Number 23.

Air Jordan he was.

During a workout session at the pro club, i noticed a bunch of guys all stopped their workouts and started gawking at the big projected screen in the weights area. Who else but Jordan and his highlight reels can captivate the audience like that?

Thinking back, regardless which basketball team you support, fans all celebrate the awesomeness of Jordan. Little did they know that height is not going to be attained anymore in the near future.

I quickly finished up my weights workout, and rushed to the cardio area where they have FM channels of the TV audio, and i started to listen to his speech. A few points caught my attention, and i like to share them.

First and foremost though, as typical of any issues in this country, there’s three major groups of opinion of his speech.

a) He’s a bitter and petty old man

b) He’s open and transparent about what motivates him to reach that level

c) He’s still the best player ever, and i don’t care about the speech

My take of him is (b). He shares his insights to what drove him day to day to beat his perceived enemies, with a twinge of (a).

One of the quotes he made was “The organization didn’t play with the flu in Utah”, which the subject of the quote made a clarification the next day. I bet the folks that “ignited” his drive felt bad that night too. That sentiment reflects some of the challenges that i see, and is something that though no longer disturb me, is creating some churn with the newer members of the teams, where they see others getting awarded and rewarded for the sweat and tears they put in.

The other quote i remembered was that some coach of his told him that there’s no I in team, but he rebuked with a “there’s an I in WIN!”. Oftentimes, though not applicable in Jordan’s games, people have to lower down to the lowest common denominator level in order to prevent being perceived as not a “team player”.

Another subject that he targetted also made a response. I let my team tell me who the counterpart for this is. 8)

Regardless of what you think of the speech, or not, at the end, just enjoy his highlights… they sure don’t make them like this anymore…