“Marcus Was 3 Years Old”: When Michael Jordan Regretted Father James Never Watching His Kids Grow

Michael Jordan’s father James was a driving force in the Bulls legend’s life. The two were so close that following his tragic passing in 1993, Jordan gave up basketball, a sport he had dominated, to play baseball, as his father had once wanted. Of course, James never got to see his son play the game he loved, and, as Michael later revealed in an interview, never got to see his grandchildren grow up either.

Five weeks before Michael’s 50th birthday, he sat down with Wright Thompson for an interview that was published on ESPN. The story covers various aspects of his life, but Jordan’s words about his father convey the pain he still feels.

As he, Thompson, and Jordan’s friend George Koehler sat in his study, Jordan revealed the sadness he felt about his father never spending significant time with his family. Jordan told them,

“He never met my fiancée. He never got to see my kids grow up. He died in ’93. Jasmine was a year old. Marcus was 3 years old. Jeffrey was 5 years old.”

Jordan was very close to his father and regrets that he never met his youngest grandchildren. James’ passing was hard on Michael, but the added knowledge that he’d never met the mother of Michael’s young twins made it a lot worse for the then-3x champion.

As interviewer Thompson wrote, even 20 years on from that fateful day, the mention of James Jordan casts a shadow over Mike. In Thompson’s words,

“He leans back into his chair, limp, his paunch noticeable for the first time. The sky outside is gray. He scrunches his mouth, rubs his neck. Suddenly he looks older, his eyes glassy, and even 20 years after his father was murdered — robbed of a Lexus and two championship rings given to him by his son—it’s clear that Jordan still needs his dad.”

But Jordan persevered. As he told Wright, he had a religious ritual he followed to ensure he still felt close to his father every day.

Michael Jordan’s love for cowboy movies

As Jordan told his gathered guests, he and his father had a great love for cowboy movies. “The thing we’d do,” he said, “we’d stay up all night and watch cowboy movies. Westerns.” Wright added that Jordan’s love for the genre was so obsessive, that even his employees knew all about it.

“One of his employees joked that she’d rather fly commercial than on Jordan’s Gulfstream because a passenger on his plane is subjected to hours of shootouts and showdowns.”

It’s not hard to hazard a guess that Jordan’s love for the genre was built by his father, but he remained loyal and continued to watch after his father’s passing to feel close to him.