Michael Jordan_ The Life ( PDFDrive.com )_compressed (1)_compressed

in pulling into her embrace. But it was a disguise.
His father’s mean words had activated deep within him some errant strain of
DNA, a mutation of competitive nature so strong as to almost seem titanium.
They represented a contempt articulated almost daily in manner and attitude in
the Jordan household throughout Michael’s tender years.
“Years later,” his sister Deloris recalled, “during the early days of his NBA
career, he confessed that it was my father’s early treatment of him and Daddy’s
declaration of his worthlessness that became the driving force that motivated
him.… Each accomplishment that he achieved was his battle cry for defeating
my father’s negative opinions of him.”
Michael himself would later reveal that as a child he was keenly aware of his
father’s preference for brother Larry.
James Jordan had endured a similar treatment by his own father. Medward’s
contempt for him would become a fixture in family lore. James himself
confirmed it, and that contempt is what drove him to leave Teachey to prove
himself in the Air Force. Medward was proud of his son, family members said,
but he never seemed to find the means to express it to him face to face.
James paid him back again and again, by achieving so much in a life that his
father could never hope to grasp.
This is what offspring of disapproving fathers often do. Without even
realizing it, they lock in on an answer and deliver it over and over, confirming
that they do not need to just go in the house. And they continue to confirm it
even after the father has gone to dust, as if they are unconsciously yelling across
time in an argument with the old man.
Around the time that he was telling Michael to take up life among the women,
James Jordan put up a basketball hoop for his sons in the backyard of the family
home. Up to that point, the family’s athletic focus had been on James in the
backyard throwing pitches to his young sons, teaching them to hit and to love
baseball. They had started at ages five and six playing T-ball. At seven and
eight, the boys moved to a machine-pitch league. They faced their first live
pitching at nine and ten, which was when the dichotomy emerged. Larry was all
about hitting singles, while Michael would swing for the fences.
It was Larry, as the older brother, who first became infatuated with
basketball. Michael was already on his way to success as a Little League player
when the basketball court was laid out. Suddenly, things took off in another
direction.