“By the Band of His Underwear and Trousers”: When Michael Jordan Received a Humiliating Wedgie From a Former Marine

It’s hard to imagine someone giving a wedgie to fierce Michael Jordan and getting away with it. However, his former baseball manager during his teenage years, Dick Neher could engage in such an act and still dodge retaliation. In MJ’s 2014 memoir, Michael Jordan: The Life, author Roland Lazenby revealed how an ex-Marine snuck up behind Michael Jordan and pulled his underwear in a way that the intensity of the impact could only be soaked in by a mariner. When an enraged Jordan finds out who committed the act, he learns that it is “the craziest white man” he knows.  

The incident happened during the 1988 season offseason. In the preceding 1987-88 season, MJ was the league’s MVP, steals leader, defensive player of the year, and also the scoring champion. Despite attaining such unparalleled accolades, he couldn’t do much when Neher gave him a wedgie. Author Lazenby narrated the incidents that led to this moment.

“Dick Neher, his old Babe Ruth coach, snuck up behind him, grabbed him by the band of his trousers and underwear, and pulled up high and hard to deliver the kind of wedgie that only an ex-Marine could fathom,” narrated Lazenby in Michael Jodan: The Life

When the 1988 MVP figured out that it was Neher who committed the act, he claimed, ”Dick Neher, you’re still the craziest white man I know.”

The former mariner was the manager for MJ’s Babe Ruth League team when he was 13. He had seen Jordan try his hand at baseball when he was a kid. So, despite Jordan being one of the best athletes in the world at that moment, he received the same treatment the NBA star might have received as a kid by his baseball coach.

Dick Neher was overwhelmed by Michael Jordan’s hands

Neher was a youth baseball and basketball coach in Jordan’s hometown Wilmington for more than three decades. The former United States Marines Corps member saw Jordan beginning his sporting journey. The manager witnessed the struggles of a 13-year-old while he played baseball for his team. However, he also was aware of the young boy’s competitive fire. More than anything, the coach was overwhelmed by the size of Jordan’s hands.

He cited a picture to SI that proved their huge size when Jordan was just around 13 years old.  Dick Nehar recalled“I[Neher] have picture of him[MJ], and he’s kneeling, with a hand or his knee, and his fingers come clear down to his shin. Biggest hands I’ve ever see.”

When MJ was contemplating a baseball career after the 1992-93 season was over, Neher emerged as one of his backers and believed in his baseball abilities. At any rate, even when a 25-year-old Jordan was an established player, Neher treated him as one of his young students.