Michael Jordan had this intense knack for competitiveness which defined his career for most of his playing days. Jordan was hyper-competitive and aggressive regarding every aspect of his life, whether it was playing basketball, golf, or gambling with his closest associates. When renowned sports psychologist George Mumford joined the Chicago Bulls in 1993, he found Jordan an interesting case study and decided to assess his animated behavioral patterns.
Advertisement
While working with the Bulls, Mumford observed Jordan to follow great appetites and sleep less, which struck him as a notable observation. In the book Michael Jordan: The Life, Roland Lazenby wrote about how Mumford immediately suspected the Bulls star to be suffering from either manic depressive episodes or bipolar disorder due to certain habits. Here is an excerpt from Lazenby’s book describing Mumford’s reaction to observing Jordan’s behavioral patterns.
Sports psychologist George Mumford was transfixed the first time he observed Jordan’s animated approach to practice at age thirty-two. Having heard about his great appetites and how little he slept, the psychologist, who had just begun working for the Bulls, immediately suspected that the star was manic depressive or bipolar, or perhaps even both. “He was frenetic, all over the place with this hyper energy,” Mumford recalled of that practice. “I thought, He can’t sustain that.”
Mumford had assumed that Jordan’s hyper-competitive nature was part of a manic high, which would soon be followed by a stage of profound lows, indicating major mood swing issues. Over the coming weeks, the psychologist geared up to look closely for signs of depression in Jordan following this initial assessment. However, after completely studying Jordan, Mumford realized that the animation and hypercompetitive nature of the Bulls superstar was just his normal state, and not part of some manic high at all.
Mumford had plenty of experience around elite talent, given he was sharing rooms with Julius ‘Dr J’ Erving during his time at the University of Massachusetts. However, Jordan’s case was something that he had never witnessed before.
The 6x NBA champion always remained in a ‘zone’ of high performance, which athletes often struggled to achieve. The psychologist described Jordan’s zone, saying, “The more you have those moments in the zone, the more you want to have them. Most people can’t sustain it. His ability to find that state, his ability to concentrate, his ability to lock in were almost superhuman. He was coming from a different place, man.”
Truly, Jordan had achieved all that was required to mentally and physically complement his elite athlete status at the peak of his career. This is the very reason why the Bulls legend, to this day, is always recounted in the GOAT debate, even among the players of the current generation of the NBA.
As for the psychologist, it is a bit hard to blame them. After all, most people thought Michael Jordan was downright insane when they first saw him as well.
Michael Jordan’s brother inspired the hypercompetitive nature in him
In a 2020 interview, Michael Jordan revealed that the reason behind his ultra-competitive and aggressive nature was sparked in him by his family, especially his elder brother, Larry Jordan. While we today know Michael Jordan as arguably the greatest NBA superstar, one might be shocked to learn how Jordan’s elder brother, Larry, was expected to be the better basketball player.
While at Laney High School, Michael Jordan was always the second behind his brother, who was, at one point, stronger, more athletic, and a much better prospect than His Airness. Speaking of his brother, Jordan admitted, “When you say Air Jordan, I’m #2, he’s 1!” Though Larry never made it to the NBA, basketball fans sure remember the older Jordan as the one sparking the fire in MJ to become a legend of the sport.
Another incident that greatly helped spark Jordan’s competitive nature was when he was snubbed for his best friend for the high school varsity team. In 1978, sophomores rarely made it to the high school varsity teams. However, when Jordan saw the name of his 6’7″ best friend, Leroy Smith, it shattered his heart and disappointed him to a great extent.
Jordan knew he had to return stronger and fight for his place in the team. Six years later, Jordan found himself getting drafted into the NBA, wherein he went on to win 6 NBA championships, a feat seldom achieved by many in the league.
