Michael Jordan is regarded as the greatest basketball player of all time by most of the NBA community.
The Chicago Bulls legend has a plethora of awards and accolades to support that argument. Keeping that in mind, one would think Jordan was always the ever-so-charismatic superstar player that he became in the NBA. But even a player of Jordan’s caliber failed to make his high school varsity team. Upon learning that his mother, Deloris Jordan, had a great motivating message for him.
“We both cried, ’cause I knew he wanted to really compete with the other guys. My words to him was, ‘if you really want it, you work hard over the summer,’ and he did that summer! That summer, he focused. He would practice all day. That basketball never left his hand.
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Had Jordan gotten demotivated over getting cut from his high school varsity team, we may never have seen one of the greatest basketball players of all time play in the NBA.
But giving up is not in Michael Jordan’s nature. As revealed by Deloris, MJ worked harder than ever that summer and honed his skills as a basketball player.
Michael Jordan Cried When He Found Out About Getting Cut From His High School Varsity Team
During his playing days in the NBA, Michael Jordan created a dangerous persona. Many opposing players were legitimately afraid of facing him during games as Jordan’s eyes showed nothing but the intention to destroy his opponents.
But before all that, as a high school player, Jordan couldn’t handle the news of getting cut from the varsity team. MJ couldn’t hold back his tears when he found out one of his closest friends was chosen over him to play for the varsity team.
“The Laney Bucs did have one major weakness, and that was size. They didn’t have a returning player taller than 6’3″…In those days, it was rare for sophomores to make varsity. Herring made one exception in 1978, one designed to remedy his team’s height disadvantage. This is part of the reason Mike Jordan went home and cried in his room after reading the two lists. It wasn’t just that his name was missing from the varsity roster. It was also that as he scanned the list, he saw the name of another sophomore, one of his close friends, the 6’7″ Leroy Smith.”
It must have been really hard for Mike to cope with the news of seeing one of his closest friends making the varsity team over him.
But instead of keeping on crying about it, a teenage Jordan made it his life’s mission to prove his doubters wrong. And over the course of his career, he did accomplish that task.