Category: Fordham Ram Writing

NOTE: This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in May 2020.

“Michael’s a mystic. He was never anywhere else.” — Mark Vancil, Author, “Rare Air”

These reviews, after each week’s episodes of ESPN’s “The Last Dance,” have focused heavily — almost to the point of obsession — on Michael Jordan. The reason I did this is the same reason why this documentary told its story through his lens: Without him, the 1990s Bulls dynasty doesn’t happen. And without him, “The Last Dance” doesn’t make it to our television screens.

In episodes nine and 10, we see the difficulties of the Bulls’ impending breakup, exacerbated by the fact that the team, though beaten and battered, is still highly functioning and on the doorstep of its sixth NBA title of the decade. When you have the game’s best player (Jordan) and its best coach (Phil Jackson), how do you break that up? If you’re owner Jerry Reinsdorf and general manager Jerry Krause, the answer is simple: your egos get in the way. Jackson and Jordan get most of the credit for the Bulls’ run; Reinsdorf and Krause need it. This is how a great dynasty shatters. 

Breakups are hard. By the end of the Beatles’ run, John Lennon was strung out on heroin and barely recognizable. Ringo Starr and George Harrison barely look like they want to be there. Paul McCartney puts on a brave face, but he, too, is fronting. The burden of being the biggest thing in the world got to them much in the same way it gets to the ’90s Bulls. Jordan is emotionally exhausted. Scottie Pippen, Jordan’s skillful sidekick, is hobbled by a back injury. And Dennis Rodman, the eccentric rebounding mastermind? Yeah, he’s off to fight Hulk Hogan in World Championship Wrestling between Games 3 and 4 of the ’98 Finals. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Rodman take a folding chair to the back of Diamond Dallas Page. 

Nevertheless, the Bulls are worn out, which makes their last title all the more incredible. Chicago is taken to seven games in the conference finals by the Indiana Pacers, and Jordan pulls out a superstitious ace in the hole: his personal security man, Gus Lett, who is suffering from lung cancer. This is the hardest championship for the Bulls, though, because Krause has already said that no matter what, Jackson will be leaving the team after the season, and no matter what, Jordan won’t play for another coach. As Bob Costas says in the documentary, if the Bulls flame out by losing to a superior opponent, there is closure. If someone in a suit — and it isn’t difficult to figure out who that is — ends the Bulls, then that outcome is all the more difficult to accept. 

That dumb egotism, contrasted with the Bulls’ singular focus — Rodman be damned — on winning a championship, is what makes the conclusion of the 1997-98 season all the more fulfilling and haunting. Jordan’s shot over Utah’s Bryon Russell to clinch the Bulls’ final title, complete with Russell’s tumble to the floor and Jordan’s held pose after his shot, could be a painting. The striking contrast between the two men, with 20,000 Jazz fans knowing disaster is about to strike, is the type of tension movie directors live for. In this case, though, it was real, and Jordan, with his occasionally godlike tendencies, had summoned the supernatural one last time.

Vancil’s quote at the top of this article is extremely important when trying to understand Jordan’s success. People spend their entire lives trying to be more present; Jordan was always there, wherever “there” was. The greatest thing for him was the next practice, the next shot or the next game. The future didn’t matter as much as the present. That’s why he thrived so well off of insults and slights; he remembered everything that was said to him and wanted to make sure he capitalized on the opportunity to make that person pay the next time he saw him. To Jordan, that was as good as any of the Bulls’ six titles.

But, with everything, the Bulls broke up, and maybe too soon. At the team’s championship parade, Jordan says that his heart is with the city of Chicago; Pippen, on the other hand, seems more resigned to the team’s fate, thanking the fans for their support throughout the team’s “last dance.” But eventually, everyone knows it’s over. 

And while we’re on the subject of Reinsdorf and Krause, the men who broke up the Bulls, it becomes very clear who the bigger villain is if you watch Sunday’s episodes. While Krause had a big ego and wanted to build the team in his image, Reinsdorf hid behind financial constraints as an excuse for not keeping the team together. Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, Steve Kerr and Luc Longley were gone the next year. Krause’s reasoning for the rebuild — that the team needed to do so instead of enduring a slow decline — was terrible, but at least understandable. But Krause was only the general manager until 2003; Reinsdorf is still the owner and the Bulls’ organization is still screwing things up. Reinsdorf, ironically, fought for a salary cap in the NBA, which rendered keeping the team together at its market value impossible. 

