1
Wilmington, North Carolina
Summer 1973
It was a quiet summer evening in 1973, the moon was out and bright, and the stars were in the skies and shinning on North Carolina. There was a bright light, where a young boy is playing basketball in his backyard shooting the ball and making it into the basket. Then, a figure turns on the house light and looks outside their door to see who was making the noise to see the boy just shooting the basketball.
"Michael?" asked James Jordan. The young Michael Jordan stops shooting and turns around to see his dad. His dad then steps out of the house. "What are doing here, son? It's after midnight," said his father. The young Michael was hesitant at first and then answered.
"Couldn't sleep, Pops," said Michael.
"Well, neither can we with all that noise you're making. Come one, let's go inside," said his father.
"Just one more shot?" begged Michael. His father smiled and nodded.
"All right, just one," said his father.
"Yeah," said Michael. He shots the ball and it goes through the basket. His father chuckles.
"That's good, shot it again," said his father. Michael shoots the ball again to the hoop and makes a shot, his father catches it and smiled.
"Getting pretty good, son," said his father as he passes the ball to Michael. " Go ahead shoot til you missed," said his father.
"Do you think if I get good enough, I can go to college?" asked Michael as he shoots the ball and makes it through the hoop and his father catches the ball.
“Hey, you get good enough, you can do anything you want to Michael," said his father as he passes the ball to his son.
"I want to play in North Carolina," said Michael as he shoots the ball again and makes it through again.
"That's a real fine school, real fine school. you can get a first-class education there," said his father as he passes the ball.
"I wanna play on the championship team," said Michael as he shoots the ball again and makes it in the hoop again. "Then I wanna play in the NBA," said Michael. Michael shots and shots and shots the ball and each shot goes into the basket, His father chuckles.
"All right, let's slow down, son. Don't you think you oughta get a little sleep first," questioned his father as they head back inside.
"And once I've done all that..." said Michael. "Uh-huh," said his father. He looked at his father. "I want to play baseball just like you, Dad," said Michael. His father smiled and liked the words that came out out of his son's mouth.
"Baseball? Hey, now that's a sport. When you've finished with all of that, I suppose that you're gonna fly, huh?" said his father.
Before they could go back inside the house, the young Michael Jordan stops and turns around to face the basketball hoop. Then it was all in slow motion. His father looked back to see his son running to the basket dribbling three times. As Michael runs to the basket he jumps and then he dunks the ball into the basket.
