The Greatest Ever?

If you know me, you know I LOVE Michael Jordan. I have loved him since his rookie year. The amount of money I have spent to buy his shoes, wear his shirts, and clothe my sons in Jordan apparel is truly ungodly. I looked up to him as a basketball player, as a competitor, as a model of hard work, dedication and success. He is truly the greatest basketball player of all time. After watching his induction speech into the Basketball Hall of Fame on Friday, there is no doubt that MJ deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. I do have doubts about his success…true success. I read this article on Yahoo Sports about Jordan’s speech. Author Adrian Wojnarowski says this:

When basketball wanted to celebrate Jordan as the greatest player ever, wanted to honor him for changing basketball everywhere, he was petty and punitive. Yes, there was some wink-wink teasing with his beloved Dean Smith, but make no mistake: Jordan revealed himself to be strangely bitter. You won, Michael. You won it all. Yet he keeps chasing something that he’ll never catch, and sometimes, well, it all seems so hollow for him.

After watching Jordan’s speech, I felt like something inside of me had died. It was sad and good all at the same time. I was sad that a role model that I looked up to for so long had no meaning in his life apart from the game of basketball. I was sad that I had devoted so much of my affection to a man that loved himself more than God, more than his wife (ex-wife), more than his kids, more than his friends. I was sad that for so much of my life I had judged success by athletic dominance and material possessions. I was glad that God showed up and revealed some things to me on this night that I wouldn’t have recognized a few years ago.

The highlight of the evening for me, and from everything I have read, for most people watching the ceremony, was the induction speech of David Robinson. I have included it below. When you watch this speech, you don’t sing the Gatorade song, “I Want to Be Like Mike.” You think to yourself, “I want to be like Christ.” That is what David Robinson’s words evoke: a hope and a belief that God has something more for us…as men, as women, as husbands, wives, fathers, mothers and friends. Robinson’s speech makes you realize that he wasn’t the greatest basketball player of all time, but he was the greatest husband to his wife and the greatest dad to his boys and the greatest friend and teammate that he could possibly be. That is success.