da BLITZ in the INDUSTRY
JORDAN PICKS HIS IDOL TO INDUCT HIM
Michael Jordan had his pick. Dean Smith. Phil Jackson. Maybe even his good friend Charles Barkley.
Each would have been an understandable choice to present Jordan during his induction Friday into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Smith was Jordan’s legendary coach at North Carolina. Jackson helped guide Jordan to six NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls. Barkley shared the role of rival and running buddy.
Jordan passed on all of them. Instead, he chose someone who had never coached him or played with or against him.
He chose David Thompson. The former NBA high-flyer who had starred at North Carolina … State.
“I got a call from the Hall of Fame and they asked me if I was willing to be a presenter for someone,” Thompson recently told Yahoo! Sports. “I said, ‘Yeah.’ I didn’t know who it was. … They said Michael Jordan. I was like, ‘Wow.’ He told them that he was a big fan of mine and I was the one that really inspired him. Being that there was so many North Carolina people he could’ve chose, I was honored.
“I was kind of surprised, and also was really flattered that he chose me over Coach Smith. You know how important he is?”
To Jordan, Thompson’s college ties didn’t matter as much as his game. Before Jordan became Air Jordan, David Thompson owned the skies.
Thompson grew up in Shelby, N.C. Jordan was just 11 when Thompson led the Wolfpack to their first NCAA championship in 1974. Nicknamed “Skywalker,” he captured Jordan’s imagination – and that of the rest of the nation – with his 48-inch vertical leap and acrobatic dunks. Thompson went on to play for the Denver Nuggets, and was the runner-up to Julius Erving in history’s first dunk contest during the 1976 ABA All-Star weekend. He once scored 73 points on the final day of the regular season. Drug and alcohol problems shortened his career and kept him from realizing his potential, but he recovered and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1996.
“Even when I go out to speak, that’s how they introduce me, ‘Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan,’ ” Thompson said. “Charles Barkley once said, ‘[Thompson] took the game to the air. … He got people out of their seats.’ I saw a lot of my game in Michael Jordan’s game.”
Thompson first began to hear about Jordan when Jordan was playing at Laney High School in Wilmington, N.C. He knew Jordan was not only considering North Carolina, but N.C. State, too, in large part because Thompson played there. The Wolfpack, however, never asked Thompson to help recruit Jordan, who went to help lead the Tar Heels to the NCAA title as a freshman in 1982. The Wolfpack won the national championship a year later.
“We would have had a couple more championship banners up there if he came,” Thompson said.
Thompson met Jordan for the first time during the 1984 Final Four in Seattle. Jordan was there to receive a National Player of the Year award while Thompson was in the midst of the final season of his NBA career with the Seattle SuperSonics.
“My friend took a picture of us together while saying, ‘These are the two best to ever play in the ACC,’ ” Thompson said. “A couple years later he ran into Michael and had the picture on him. Michael got a kick out of it, especially since he had hair back then.”
Thompson said Jordan went out of his way to help him while he was a community ambassador for the Charlotte Hornets in the early 1990s. Then with the Bulls, Jordan would sometimes arrive hours early for road games in Charlotte to meet with underprivileged children.
“The kids treated him like he was the Beatles or Michael Jackson,” Thompson said. “Little girls would shake. He was really good with the kids.
“They didn’t really know who I was, but once he told them I was an inspiration for him they would look at me in a different light. They wanted my autograph. One kid said, ‘You must have been really good if Michael Jordan said that about you.’ ”
Thompson won’t have to give a lengthy speech for Jordan; those days are over for the Hall, replaced by video tributes. But NBA Entertainment recently interviewed Thompson for an hour for Jordan’s introduction, and Thompson will attend all the ceremonies in which Jordan is honored, and stand with him during his induction speech.
Thompson is still overwhelmed Jordan picked him to help celebrate his greatest honor. Over Smith, Jackson, Barkley and everyone else.
“I’ve been smiling ever since,” Thompson said. “I’ve been telling people and they’ve been congratulating me like I was getting in. I’m already in.”
Come this weekend, the game’s greatest legend will be inducted alongside his own idol. Even Michael Jordan knows the importance of recognizing those who came before him.
“I built my talents on the shoulders of someone else’s talent,” Jordan wrote in his 1998 autobiography, “For the Love of the Game.” “I believe greatness is an evolutionary process that changes and evolves era to era. Without Julius Erving, David Thompson, Walter Davis, and Elgin Baylor, there would never have been a Michael Jordan. I evolved from them.”
>>LOVE THIS JORDAN PICKED THE PERSON WHO INSPIRED HIM TO BECOME THE GREATNESS THAT HE IS
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Icon NFL player BARRY SANDERS has a son who is following into his footsteps
The inside handoff to the fullback fooled no one. Of course that's often the case when it's a running play and the team pretends it's going away from its best runner.
