Michael Jordan is larger than life right now (in 6.1 million people’s minds) but in 1989 I hoped to at least beat him in bowling. It’s quite a trip down memory lane to get there, but at the end of the trip is a bowling lane with MJ.

I don’t harbor any hard feelings that he was just as good at bowling as he was at basketball, golf, ping pong…name something that you don’t even think is a sport here, even back when he hadn’t won any championships. Though it might appear I’m a bad sport because I didn’t watch the first two installments of “The Last Dance” ESPN documentary on Sunday, I’d say it just isn’t so (wink)!

Before we get to fellow Tarheel Michael, there’s a bit of a set up here. That’s always the fun in planning a trip: determining why we’re going somewhere, what we’re going to do when we get there and who we’re going to see. In 1981, flying was for a select few. I proudly collected my Eastern wings every time I flew to visit my grandparents in North Carolina, while my best friend had never been on a plane, but our fun family vacations that created memories of a lifetime started the summer of 1981 after Dad signed a contract with Nike.

Endorsements were one of the perks of coaching. But Dad was one of the first pro coaches that signed with Nike so the trips were predominantly college coaches, and no one thought to bring their kids, except for Dad. It was the one season out of the year that we could travel together, we’d fly first class and the Nike family on the other end of the tarmac was wonderful. Those were the days with PJ Carlesimo of Seton Hall University and dear Rollie Massimino of Villanova and Jimmy Valvano of NC State (both now sadly deceased).

Because of those trips we went to Hawaii twice (Maui and Kona), Bermuda, Sun Valley, Oregon, and Silverado and La Costa, California. Those were spectacular years. We’d make an extended trip out of it and explore surrounding areas. I’d be in places that were so romantic, and I remembered thinking if only I was older and even liked guys, imagine being here with him. (I was thinking of Alex even then, I just didn’t know it yet).

And we had our most embarrassing family moment when Dad parked a maroon-colored rental car under a tree and it got washed with bird droppings so it turned prematurely grey. Dad refused to get the car washed (and we took this as a personal afront) as we drove down the California highway for all to point and laugh at us. My sister and I would slide down to hide from embarrassment every time we passed a car (that was that time in my life when I was not supposed to be the source of humor, remember)?

I couldn’t begin to explore all the memories as we were there many years before Michael Jordan came. But a personal favorite was the time when dear Mr. Cotton Fitzsimmons, who was a long-standing NBA and college basketball coach, came down to eat 10 minutes after his wife. They were both dressed identically wearing a red shirt with white pants.

Every time Alex and I accidentally dress alike, I always think of them.

And then the last night of the trip, this dear man, Michael Francis Doherty (Mom and Dad would always call him by his full name because it sounded like poetry to the ears) who worked for Nike and told a story like no other, put together an awesome video montage with cool music and footage that they had taken all week before that was really a thing. It was better than any movie because we knew all the people in it. It was funny and heartwarming and by the end, there’d be tears. It would be hard to believe that our lives had been documented like that and now it was time to leave and not be together again for another year.

Years later, one of my favorite stories to tell was of Carl Weathers, the actor who played Apollo Creed in the Rocky film series. He came to our Bermuda trip and he’d run by our room every morning. Mom would stand on the balcony and wait for him. When the time came she’d yell to us through the screen with her southern accent in full bloom (it came out when she got excited or needed to put on the charm), “Girls, come quick Apollo is running by.” It felt historic like we were getting called to watch a rocket ship blast off.

Pam was married to Sonny Vaccaro. They were so young that Mom relaxed her rules about the Mr. and Mrs. thing. They were offended if we called them anything but Pam and Sonny. Who knew that Sonny would be so instrumental as a sports marketer and he’d help launch Michael Jordan with Nike?

Two men did their first documentary on him, Sole Man, for ESPN “30for30”. What I loved most was their description of him from the Director’s Take:

“Whether you’ve known Sonny for five minutes or five decades, he is one of the most charismatic and memorable people on the planet. He is both interesting and relentlessly interested — a “quick” conversation with Sonny rarely lasts less than 30 minutes, and he’ll schmooze effortlessly about everything…”

“About ‘Sole Man’, Director’s Take (John Weinbach and Dan Marks)

These men obviously knew Sonny, and funny enough, John Weinbach still knows the basketball entertainment business as Executive Producer of Mandalay Sports Media, one of the five producers of The Last Dance.

As incredible as these vacations were with such dynamic people, it was the first time I started to question what makes something popular? We loved everything about Nike, yet, let’s face it, before Michael Jordan, donning a pair of Nike’s was as cool as using the word donning (if you get my drift).

We kids liked Reebok, Tretorn, or Adidas. Anything but Nike. And Nike yet hadn’t gotten in good with the women’s apparel. So we’d get a catalog, and though we could order anything we wanted, we’d be hard-pressed to fill our quota. My purple shirt and shorts in the above picture were both Nike, but no one was dying to have it.

