I think every future Pro Football Hall of Famer needs to get a copy of Michael Jordan's 22-minute induction speech Friday night at the Basketball Hall of Fame. Perfect. Just perfect.
...What made Jordan's speech so perfect was the overarching story of his career -- this insane motivation he derived from everything -- and the fact that he told stories. Story after story after story... About longtime assistant Tex Winter trying to prevent Jordan from bighead syndrome by telling him there is no "i'' in team, and Jordan responding, "Yeah, but there is an 'i' in win.''
...Humility is all well and good, but there's a way to make Hall of Fame speeches compelling and relevant, and Jordan gave every big star the how-to book on them.
T&R:
Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame induction speech turned into a roll call of all the people whose insults, real or imagined, made him the competitor he was. He saved a high-powered flamethrower for former Bulls general manager Jerry Krause. Krause has denied he once said that organizations, not players, win championships, but that infamous quote or non-quote led to Jordan's sharpest remarks of the night. "Jerry's not here," he said. "I don't know who'd invite him. I didn't. I hope he understands it goes a long way. He's a very competitive person. I was a very competitive person. He said organizations win championships. I said, 'I didn't see organizations playing with the flu in Utah. I didn't see it playing with a bad ankle.'"
Hmm. Interesting takes on the same speech, to say the least. I don't think it matters what I think of Mr. Jordan, but I think Mr. King is blowing sunshine. But I digress.
The real reason I was inspired to blog about this was a particular comment by someone named "BonusEruptus" on T&R. While most of those around him (her?) argued about whether Jordan was/is the best basketball player of all time, and whether it gave him an excuse to say the whole "I in win" quote, he delves down to the true point of the debate, very similar to what we had to do on our English classes, tests and critical reading portions of our SATs (comment #26):
The point is not whether Jordan was "right"...he is. The point is whether a HOF acceptance speech is the proper time and place for one man to punch another man in the mouth. I would say it is not. Are there no tabloid reporters in North Carolina? Jordan can **** and moan about Crumbs Krause all he wants to on the second Tuesday of any month he desires. But there was no good reason that I can see for taking a punch at someone who could not defend himself on what was supposed to be a celebration of your accomplishments, not the kill-list of all the foes you slayed and enemies you assassinated on your bloody rise to the top.
THAT is what was less than classy...not what he said, but that he chose to say it at all given the time and place.
Generally, I don't like people who comment on threads. They are nasty, they are biting, they are shallow. I can find many faults in all of them. (That's another reason why I can't stand the stupidity on commenters - I already have a bias against them, myself included, because I know they are not truly being the person they really are when anonymity acts as their Invisibility Cloak. Harry Potter fans, you're welcome.) Additionally, they don't take the time to read others' comments and just comment on the ones that piss them off the most - a derogatory descent into why the word 'civility' is becoming more a curse word in this society. (I had to remove a post of mine on Facebook because I kept getting the same answer over, and over, and over again because people would not READ the comments above theirs answering my question.)
I digress again. What really got my attention was that this seemed to be a critical thinker and someone who tried to steer the conversation back to where it was supposed to be. The T&R articles are usually fodder for huge arguments and insults to increase the traffic on si.com, which is fine by me, but I was surprised to find someone who knew where the real argument was. When others would comment back, he'd pick up the conversation and enforce his opinion, staying on subject, not wandering off into the periphery about Jordan's field goal percentage and arguing about how big is ego is (it's huge).
This was probably the single hardest thing for me to learn when I was in college. As you can imagine, being an English major meant a lot of critical reading and writing. I probably typed upward of one million lines during those four years - no joke. Out of all those critical papers, maybe half of them were satisfactory enough to earn an A for staying on subject. My thesis, while I would write some good stuff, most of it would get erased because I would stray into the misty margins of the "stream of consciousness" crap that courses through our heads all the time. It was hard to organize those thoughts and arrange them coherently for someone else, even if it made perfect sense to me.
The Internet is not a place where critical thinking and writing is appreciated, no matter if I'm blogging, social networking, Tweeting, commenting, instant messaging or texting. But it is refreshing to see that it still exists in tiny alcoves among the plethora of absolute junk that has snarled itself across the online environment. It's kind of like wondering where God is finding that one worthy soul on this earth that prevents him from destroying it (but when I looked at my newborn daughters, I had a pretty good idea.)
Digression again. Sorry, folks. Let's give a hand to BonusEruptus for some good, constructive, on-topic criticism, not admitting that he is high or drunk, and putting my faith back into this country's way of handling controversy without personal insults or blatant prejudice.
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