The Heart of Jordan

It was the only time I saw Michael Jordan cry. The toughest guy in the room, on the basketball floor, perhaps the greatest competitor American team sports has ever known.

It was before a game with the Atlanta Hawks before Jordan became just "Michael." He was big already, but still not quite the greatest. The Bulls had yet to win a championship, and some questioned whether they ever would. They were preparing for a game against the Hawks, which always provided a special scoring and high-flyers' duel between Jordan and Dominique Wilkins. It was Easter Sunday, one of those big TV games, and Jordan was sitting quietly in front of his locker watching some tape on the Hawks.

Pre-games were much more informal back then, and there was a pretty little girl there, maybe seven or eight, wearing her pink Easter dress. She was there to see Jordan. The folks from one of the groups that support sick children had arranged a brief meeting with the Bulls and Jordan always accommodated the youngsters. He loved the kids, talking with them as if they were adults, always joking and friendly. But this time it was too much.

The little girl was a portrait. She stood before Jordan transfixed as he joked and talked with her, trying to get a response. She smiled and her eyes sparkled. She said little, but Jordan began to melt in her gaze. After a few minutes, some more talk and an autograph, she was led away, looking back at Jordan and smiling, eyes wide with wonder. Jordan knew she had been ill.

He began to cry.

"How do they expect me to play a game after this?" he asked.

But Michael would as only he could. The legend was only just beginning. A few weeks later, Jordan would make that much shown "shot" against Cleveland to upset the favored Cavs and push the eventual champion Detroit Pistons to a six-game conference finals, the Bulls first appearance in the conference finals in fourteen years. The Bulls would lose that Sunday game in Atlanta, but just barely, as Jordan recorded a triple double with forty points, twelve assists and ten rebounds in forty-three brilliant minutes.

Michael Jordan possessed a big heart both on and off the basketball court.