So as Heritage Hall (Okla.) quarterback Turner Petersen held the ball, many of the Lincoln Christian defenders held their ground. Eventually, the ball was pitched back to a freshman - a 14-year-old freshman - on an end-around play.
And Barry James Sanders, son of that Barry Sanders, went to work.*****Heritage Hall football coach Andy Bogert figured he was in good shape when he learned one of Barry Sanders' kids was going to join his program.
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| Barry Sanders' kid ran for 742 yards and 12 TDs as a freshman. |
Bogert, however, had to see for himself, so he checked in on Sanders when he was playing in a junior high game.
First carry: 80 yards.
Second carry: 60 yards.
Third carry: 65 yards.
"We knew we had something special," Bogert said.
He also knew he had a problem.
His 2008 team was going to be dominated by 15 seniors, led by Petersen, a star in his own right. How would the team react to a freshman phenom - one who was sure to get the bulk of the media attention?
To prepare his team, Bogert addressed his players before last season. He said that Sanders would receive a lot of publicity because of his father's fame. That, he emphasized, was not Sanders' fault, and the players should not hold it against him.
"Ever since we got that all out in the open," Bogert said, "it really helped the dynamics of our team."
Petersen would go on to account for more 2,500 yards and two dozen touchdowns.
But that didn't mean the younger Sanders didn't get some chances, too.
Unlike his father, who famously had to wait two years to get his turn at Oklahoma State - starting only after Thurman Thomas left for the NFL - Sanders was a big part of the offense.
Sanders rushed for 742 yards and 12 touchdowns on 89 carries while helping his school go 15-0 and capture the 2008 Oklahoma 2A state title.
Bogert can only imagine how the next three years will go.
"He's just coming into his potential, and he's a pretty good back right now," Bogert said. "Barry's got the goods to become a great, great player not only in high school - in college and probably further."
*****The Lincoln Christian defensive end thought he had him in the backfield, but Sanders used his quickness to get around him. The defensive back thought he had him down low, but Sanders leaped over him.
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Iverson Boosts Grizzlies Ticket Sales
The addition of Allen Iverson to the Memphis Grizzlies has resulted the biggest boom in ticket sales seen in the history of the team.
Iverson, as the newest member of the Memphis Grizzlies, he brings experience, talent, charisma, and he puts butts in the seats.
"The last 48 hours it has been our biggest two days of sales since we started here," says Dennis O'Connor, Vice President of Ticket Sales for the Memphis Grizzlies.
The Grizzles are giving new season ticket purchasers an Allen Iverson jersey as an incentive. And at this point, that may be the only way to get one, there are only a few of the number three jerseys left in stock.
>>AI got a 1 year contract for 3.5 mill $
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Caster Semenya, the 18-year old at the center of one of the biggest gender scandals in sports history, withdrew from a weekend race in South Africa amidst unconfirmed reports that her gender tests have revealed that she has both male and female sexual organs.
She was scheduled to compete in the 4,000 meters at the national cross country championships in Pretoria. Semenya's coach, Michael Seme, says his runner "isn't feeling well".
Yesterday, unsubstantiated reports from Australia and England said that Semenya's tests showed that she has no womb or ovaries and produces testosterone levels three times higher than a normal woman. The IAAF thinly denies the reports. (The organization's spokesman says he hasn't "seen" the results, which doesn't mean he hasn't "heard" the results. Nor has the IAAF come out and said that the reports are false.)
But let's operate under assumption that the tests were accurate and that Semenya is a hermaphrodite. If so, then there are three main questions that will need to be answered soon:
1) Will Semenya be stripped of her gold medal?
Probably. It's hard to imagine that the IAAF would allow Semenya to keep the gold after what these tests reveal. The rules explicitly state that a "gender verification" situation has to be approved and overseen by medical authorities. Semenya didn't do this. Fair or not, a rule is a rule.
2) Will Semenya ever be allowed to run again?
Reading the IAAF rules, it would appear that Semenya would be allowed to run if her condition was treated. Whether or not she would want to is anyone's guess. But there's also a chance she could be banned from running based on the answer to the next question.
3) Who knew about this and when did they know?
We haven't gotten this far down the road yet, but the next logical step in the progression of this sordid affair is whether there was a coverup involved. Regardless of whether the intentions of Semenya and her handlers were nefarious, they had to know of her ambiguous gender. Not having ovaries isn't something that goes unnoticed. If they did, then at what point did this turn from an unfortunate medical situation into outright deception?
If Semenya was an innocent running without knowledge of her condition, then there's not much the IAAF could do other than strip her medal and advise her on how to regain eligibility. But if it can be determined that she knew she was running illegally (which would be tough to prove, but I'm starting to get the feeling that people knew -- how else would other coaches have known to order gender tests?) then there could be heavy sanctions down the road.
These questions will be discussed in the coming weeks and will be the center of attention when the IAAF officially releases its findings in November. If you thought the tale of Caster Semenya was strange before, it's just getting started.
IDK..IM JUST WAITING ON THE RESULTS, LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD!
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