the rough times. Apple found it's own in 2001 with the iPod. McDonald's has had the Big Mac since the late 1960s. Nike, however, found their goldmine in a person with Michael Jordan. Walter LaFeber's Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism tells the paints the picture of the rise of young Michael Jordan from his middle-class family in racist North Carolina up through college and into the NBA where he becomes an international sports icon. It tells the story of how Jordan catches the eye of Nike's ambitious co-founder and CEO, Phil Knight, and how he was transformed from a young, rebellious black hoopster into the face of a multi-billion dollar transnational corporation while stretching its touch all of the way to the far reaches of Asia. LeFeber's book also delves into the darker issues and topics addressing Jordan and Nike, such as race and sports and how they played a part during scandals that surrounded MJ off of the court along with the growth of Nike abroad and their dealing with technological changes in manufacturing while facing criticism for their labor practices.
in games against other teams his age. The team he played on was called the
Throughout his high school years he played all different kinds of sports. He played football, baseball, basketball and ran track. He was one of the best in all those sports. When he played for his high school basketball team he was the leading scorer, and earned the name “Prime Time.” After his four years playing for his high school team, it was time to start looking for a college. Since he wanted his mother to come see him play, his first pick of colleges was Florida State. He had great careers in all the sports he played in. Before his senior year at Florida State University (FSU), the Yankees took him, so he played professional baseball while in college. While he was in college he decided he would stay away from cursing. So every time he cursed he would pay someone 5 bucks. In 1989 he was drafted by the Atlanta Falcons in the first round.
It helped that Jackson loved to be around the games, as a kid he and other neighborhood kids would play “stickball”, a form of baseball using a tree branch and a beat up tennis ball. As a teenager, he would be working out or practicing constantly at his high school trying to get better (Jackson and Schaap, 43). Not only did Jackson work hard, he had a great work ethic throughout his career. He was the kind of ballplayer who was the first one to the field, even before the coaches, and the last one to leave the field. Jackson was born with great athletic ability, but that can only go so far for an athlete.
After graduation from Herbert Hoover High School, Williams' talents got him a contract with a minor league baseball team in San Diego ("My Turn at Bat" 26). His progressed very quickly, and two years later, Williams was the starting left fielder for the Boston Red Sox.
The picture I chose is a very deep picture, it is Michael Jordan's first National Basketball Association Championship that had eluded him for the previous seven years. He was the most valuable player in this championship series which means a lot to any professional player who wins it. His father, James, is the other man in this picture, showing great pride in his son knowing all of the hard work he put into this championship and his career. Even though he struggled to win the trophy, he is overwhelmingly happy and expresses great triumph.
Since then he has led his team to five world series titles and become the team captain. He is known for his good looks and quiet confidence. He is still playing shortstop for the Yankee’s today and never stops improving. More world series titles are seen in his future.
He enlisted in the U.S. Army after convincing them that he was 18. The Army life was good to Dean. He received clothes and food, he got paid, and he got his first pair of shoes. Dean, however, was a terrible soldier at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The only place he stood excelled was becoming a pitcher for the base's baseball team. It was during his Army years that Dean really learned how to pitch effectively, and it’s where he earned the nickname "Dizzy." A sergeant had called him dizzy after throwing potatoes at garbage cans. The nickname stuck since his fastball also seemed to make batters look dizzy. Dean loved baseball so much that he was playing baseball everyday and pitching for two different teams at one point in the army. One sergeant explained how Dean loved the game, “That’s all he lived for. When I’d make him quit pitching in practice he’d get a catcher’s mitt and warm up one of our other boys and I’d have to take the glove away from him. He never got enough”
won 29. When he reached that number Comiskey benched him, the player resentment of this was
QMJHL, Junior A, hockey team. With 121 games played, he was able to score 120 goals, 183
714 career home runs, had 2,209 career RBI's, and 2,873 total hits, all in only
Orleans. At the age of 12 his life changed. When he was parting for New
December 21, 1891- The birth of basketball. It has been changed from simply shooting a soccer ball into a peach basket to dunking a seven pound, leather ball into an iron rim. In the early years of the game, basketball was not as popular as other sports. In the 1985 NBA draft all this would change with the emergence of a 6'6" basketball phenomenon from Wilmington, North Carolina. Although going third in the draft, he recreated the game and is known as the best player to ever touch a basketball; he is Michael Jordan.