Michael Jordan

Michael Jeffrey Jordan, widely known as MJ, was born on February 17, 1963, and built a career as a businessman, professional basketball player, and even a minor league baseball player. Over 15 NBA seasons from 1984 to 2003, he secured six championships with the Chicago Bulls. Many consider him the greatest basketball player ever, and he played a key role in making the sport and the NBA globally popular during the 1980s and 1990s.

Jordan played college basketball for the North Carolina Tar Heels, winning a national championship as a freshman in 1982. By his junior year in 1984, he was named national college player of the year, and the Bulls picked him third overall in that year's draft. With Chicago, he became a star known for high scoring, strong defense, and intense competitiveness. His leaping ability—especially his free-throw-line dunks in Slam Dunk Contests—earned him the nicknames "Air Jordan" and "His Airness." He won his first NBA title in 1991, then added two more in 1992 and 1993 for a three-peat.

Citing exhaustion from basketball and fame, Jordan abruptly retired before the 1993–94 season to play Minor League Baseball for the Chicago White Sox organization. He returned to the Bulls in 1995 and led them to three more championships (1996, 1997, 1998), including a then-record 72 regular-season wins in 1995–96. He retired again in 1999, then came back for two seasons with the Washington Wizards from 2001 to 2003. During his college and NBA years, he also played for the U.S. national team, winning four gold medals—at the 1983 Pan American Games, 1984 Summer Olympics, 1992 Tournament of the Americas, and 1992 Summer Olympics—without ever losing a game.

His individual honors include six NBA Finals MVP awards, 10 scoring titles (both all-time records), five NBA MVP awards, an NBA Defensive Player of the Year award, 10 All-NBA First Team selections, nine All-Defensive First Team nods, 14 All-Star Game appearances, and three All-Star Game MVP awards. He holds the NBA records for career regular-season scoring average (30.1 points per game) and playoff scoring average (33.4 points per game). He is one of only eight players to achieve the basketball Triple Crown. In 1999, ESPN named him the 20th century's greatest North American athlete, and the Associated Press ranked him second only to Babe Ruth on its athletes-of-the-century list. He was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame twice—once in 2009 for his individual career and again in 2010 as part of the 1992 U.S. Olympic "Dream Team." The NBA MVP trophy is named after him.

Jordan became one of the most effectively marketed athletes ever, with many product endorsements. He drove the success of Nike's Air Jordan sneakers, first released in 1984 and still popular. He starred as himself in the live-action animated film *Space Jam* (1996) and was the focus of the Emmy-winning documentary series *The Last Dance* (2020). In 2006, he became part-owner and head of basketball operations for the Charlotte Hornets (then the Bobcats), buying a controlling interest in 2010 before selling his majority stake in 2023. He is also a co-owner of 23XI Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series. With a net worth of $4.3 billion, he is the wealthiest athlete ever by official records and one of the world's richest celebrities. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Born on February 17, 1963, at Cumberland Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, to Deloris (a bank employee) and James R. Jordan Sr. (an equipment supervisor), Michael grew up with two older brothers, James Jr. and Larry, an older sister named Deloris, and a younger sister named Roslyn. The family, raised Methodist, moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1968. At Emsley A. Laney High School, he played basketball, baseball, and football. As a sophomore, he tried out for the varsity basketball team but was deemed too short at 5'11". Motivated, he became a star on the junior varsity team, scoring around 40 points in some games. Over the next summer, he grew four inches and trained hard. Once on varsity, he averaged over 25 points per game in his final two seasons, adopted jersey number 23, and as a senior, he was selected for the 1981 McDonald's All-American Game, scoring 30 points after averaging 26.8 points, 11.6 rebounds, and 10.1 assists per game that season.

Recruited by many colleges—including Duke, North Carolina, South Carolina, Syracuse, Virginia, and Clemson—Jordan most strongly considered North Carolina, NC State, and Maryland. In 1980, he accepted a basketball scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he majored in cultural geography because of its link to meteorology; he was interested in becoming a meteorologist.

As a freshman under coach Dean Smith's team-oriented system, Jordan was named ACC Freshman of the Year, averaging 13.4 points per game on 53.4% shooting, ranking 10th in conference scoring and sixth in field goal percentage.