All-time great Michael Jordan delivers with Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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I love the University of North Carolina. I love Michael Jordan. This video shows why.

Here’s part of the excellent Chicago Sun-Times story about Michael Jordan’s induction that I liked:

Buzz Peterson was another motivating factor for Jordan because Peterson was selected as the North Carolina player of the year when they were high school seniors.

”All I heard was there was this kid from Asheville, North Carolina who was player of the year,” Jordan said. ”I’m thinking, ‘Well, he ain’t never played against me yet, so how did he become player of the year?”’

When Jordan got to Carolina, Peterson was his roommate.

”From that point on,” Jordan said, ”he became a focal point — not knowingly; he didn’t know it, but he did.”

Jordan also told a story about how he battled Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf to let him return late in his second NBA season after missing much of the year with a broken foot. The Bulls were hesitant to let Jordan play that year because there was a 10 percent chance he could reinjure the foot.

”Jerry said, ‘If you had a headache and there were 10 [Tylenol] tablets and one of them contained cyanide, what would you do?”’ Jordan said. ”I said, ‘How bad is the headache?”’

Soon after Jordan was back on the court.