But egos aside, the Bulls have one last moment in the sun, and it’s beautiful. Jackson, who we’ve seen discuss zen practices and Middle Eastern religious philosophies with his players, calls a meeting after the season to tell him that he’ll be stepping away as the team’s coach, which was a virtually predetermined fate. Jackson, in characteristic fashion, talks about his wife, who has a degree in social work and participates in a ritual that helps people release grief. He ignites a fire and tells his players to write notes about what the Bulls meant to them; once they are done, they toss the notes into the fire.

Of course, Jordan’s note garners the most attention in the documentary; we don’t know its contents, which is a real shame. Jordan tosses it in the fire, and the poem, along with the Bulls’ dynasty, is in ashes before either were meant to be.

Other Things…

• Director Jason Hehir and his crew, after conducting interviews over the last couple of years, rushed to complete this documentary once the coronavirus pandemic shut the sports world down. The documentary was supposed to come out in June; it was instead completed for this early release.
  • Think you’re good at cramming? Hehir said the final episode was completed on Thursday, three days before it aired.
  • Considering the rapid speed at which all of this came together, the production crew of “The Last Dance” deserves extremely high marks.
• The documentary declined to note Jordan’s comeback with the Wizards in 2001. Jordan returned to raise money for charity after the 9/11 attacks, but most would rather forget his Wizards tenure. I would’ve liked to have seen a note about that in the final episode’s epilogue. 
• Kerr’s story about losing his father is heartbreaking. Malcolm Kerr, the president of the American University of Beirut, was killed in 1984 by two gunmen posing as students.
  • This explains the unspoken connection he had with Jordan, who also lost his father to an untimely murder.
• The aforementioned Costas nailed it on the future of the Bulls in the moments after Game 6 of the 1998 Finals.
  • “Take all the money, all the adulation, all the TV cameras away and put Michael Jordan in a gym somewhere with (Bill) Russell and Oscar (Robertson), (Jerry) West and the Doctor (Julius Erving), and he’d be as genuine and as much in his element as any of them.”
• The use of Pearl Jam’s “Present Tense” over the final scene was excellent.
• While some were concerned with the editorial control Jordan would exercise over the project, it didn’t feel like anything was glossed over or sacked due to Jordan’s final say. Heck, even everyone’s favorite “Jordan retired in 1993 because of gambling debts” conspiracy theory was entertained.
• Leonardo DiCaprio shows up in the Bulls’ locker room after Game 6. He wears the mask; the mask does not wear him.
• Rodman wrestled Hulk Hogan, then seamlessly returned to the team and led them to a Game 4 victory. In between those two occurrences, “The Last Dance” shows him sprinting away from 300 media members at warp speed. 
  • Rodman is later shown with bride-to-be Carmen Electra, and she kisses the Larry O’Brien trophy. ESPN should do a 10-part documentary on Rodman.
• Former President Obama appears in this episode with that title. His original appearance as a “Chicago resident” is a scandal; maybe we should call it “Obamagate” or something.

Thank you so much for reading these. It has given me something to do during this difficult time, and I hope you all enjoyed “The Last Dance” as much as I did.

NOTE: This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in May 2020.

Sunday night’s episodes of “The Last Dance” are the most emotional of the series. The first 15 minutes of episode seven delve into the sudden passing of Jordan’s father — gunned down on the side of a highway in North Carolina while taking a nap in his car — during the summer of 1993. Several reporters, in a series of disgusting acts, tried to connect James Jordan’s death to his son’s issues with gambling and the NBA meting out a potentially-devastating punishment to the league’s best player. This theory is disproved multiple times in the documentary.

Michael Jordan, understandably, gets emotional talking about his father and their final conversations before his untimely death. The relationship between father and son leads the greatest basketball player on Earth to prematurely retire from the sport and take up a career with baseball’s Chicago White Sox, which would last only a year in the minor leagues before being cut short by that year’s players’ strike. However, the discussion of his father’s murder is not the most emotional we see Michael Jordan over the course of these two hours. No, the most emotional moment in Jordan’s interviews for “The Last Dance” — I’m excluding the shot of him crying after winning the 1996 Finals because that isn’t new footage — has to do with him talking about why he treated his teammates the way he did.

