There has been much discussion about Michael Jordan’s exploits on the basketball court, but we rarely discuss his life before the NBA. His time in high school was largely responsible for shaping Jordan into the man we all came to know. Roland Lazenby, the author of Jordan’s biography titled ‘Michael Jordan: The Life’, detailed one such incident that showed glimpses of his competitive nature.
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While in school, Jordan was unable to find anything that really caught his fancy. He wasn’t as proficient in baseball as he’d hoped, and his mother Deloris forbade him from even thinking about playing football. With his options rapidly deteriorating, his mother jokingly told him to take up Home Economics.
Of course, she’d suggested it mockingly, claiming that he “didn’t seem to be the kind of guy who could easily attract a mate.” That’s where Mike’s legendary need to prove people wrong kicked in. Not only did he not take offense to his mother’s suggestion, he actually took up Home Eco, and surprisingly liked what he learned.
Lazenby describes an incident where a young Jordan used the know-how from his classes to bake a cake so good that his mother was in shock that her son had made it. She was in such disbelief that she even called his teacher to make sure the youngster wasn’t lying about making that cake.
“Rather than getting bent out of shape, Jordan took her suggestion and signed up for the courses—and found he liked them. ‘I remember he baked a cake in school that was so good we couldn’t believe it,’ his mother said. ‘We had to call his teacher to verify it.'”
Michael Jordan’s success with baking the cake shows just how much he loved proving people wrong. The NBA legend was looking to win every debate even as a youngster. MJ was even looking to prove his own mother wrong by showing off his cooking skills. Of course, Jordan did eventually figure out his true calling but had things gone very differently, maybe he’d have been a world-famous chef instead of a 6x NBA champion.