I was grappling with concepts that were too big for me like marketing, branding, and what makes something hip when all I understood was I liked the people who worked at Nike. If they could “put on” a vacation that appealed to all age groups, had theme nights with one more fun thing after the next, and manage to captivate our attention with not-to-miss activities how could they not be the coolest sneaker in town?

Check out this ESPN blog post that Nike was, in fact, the underdog in the shoe apparel business, and Michael Jordan didn’t like their shoes either. It’s really a fascinating read. https://www.espn.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/2918/how-nike-landed-michael-jordan

And that very ESPN article explained how Howard White was in on those negotiations, dear Mr. White. I loved him, he always gave me tennis lessons, so all these years I assumed he was the tennis pro. Dad finally burst my bubble and said he worked for Nike but in a different capacity. For instance, it didn’t make Dad a tennis pro just because he decided to play with Mr. Massimino (I assume I’m Mr. Massimino in this analogy).

But before we leave Mr. White, here’s a tremendous interview with him discussing Michael Jordan’s drive that I’d love to share. http://nickdepaula.com/HOWARD-WHITE-JORDAN-BRAND

But the real take away from this interview is about the ping pong because it leads us nicely into the bowling story.

HW: We used to play ping pong at my house. I would beat Michael, but when he went back home to Chicago, he bought a ping pong table and he set it up in his basement. Everybody that came over had to play ping pong. He played ping pong every day after practice at the facility too, with the media and with the team. Michael Jordan got pretty good at ping pong. [Laughs]

Howard White interview posted on nickdepaula.com

So now we’ve come full circle to our last Nike trip. Somehow it was in 1988 or 1989 and I have to go with it because the facts are outweighing my memory. My mind’s a bit fuzzy because Dad had quit coaching after 1985, he had to quit CBS as the top color analyst because it coincided with his involvement with the Miami Heat franchise, yet somehow we were back on a Nike trip, I can’t figure. But I’m wearing my draft day t-shirt in the picture (draft day was June 1988) and the back of the picture says 1989 so it must have been that I had just finished my sophomore or junior year at UNC-Chapel Hill.

At that point in time, Michael was an excellent player, but he was a few years shy of winning any championships.

Mom wanted everybody to know that I was at Carolina, especially Mike, as he had gone there. too. She thought he was “cute as a button” and she wanted a life-size poster of Michael wearing his Air Jordan’s that they had on display, but we brushed her off. (I think she originally thought it would fit in my dorm room).

As I mentioned, they had planned activity nights, and on that trip, we bowled. We naturally gravitated to a lane and Michael Jordan, Dad, and I wound up in the same group. I was a competitive kid, which was a shame because there really is nothing worse than someone who is competitive and just not good at sports and that didn’t change just because I went to college.

But I figured maybe I had a chance at bowling. It’s not like I bowled or anything, I mean who bowled anyway? It wasn’t exactly cool or anything. But I figured Michael Jordan had to be lousy at something so maybe it was bowling. If I could score high in golf, surely I could score high in bowling. So I hoped.

The truth of the matter is Dad would never let me win at board games. Checkers, Backgammon, or cards, he’d win them all. And though the best parenting advice of today is that you shouldn’t let your kid win, Dad seemed to go by the books nad won every time. Somehow the parenting tactic backfired with me because here I was ready to take on Michael Jordan when I didn’t have the capability of doing so.

Or maybe I picked the wrong person to compete against. He was AWESOME! And I can’t explain how shocked I was. How could somebody be good at everything? I mean, didn’t he have enough to do with basketball?

Clearly I hadn’t read Howard White’s interview on how Michael had the drive to be good at everything.

But I did receive a consolation prize. Remember that picture of Michael that Mom had been eyeballing? Of course, she asked if she could have it. It most likely got forgotten in our basement until my parents had the fire and it burned down anyway.

But Mom tried to resurrect it when Dad was about to leave to play golf with Michael. She wanted Dad to take the life-sized poster on the trip so that Michael could sign it. Just the thought of Dad showing up with that poster makes me laugh. That would have been as cool as me trying to bowl against Michael Jordan.

Speaking of cool, Mandalay Sports Media was involved with “The Last Dance” (along with Michael Jordan, ESPN, NBA, and Netflix). So how can a documentary that generated 6.1 million viewers leave Mandalay Sports Media with 131 Twitter followers? (Of course, my daughter’s response was the best: maybe they don’t care about who’s following them, or not). But if they are looking for popularity tips, I can’t help them in that department (I seem to do a much better job making a fool of myself).

Now that I’m old enough to know more about these things, I still can’t figure this stuff out. But if you had asked me, bowling’s not really a cool sport anyway.

My Dad never acted like one sport was better than another. He’d say that basketball was different when he played but he’d never make the comparison between then and now, just like you never compare children, in fact, to this day, he won’t break that pledge.

Since I already broke rule number one and decided that bowling isn’t a real sport, I’ll break the other rule and compare Michael Jordan and Dad.

So, drum roll, please!

Here are the top three things that Michael Jordan and Dad have in common:

3.) They both were coached by Dean Smith

2.) They both are 6’6″

1.) And, the top reason, they both wouldn’t let me win just one lousy game!

Stephanie Ortiz