It’s hardly a secret that Jordan was a ruthless competitor. Former teammate Will Perdue put it more succinctly: “Let’s not get it wrong. He was an a–hole.” But, in being an a–hole, he got the most out of his teammates, even though it could be difficult to play with him. We saw traces of this in episode four, when Jordan teases teammate Scott Burrell and calls him an alcoholic to both his face and, 22 years later, millions of viewers. Burrell is one of Jordan’s main targets; by being tough on Burrell, he can unlock some of the potential he showed as a college player at UConn. 

But Burrell, by Jordan’s admission, is a really nice guy. Burrell takes Jordan’s ribbings standing up, even tolerating Jordan calling him a “h–” in multiple practices. In 1995, with the Bulls building up to the greatest season in NBA history, Bulls coach Phil Jackson sensed Jordan’s angst in practice. Jordan had returned to the Bulls at the end of the prior season, but Chicago fell to the Finals-bound Magic in the second round of the playoffs. Jordan was mad, and Jackson knew it, so he put Steve Kerr, the shortest contributor on the team, on him in practice. On one play, Kerr fouled Jordan, so the game’s best player swung back around and hit him in the eye. Jackson, ever the master leader of the team, kicks Jordan out of practice and maintains his squad’s respect. 

But there’s a method to Jordan’s jerkish madness. He needs to maximize the potential of his teammates because he needs them to win championships. In the same token, he also needs motivation, which is difficult when you’re the best player on the best team. Not to worry, though. Jordan had a plan for that. 

Any insult, perceived or real, was potential fodder for Jordan’s memory bank. Call it an inferiority complex, a weird character trait, whatever you want. But it worked. We’ve seen him bristle at being compared to Clyde Drexler and object to being criticized for a late night trip to Atlantic City, both of which a lot of players wouldn’t think about. Jordan thrived off this motivation, and it didn’t particularly matter where it came from.

This hard-nosed competitor can be contrasted with the broken man found at the beginning of episode seven. After his father’s death, Jordan retires to play for the White Sox; he makes it to spring training and plays the 1994 season in AA. Jordan hits just .202, but he hadn’t played baseball for the past 14 years. That’s an objectively impressive feat, and his AA manager, Terry Francona, said that with 1,500 at-bats, Jordan could have made the big leagues.

However, with the 1994-95 MLB players’ strike, Jordan rightly refuses to cross the picket line and comes back to basketball. This underscores the theme we discussed last week: Jordan had a competition problem. He got burned out with basketball, so he seamlessly transitioned to baseball, with a work ethic one of his coaches said was unlike anything he had ever seen. His numbers weren’t impressive, but in context, the fact that he ever had any success was impressive.

But upon returning to the basketball court, he thrives off of insults and slights. He returns to the court wearing No. 45, his baseball number, and not his old No. 23. This was partially because he wanted to and partially because the Bulls had retired No. 23 when Jordan initially hung up his sneakers in 1993. After Game 1 of the second round of that year’s playoffs, Nick Anderson said that 45 didn’t explode the same way 23 did, and sure enough, Jordan was wearing 23 the next game. 

Fast-forward to 1998, when Jordan’s Bulls are taking on the Charlotte Hornets, led by former Bull B.J. Armstrong, in the second round of the playoffs. In Game 2, Armstrong sinks a jumper over Jordan to sink the Bulls and tie the series at a game apiece. Three games later, the series was over, with Jordan averaging over 30 points per game over the Bulls’ next three wins. Jordan was triggered by Armstrong celebrating in his and Jackson’s face. Armstrong didn’t necessarily do anything wrong, but he woke up the sleeping giant. Against Michael Jordan, that’s something you never want to do. 

But Sunday’s episodes weren’t just about Jordan’s pettiness, which is one of the main takeaways from “The Last Dance.” There are many subplots in these episodes, and many of them either could have been or already are their own documentaries. We have James Jordan’s death, his son’s retirement, Jordan’s competitiveness, his tenure in baseball and his bullying of Scott Burrell. There was also Scottie Pippen sitting out the final play of a playoff game because Jackson didn’t draw up a play for him.

