The Making and Meaning of Michael Jordan
September 11, 2023
Smith (The Sons of Westwood), a history professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, justifies yet another book about Jordan by offering a smart appraisal of the superstar’s relationship with race. Jordan avoided discussing racism and politics during his NBA career in a bid to “appear more likable to people living under the illusion that the nation had solved its racial dilemmas,” Smith argues, noting that in 1990 Jordan, who had his own sneaker line with Nike, justified not endorsing Black Democratic senatorial candidate Harvey Gantt against racist incumbent Jesse Helms with the comment, “Republicans buy shoes, too.” Smith argues that Jordan downplayed to the press the ways in which racism shaped his life; he writes that Jordan has omitted in accounts of his youth that he was enraged by the prejudice he faced attending a newly desegregated high school in Wilmington, N.C., in the late 1970s and took to the court as a means of “disproving any notion of weakness or inferiority.” Smith places Jordan’s apoliticism in context, describing how O.J. Simpson and Julius Erving sought to present themselves as “colorless” to better appeal to white America. Jordan remains something of an enigma throughout, but readers will come away with a better sense of how that mystery was a product of the Hall of Famer’s aspirations for universal admiration. It’s a fascinating account of how Jordan navigated America’s fraught racial politics during his rise to the top.
October 1, 2023
The ascendance of Michael Jordan in American culture. Smith, a professor of sports history and author of The Sons of Westwood, takes his title from the silhouetted figure based on Nike's Air Jordan poster of the NBA star soaring to the hoop against the backdrop of the Chicago skyline, a 1987 creation that is now ubiquitous. The author examines the endorsement deals, particularly with Nike and Gatorade, that made Jordan an iconic presence, contrasting this stature with Jordan's often-contentious relationships with coaches, team executives, and teammates as he led the Chicago Bulls to their first championship in 1991. Smith makes great use of secondary sources to examine Jordan's "double consciousness" as a Black man with incomparable crossover appeal to white America and the unintended expectations and consequences that accompanied that status. He leans heavily on other books, including Sam Smith's The Jordan Rules and Phil Jackson's Sacred Hoops, to delve into the hypercompetitive Jordan's on-court rivalries with the Detroit Pistons and Los Angeles Lakers en route to the pinnacle of the NBA. The book will appeal to fans of Jordan, the Bulls, and the NBA of the 1980s and 1990s, as the author provides interesting backstories about team, league, and corporate figures who surrounded Jordan, particularly his opportunistic agent David Falk, greedy Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, and paranoid general manager Jerry Krause. Relying heavily on secondary sources and following in the wake of the wildly popular documentary The Last Dance and the film Air, the book does not break new ground or offer particularly profound insights. The lack of deeper explorations of the similarities of Jordan's circumstances and personality to sports stars like Joe DiMaggio, who also reached rarified air in the American consciousness at severe personal expense, leaves readers with a sense of opportunities missed. A thoroughly sourced compilation of familiar material.
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November 1, 2023
Professor of sports history at Georgia Tech and coauthor of Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X (2016), Smith covers material known to almost any NBA aficionado or Michael Jordan fan: Jordan's evolution from standout college player to international sports icon and commercial juggernaut, the Bulls' existential rivalry with the Detroit Pistons, Jordan's famous clashes with GM Jerry Krause, the signing (by Krause) of critical players (especially Scottie Pippen) on the road to the Bulls' six titles with Jordan, and the impact of coach Phil Jackson upon the team's success--and on Jordan's own transition from singular superstar who doubted his teammates to team player in Jackson's famed triangle offense. And yet Smith does a good job in setting Jordan's legendary reluctance to take political positions during his career against strong stands, including financial support, that Jordan would later take in retirement in support of racial justice. Given that interest in Jordan remains unabated 20 years after his retirement, recommended.
COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.