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Air is human, and that's okay

SHELTON E-mail: Click here Archive

© St. Petersburg Times,
published September 26, 2001

I can see it now. The clock is winding down, and the ball is in his hands. Once again, his eyes are locked on the goal. Once more, his tongue is hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

Michael Jordan will dribble once, twice. He will move to his left, then right, then left. Finally, he will rise into the air, his bald head gleaming in the spotlight, and the ball will slide off his fingertips. He will settle to earth with his arms still raised, with his wrist still locked in its follow through, with his tongue still lying against his chin.

And the ball will hit the front of the rim.

Clank.

I am braced for his mortality. I am prepared for normal. I am ready for Michael Jordan, just another guy.

Jordan, whatever is left of him, is coming back. He is older. He will be slower. He will leave on one of those dunks from the foul line, and he will return to earth by the front end of the circle. He will not fly. He will creak.

And it's okay.

Here comes Mr. Jordan, and he has every right. If ever a guy has earned the right to walk into a gym and yell "next," it is Jordan.

Yet, since word that Jordan was considering coming back began to leak out (Jordan releases news the way Maxwell House releases coffee, one drop at a time), there has been a general vexing of angst from a lot of people in the opinion business who want to nail the gym doors shut so MJ cannot enter. They suggest he is driven to come back by ego, by shallowness, by greed.

Darn you, Michael, the general sentiment seemed to be. You stay away from basketball and leave that legacy be.

Well, tough luck, people. You don't get a vote. The memories aren't ours. They're his. If he wants to edit them, it's his choice.

It would be nice, of course, for Jordan to return as the same force he was when he left. We could all find room for a few more memories. But it isn't likely. The guess is Jordan will have some great games, followed by those where the ball spends a lot of time bouncing off his foot. Not even Jordan is immune to age. There will be better teams than his, better players than him. Still, if Jordan is okay with that, with being the eighth best player in the league on its 17th best team, why wouldn't you be?

Those who oppose Jordan's comeback, I suspect, are doing it mainly out of fear. No one wants to see greatness fade. We would rather it disappear in grand fashion, the way Jordan's career seemed to on that night of June 14, 1998. Jordan's last shot won a game and a championship. It was the perfect exit line, the exclamation point on a dynasty and the legend who forged it.

It has been three years since that shot, three years of living life as the guy who used to be pro basketball. Three years of the past tense, of listening to people tell you when they saw you hit this shot or that one. Three years of living in past tense, of knowing the best part of your life is over. Three years of wondering if he could do it again.

What you have to understand about life in the arena is, for a special athlete, it's better than life outside it. And so Jordan, like so many boxers, cannot stay away from the game that defined him. For the sake of your memory of him, or mine, should he have to?

Understand this. Jordan, like the rest of us, has one life. If he doesn't want to spend it in memory, then bully for him. If he has a little more run in him, a little more game, then let him spend it. This is not Steve Young or Troy Aikman; no one fears for Jordan's health. Who, then, are any of us to close the door on him?

So brace yourself for the ordinary. Prepare yourself for a lesser masterpiece. Get ready for Jordan, Wizard.

Eventually, it won't affect your memories. Eventually, you'll remember a great story over a bad ending. When you tell your grandchildren about Jordan, you won't tell them about any struggles that lie in the months to come. You'll remember Jordan as a Bull, the way you remember Montana as a 49er and Unitas as a Colt and Mays as a Giant.

Personally, this might end up being more frustrating for Jordan than anyone. He's going to be frustrated that the Wizards don't win and that Kwame Brown isn't Scottie Pippen and that the younger players of the league are going to act as if he's yesterday's news. It's going to be frustrating that his body isn't as resilient as it was, that he cannot will it to be so.

This is where we are left with Jordan. Once again, we watch. Once more, we pull for whatever he has left.

Meanwhile, brace yourself for Jordan, aging forward. Prepare yourself for hamstrings quivering like banjo strings. Ready yourself for Jordan, human.

That said, if he wants to come back, who is going to deny him the ball?

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