Michael Jordan: Legends in Sports (15 page)

Michael Jordan had been a motorcycle enthusiast since his early teens, when he’d first ridden a dirt bike. Now that he was
no longer playing basketball, he was free to indulge his passion as never before. He took to riding the streets of Chicago
at night, when the roads were less traveled and easier to navigate.

It was on one such night ride that he found a new outlet for his biking interest. He had been riding for more than an hour
and decided to take a quick break at a gas station. There were other motorcyclists parked there, too. Naturally, they recognized
Jordan but rather than being intimidated by His Airness, they struck up a conversation about their shared hobby.

“They noticed I didn’t have a jacket on — had a helmet on, didn’t have boots on,” Jordan later
recalled. “They said, well, if you’re going to be riding, you better at least put on some protection … I went the next day,
got all my equipment.”

One of the bikers gave Michael his card with an invitation to call if he ever wanted to ride with them. Jordan took them up
on their offer and soon was cruising the night streets with them regularly.

There were only eight or so riders at first. But it’s nearly impossible for Jordan to fly below the radar for long and word
soon got out about his late night rides. The number of riders quickly grew to more than thirty. Jordan tried his best to avoid
the crowds by cycling later at night because, as he said, so many riding together was “just an accident waiting to happen.”

But there was one person he actively sought out: a thirty-year-old motorcyclist named Montez Stewart.

By all accounts, Montez Stewart was the best amateur rider in the Midwest. Still, when his friends told him that Michael Jordan
wanted to meet him, he was sure it was a joke. “I thought that they were making it all up,” he told a reporter once. “I went
out that night to meet him and he was there. I was floored. Who wouldn’t be?”

The two became friends and rode together often,
on the road at first and then on a track Jordan rented. That’s when Michael saw how much potential Montez had as a rider —
and learned that Stewart had long nursed a dream to ride competitively.

Jordan knew what he was going to do next. He was going to form a motorcycle racing team with Montez Stewart as his rider.
He shared his idea with Stewart. Stewart readily agreed to be his rider, and with that, Michael Jordan Motorsports was born.

The team quickly gathered sponsors, the chief of which was Jordan Brand, the company Michael ran for Nike. By early 2004,
Stewart had been outfitted with bikes, gear, equipment, and a big rig to transport it all. The color scheme of Tar Heel blue
was a tribute to Jordan’s alma mater, the University of North Carolina. Michael had had a hand in designing Stewart’s clothes,
too, which showed just how involved he planned to be in his latest venture.

But that involvement didn’t include racing himself. After years of being in the sporting world spotlight, Jordan was content
to let a more talented rider take over the track while he kept a low profile and worked behind the scenes.

And work he did. Throughout 2004, Jordan
nurtured the team and made sure that Stewart, the only professional African-American on the circuit, had everything he needed
to succeed.

As it turned out, Stewart wasn’t dominant on the track. But Jordan wasn’t fazed. After all, it was only the team’s first year.
Still, he had hopes of improving the team’s chances. To help those hopes along, he added two more riders, Steve Rapp and Jason
Pridmore, to the team at the end of 2004.

Rapp and Pridmore were solid veterans of the track and gave the team a good boost the following year. Unfortunately, however,
Stewart again underperformed. At the end of 2005, Jordan made the difficult decision to replace his friend with a different
rider, Jake Holden. Holden, Rapp, and Pridmore formed the new core of Michael Jordan Motorsports.

“I just want to put together the best team that can win,” Jordan told a Chicago reporter recently. “I’m competitive in that
way.”

Jordan was competitive in other ways, too, ways that took him from the bike track to the back nine, where he teamed up with
another sports star who understood and appreciated the competitive spirit: Tiger Woods.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
2004–2007

Michael Jordan has an amusing memory about learning the game of golf. It was 1983, and he was still in college at the University
of North Carolina. He and his classmate, future PGA Tour golfer Davis Love III, were out on a course to play a round of golf.
Jordan was using Love’s clubs because he didn’t have a set of his own. At the start of one hole, he plucked Love’s favorite
driver from the bag, placed a ball on the tee, and then addressed the ball and swung with all his might.

Crack!
To Michael’s surprise, the driver snapped in half!

Michael was sure the break wasn’t an accident. He thought Love had set him up for a practical joke, despite Love’s assurances
that he hadn’t. In fact, Love remembers being a little upset that his favorite
driver was going to be out of commission for a while!

