University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Privileged
September 12, 2009 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Sept. 12, 2009
By Adam Lucas
SPRINGFIELD, Mass.--Midway through Jerry Sloan's speech, it finally hit me.
I've never lived in a world where Michael Jordan wasn't a basketball player. I watched him in Carmichael. I watched him at Chicago Stadium. I watched him at the United Center. Even watched him at the Smith Center in a couple of NBA exhibition games.
Most importantly, though, like every other human being I knew in the 80s and 90s, I watched him on television. This wasn't the DVR era. If the Bulls game started at 7 p.m., you got home at 6:45 just to make sure you saw the pregame introductions. Sure, you could be late...but you might miss something. You might miss Jordan dunking on someone or floating over someone.
Sitting in Symphony Hall in Springfield on Friday night, it was obvious everyone else had the same memories. Two years ago, when Roy Williams was enshrined, the ceremony was held in a smaller, stuffier room and seemed more formal. It was mostly friends and family of the inductees in attendance, and friends and family don't shriek.
Fans shriek. And there was a lot of shrieking in the building on Friday night. After a lifetime of memories, after rock-the-cradle in 1984 and outdunking Dominique in 1988 and the shot in 1998, this was our last chance to cheer for Jordan as a basketball player.
Who else in basketball could have this effect: when Jordan entered the room down the right-hand aisle, an entire theater of Hall of Famers, the very best in their sport, turned into kids trying to get a glimpse of Mickey Mouse at Walt Disney World. Everyone stood up, and most pulled out cell phone cameras.
During ESPN's commercial break after Jerry Sloan's speech and before Jordan took the stage, the in-building video feed showed a series of Jordan highlights. People cheered like it was the first time they'd ever seen them. Jordan dunked on Dikembe Mutombo and wagged his finger--a startled "Oooohhhh" went up from the crowd. Jordan dunked over Patrick Ewing--raucous applause. Jordan creates space around Bryon Russell in 1998, and everyone held their breath as he elevated...and then cheered when the ball slipped through the net, just like it has every one of the millions of times the play has been shown on television. For just a second, you could feel everyone wondering what would happen if it all turned out to be a dream, if the ball bounced off the rim. But, ahhhh, it didn't, and dreams still came true and he still held that follow-through for an extra beat.
This time it felt different, and it seemed like we all realized it at the same time. This might be our last chance to cheer for Michael Jordan as a basketball player. That's when all pretense of coolness--and remember, Roy Williams hates cool--vanished. You might have been sitting two seats down from Chancellor Holden Thorp and two seats over from athletic director Dick Baddour, and you might have been wearing a suit for one of the few times all year, but this was Michael Jordan and it was time to cheer.
A horde of Tar Heels were on hand, from Sam Perkins to Kenny Smith to Bill Guthridge to Matt Doherty to Tommy Kearns. And, of course, Dean Smith, Larry Brown, and Williams. The Hall of Fame is the pinnacle of basketball achievement, and as Brown was wrapping Smith in a hug while the HOFers assembled for a group photo, it was hard not to notice the Carolina flavor of the evening. Almost as soon as Jordan finished speaking, he was greeted backstage by a posse of Tar Heel well-wishers who hugged not just the newest Hall of Famer, but also his mother and brothers and sister and children. Meanwhile, Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf stood outside with the rest of the fans. Backstage, it seemed, was reserved for familiy.
During Jordan's speech, a fan in the upper level waited for Jordan to take a breath, then shouted, "You're the greatest, Michael!" It was the kind of wailing you'd expect at a Beatles concert from a teenaged girl. But this fan? This fan was a dad in his mid-30s, with his kid in the seat next to him. At a supposed formal press conference Friday morning, seasoned members of the media began their questions to Jordan with, "Thanks for putting in the work to play the game the way you did."
"This is a privileged day for me," Jordan had said earlier in the day. Every person there would disagree. The privilege, for every single one of us, was ours.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of five books on Carolina basketball, including the upcoming book on the 2009 national title, One Fantastic Ride. Get real-time UNC sports updates from the THM staff on Twitter.
