Was MJ really the athlete of the century?
By Joseph Pearlman
pearlman.joseph@esc.state.nc.us
Columnist
With his selection as the greatest athlete of the twentieth century, the deification and veneration of Michael Jordan has reached its ultimate and predictable apotheosis. The panel of “experts” who made this selection, most of whom are affiliated with the sports broadcasting network known as ESPN, were responsible for this final anointing. It might be reasonable to ask whether this panel had its sense of history blurred somewhat by the hype generated by the confluence of mass merchandising and an adoring media.
Jordan’s greatness as a professional athlete cannot be denied. But it might surprise some on the expert panel to discover that Jordan is the eleventh leading scorer in the annals of University of North Carolina basketball (he played for three seasons at Carolina). The mythmaking process has Jordan leading the Tar Heels to the 1982 NCAA basketball championship. Jordan did make the winning shot in the title game against Georgetown, but James Worthy was the outstanding player on that team.
The Chicago Bulls won six NBA championships with the majestic Jordan making miraculous shots and imposing his iron will upon the team. Not to minimize six titles, but Magic Johnson and Larry Bird had to prevail over each other if they were achieve their sport’s highest reward. Michael’s Bulls had to beat up on teams which were not in the class of the Celtics and Lakers of the 1980s.
Who could be more deserving of being named athlete of the century than the omnipresent Jordan? Consider two athletes, one performing in the first half of the twentieth century, the other in the last.
Babe Ruth was one of the greatest pitchers of the early century before the New York Yankees decided that he was too good a hitter to play every fourth day. The Babe was a colossus who walked so far above mere mortals that he played in a different realm. He utterly dominated his sport when the game was nearly all there was-baseball in the 1920s has been described by one historian of the time as a secular religion.
The Babe did not just surpass existing home run records, he obliterated them. In a nation less fragmented, with the eyes of even casual fans riveted upon him, Babe Ruth was a national hero of the kind we cannot imagine today. His incomparable presence was not the result of any media-driven hype, but was borne of brute physical strength and startling athletic prowess.
Bill Russell was simply the greatest team player of the twentieth century. He led the University of San Francisco to collegiate basketball championships in 1955 and 1956, and upon his graduation played on the gold medal winning United States Olympic team.
Russell, the defensive intimidator opponents feared, changed the professional basketball landscape. His unwavering dominance of the middle was the major reason the Boston Celtics had the greatest run in the history of professional sports, eleven titles in thirteen years. If its sociological significance you are after, Russell was the first black man to coach a major professional team, winning the NBA championship in his final season as a player-coach for the Celtics.
Russell’s image suffered because of a reticence and stoicism which only in retrospect came to be appreciated by the press as a quiet dignity. He also did not have the advantage of being unceasingly promoted by a sports apparel company--Nike--with the corporate modesty to once propagate an advertising slogan which stated “You don’t win the silver (medal), you lose the gold.”
With Nike’s help, Michael Jordan will never lose the gold. While allegedly retiring to a quiet life of carpooling and other domestic chores, Jordan remains a ubiquitous commercial spokesman.
A recent Nike panegyric, disguised as a television commercial, features solemn images of several contemporary athletes accompanied by the strains of Stevie Wonder’s “Over Time.” At the end we see a contemplative Jordan alone in a field. The reverential treatment of His Airness would be complete with the inclusion of a burning bush.
It might be a mere coincidence that the ESPN program naming Jordan the century’s greatest athlete was sponsored by Nike, which is synonymous with saying it was sponsored by Jordan. (“The Academy Awards, Brought to You by Tom Hanks”) It is refreshing in this time of hidden conflicts of interest to see such glaring and open corporate influence. Then again, Nike is not known for its subtlety--it has lately taken to designing aesthetically-challenged sports uniforms in order to call attention to itself.
It may also be the expert panel honoring Jordan simply lacked a perspective on the last hundred years, and that baby-boomers on the panel did not have the curiosity or initiative to look beyond their own frame of reference. These are, after all, sportscasters and sportswriters. But the selection of Jordan is reflective of a certain arrogance of our age, which seems consign anything that occurred outside the realm of contemporary experience to a less vital era of “past history.”
As a tribute to the great sportsmen of that forgotten era before cable sports television and multi-national shoe companies, perhaps Nike could sponsor a symposium on twentieth century history. If taught in laboratory hermetically sealed from present-day hype and celebrity obsession, some differing judgments about enduring greatness just might be reached.
Joseph Pearlman is an attorney in Charlotte, N.C. His column, Pearlman Jam, appears regularly in Ebbetts Field. Pearlman is a graduate of Davidson College and Wake Forest University Law School.
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