That incident occurred just a short while before Jordan’s basketball career soared into the stratosphere. Yet despite the
overwhelming distractions he faced as the world’s most recognized athlete, he always found time for golf.

“I think he liked the game because it got him away from people and gave him a chance to be alone,” Love once commented. “It
took his mind off things.”

Golf also gave Jordan a way to give back. In 1988, he lent his name to a golf tournament that raised money for charity. In
the years that followed, the Michael Jordan Celebrity Golf Classic drew many big name athletes, movie stars, and politicians—as
did a second tournament, the Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational, that he started thirteen years later.

Because he enjoys the game so much, Jordan usually joins the other famous folk on the course. Early on, when he was still
playing basketball, he wasn’t a very consistent player. But since his retirement in 2003, he has improved tremendously, in
large part because he’s willing and able to work on his game.
He once even flirted with the idea of turning pro and joining the PGA Tour.

He didn’t, for he knew he still had far to go to be able to compete on that level. That didn’t stop him from enjoying the
challenge, however.

“For a competitive junkie like me,” he once told a television reporter, “golf is a great solution because it smacks you in
the face every time you think you have accomplished something.”

Through the years, Jordan has had many golf partners and opponents whose competitive spirit equalled his own. NBA Hall-of-Famer
and good friend Charles Barkley has often delighted fans by trash-talking Jordan on and off the course. Baseball stars Derek
Jeter of the Yankees and Albert Pujols of the Cardinals have pitted their skills against Michael, most recently in the Michael
Jordan Celebrity Invitational in January of 2007. Actors Michael Douglas, Goldie Hawn, and Gabrielle Union also played in
that tournament alongside Jordan. All are considered decent golfers, but they take a backseat to the man who has been called
the Michael Jordan of golf: Tiger Woods.

Woods and Jordan met years earlier, when Woods
was first emerging as a superstar of golf. Back then, Jordan was Woods’s unofficial mentor, giving him advice on how to deal
with being a sports celebrity. That relationship developed into a fast friendship that continues today, both on and off the
course.

Their most recent outing together was in the pro-am Wachovia tournament in early May of 2007. This event marked the first
time the two had played together in an organized tournament rather than for charity or just for fun — though by all accounts,
they had plenty of fun that day!

Along with their third teammate, amateur golfer Skipper Beck, Woods and Jordan entertained the crowds with their high jinks
and their play. At the seventh hole, Michael sank a putt to make par — and then imitated Tiger’s well-known fist pump of triumph
as he walked off the green.

Four holes later, Michael kicked Tiger’s ball off the tee into the audience, where it was scooped up by a happy fan. Then,
when Woods re-teed and went into his swing, Jordan cleared his throat loudly, drawing laughs from the crowd and inciting a
staring contest with his partner.

Woods had his “gotcha” moment, too. After
Michael nearly chipped into a water hazard on the 17th hole, Woods plucked his teammate’s ball from the grass with his putter
— and then tossed it over his shoulder into the lake!

Through it all, the two engaged in playful banter, although Woods later admitted that his friend was much better at trash-talking.
He also noted just how lucky he felt to know Michael Jordan.

“He’s been like my big brother,” he told reporters, “so it’s been great to have him be part of my life.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
2006–2007

Motorcycle racing and golf gave Michael Jordan plenty to do after his retirement from basketball in 2003. So did his many
business ventures, particularly Jordan Brand, his division of Nike.

Yet basketball continued to pull at him. He hadn’t given up his dream of one day having an ownership stake in an NBA team.
In June of 2006, that dream finally came true. Robert Johnson had first offered his friend Michael a top management position
with the Charlotte Bobcats in 2003. Jordan had turned him down because he wanted to be the chief owner of the team. At that
time, Johnson wasn’t interested in giving up any part of his ownership.

But three years later, Jordan and Johnson entered into talks again. This time, Jordan accepted Johnson’s
offer, one that made him second in ownership to Johnson as well as the managing member of basketball operations.

“I’m excited to join Bob,” Jordan said in a statement on June 15, 2006, and “to put the best possible team on the court.”

Johnson seemed equally delighted. “Michael will provide invaluable management input to a Bobcats team that is poised to deliver
results for the 2006–2007 season and beyond.”