Michael Jordan’s childhood was governed by his almost insatiable desire to play sports. And his relentless drive to win and his willingness to work hard for it were traits that were forged in him while playing in the neighbourhoods of Wilmington, NC. All Jordan wanted to do as a kid was be outside, trying basketball or baseball, craving to be in the thick of competition.
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Like most kids, Jordan had chores to do and an allowance from his parents to spend on himself. Children usually use that money on candies, movies, or little treats. But Jordan, being the budding, relentless athlete that he was even back then, revealed in an interview with Playboy that he never spent his allowance on himself.
The Chicago Bulls legend would instead use the money to pay off his brothers, James and Larry, to complete his chores, just so he could go out and play whenever he could. Not that he was a prodigiously talented star prospect back then. But Jordan was ambitious when it came to sports.
When asked if he was always a star athlete, Jordan replied, “No, but I had ambitions of being one. All I wanted to do was play all the time. I used to give up whatever allowance I had to my brothers, for them to wash dishes for me and clean the house.”
Unlike his brothers, Jordan was always an outdoorsy child and, much to his father’s chagrin, wasn’t much help in the garage, where James Sr. made a living fixing cars. MJ explained that his brothers, much like their father, were “mechanical” and always knew exactly which wrench was needed at the right time.
“My father is a mechanical person. He always tried to save money by working on everybody’s cars. And my older brothers would go out and work with him,” Jordan said. “He would tell them to hand him a nine-sixteenths wrench and they’d do it.”
MJ’s blank expressions while helping out in the garage often left his father irritated. “I’d get out there and he’d say, ‘Give me a nine-sixteenths wrench,’ and I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. He used to get irritated with me,” joked the Bulls legend.
But yes, this never affected the loving relationship Jordan had with his father. When the time came, he dedicated his whole life to him. After James Sr. died in 1993, Jordan retired from the NBA to pursue a baseball career, which was, in part, to fulfill his father’s lifelong dream. Needless to say, he tried to be competitive in baseball as well.
Jordan on how being competitive shaped him
MJ was always that guy on the floor. Even when he switched to baseball, he may not have been the most skilled, but nobody could question his competitive fire. The challenge, however, is that when you spend most of your adult life competing, it’s very hard to let that drive go.
Jordan has spoken about how that competitive fire continues to govern his daily life after retirement.
“When you’re out of sports, and you’re in normal life, you don’t shed that armor that you actually have coated yourself with based on your lifestyle and your work ethic,” Jordan revealed. “You have to find your way around it, and that’s frustrating.”
In a year-old YouTube video, Jordan spoke about how he still lives with the effects of his competitive younger self, admitting that he instinctively views everything as a competition.
“Because of the competitive nature that I have, I look at everything from a competitive nature,” he continued. “I tell my wife all [the] time, I’m cursed. I’m cursed from a competitive standpoint that I cannot watch, or compete, or be a part of things without competition.”
Jordan admitted that although it has affected his life after retirement, he wouldn’t change a thing, because being a competitor is what defines him as a person.
