Instant gratitude is common among everyone in our society. Society constantly wants a reward or recognition for anything they do. This is the case in youth basketball. Every player and their camp is constantly looking for the “best fit” and the “right situation” to showcase their child prodigy to college coaches, scouts and event organizers with the hope of being the next Michael Jordan. But that’s where the misconception starts.
Jordan Brand recently began a 30th anniversary marketing plan with the line, “I’m not Michael. I am Jordan.” For all intents and purposes, this is a great line but it is not reflective of the 15-year-old M.J.
Say I am a high school coach speaking with a mid-major level college coach about my player. He is a 5-foot-11 scoring guard who just finished playing JV Basketball in North Carolina. He doesn’t play AAU basketball, and I am hoping that scouts and coaches will consider watching him based on my recommendations.
“I don’t think a college coach would entertain that. He played JV, right?” replied a Division II Assistant Coach.
“Give me a minute,” said one Division I Assistant Coach by text. Several hours passed by without a follow-up response.
They were later informed that this “mystery player” was Michael Jordan. Sometimes looking past the obvious is necessary in order to see what needs to be seen. Maybe his size is an issue. Maybe he doesn’t have an exact position. “The 5’11 JV non-AAU player doesn’t sound very promising though,” said one talent evaluator. “That describes my high school career. I sat the bench my junior year on varsity and only played as a senior. Never got any college looks nor should I have.”
“Please don’t mention my name. I don’t want to be the guy who said not to look at Jordan,” another coach said after finding out that Jordan was the JV player.
Maybe Marianna (FL) High School Head Basketball Coach Travis Blanton said it best while speaking with the Jackson County Floridan Newspaper about a junior who was transferring out of his program to attend a major prep program in order to improve and gain more exposure:
“AAU ties are hurting high school athletics in a major way. Whenever you want to see a player you go see him play in an AAU tournament. Because of this, high school basketball the way we know it may be obsolete in the next ten years,” Blanton told the newspaper. “The role of the high school coach and team is taken out of the mix unless they need a transcript or information on disciplinary history. AAU coaches are not all bad but for the most part they’re out there hugging babies, shaking hands and saying what needs to be said.”
Jordan did not make the Laney (NC) High School varsity team as a sophomore. He instead played on the J.V. team. Thomas Lake of Sports Illustrated profiled Jordan’s high school coach, Clifton Herring, and his decision to place Jordan on the JV in an article entitled, Did This Man Really Cut MICHAEL JORDAN?
“To an outsider watching Pop Herring’s basketball tryout in November 1978, it would not have been obvious that the gym at Laney High in Wilmington, N.C., held a player destined to become the greatest in the universe. He was still Mike Jordan then, not Michael Jordan, just another sophomore guard among 50 eager boys competing for 15 spots on the varsity and 15 more on the junior varsity. There was no doubt that Mike Jordan could handle the ball, but his shooting was merely good and his defense mediocre. Mike Jordan was seven or eight inches shorter than Michael Jordan would be, only 5’10” at age 15, and at least one assistant coach had never heard of him before that day. If Jordan distinguished himself at all during the tryout, it was through his supreme effort. He was first in line for the conditioning drills, and he ran them as hard as anyone, and when they were over he wanted to run some more.”
He probably pouted. He probably complained. He probably even thought about it, but MJ did not transfer schools. Instead, he dominated the Junior Varsity ranks and ascended to stardom at the Varsity level before choosing North Carolina as his college destination as well as being named a McDonald’s All American.
Sometimes hard work truly does trump all else, and sometimes it is best not to judge a book by its cover.