But my main takeaway from Sunday night was Jordan’s competitiveness and his willingness to go to any lengths to win. He often thrived off of insults, and he always got the most out of them.

One story from “The Last Dance” illuminates this quite well. One night late in the ‘92-’93 season, the Bulls are taking on the then-unfortunately-named Washington Bullets in Chicago. The Bullets are bad, but second-year pro LaBradford Smith has a coming-out party, with 37 points in a game his team can’t quite win. Smith’s 37 points represent a bizarre one-off, he would never score more than 17 points in a game for the rest of his career. But on that night, he can’t miss, and Jordan struggles. However, the Bulls win. After the game, Smith approaches Jordan and says “Nice game, Mike.”

Jordan objects to the youngster’s eagerness to come up to him, and luckily for the Bulls, they get to play Washington the next night in the nation’s capital. Jordan is so offended by Smith’s “nice game” quip that he sets out to match his game total from the night before in the first half. Sure enough, he comes up just one point short, with 36 first-half points. Smith scored 15 points in vain and the Bulls won by 25. 

Smith had committed the cardinal sin of playing against Michael Jordan, which was to insult him. There’s just one issue: Smith never did insult him. Jordan made the whole story up.

Other Things…

• Francona, Jordan’s AA manager, would later manage the Phillies, Red Sox and Indians, winning two titles with the Red Sox in 2004 and 2007.
  • “I’m Terry, and I guess I’m gonna be your manager.”
• Bulls and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf paid Jordan his full NBA salary during his baseball dalliance. 
• The late Craig Sager makes another appearance, rankling Bulls general manager Jerry Krause with a question about the team’s backstabbing, which Krause angrily disputes but everyone knows is true. Way to go, Craig.
• My only objection to these two hours is the notion that the Bulls only lost to the Magic in the 1995 Playoffs because of Jordan’s fatigue. It was a factor, but Orlando won fair and square.
• Speaking of the Magic and Nick Anderson, who made that snide remark about Jordan’s uniform numbers: Let’s see how Anderson fared in a clutch moment.
• My beloved Seattle SuperSonics made an appearance in the 1996 Finals. George Karl, the team’s coach, didn’t match his Defensive Player of the Year, Gary Payton, up with Jordan until Game 4, with the Sonics down 3-0. That was really stupid of George Karl.
• Sports Illustrated on Jordan’s baseball career: “Bag it, Michael.” Yikes!
  • Lots of big Ls for journalism in this episode, between the above and the unfounded speculation about Jordan’s gambling in connection with his father’s death.
• The song over the highlights of Game 6 of the ‘96 Finals was José González’s version of “Teardrop.” The original version of “Teardrop” was later adapted for the “House” theme.
• Speaking of the soundtrack, “The Last Dance” missed a huge opportunity to use the greatest movie theme song ever. You can’t show Jordan filming “Space Jam” and not use that song. Those are the rules. I didn’t make them. 
• I didn’t even get to Pippen’s petulant nonparticipation in Game 3 of the second round of the ‘94 Playoffs against the Knicks. Imagine if that happened with Twitter.
• Jordan’s retirement leaked during Game 1 of the 1993 ALCS between the White Sox and the Blue Jays. That was another moment Twitter would’ve been great for.
• Jordan’s press release upon his 1995 Bulls return: “I’m back.”
• The ‘96 Bulls’ slogan: “It don’t mean a thing without the ring.” 20 years later, this came back to bite the Warriors, who broke the Bulls’ regular-season record with 73 wins but fell short in the Finals.

More on the final two episodes of “The Last Dance” next week. I hope you’re enjoying this show as much as I am. Come back next week, and keep in mind that Jordan punched Kerr in the face because I guarantee you it will come up again.

NOTE: This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in May 2020.

Water Polo will have a new head coach this fall, as Brian Bacharach, the team’s associate head coach for the past two years and co-head coach last season, has been promoted to head coach. Bill Harris, the team’s coach since 2004, will remain on Bacharach’s staff as the interim head coach. The transition has taken place over several years, as Bacharach joined Fordham in 2013.

“This transition plan was put together by Coach Harris several years ago, wholeheartedly embraced by athletic director David Roach and Ed Kull, and all those in the administration,” Bacharach told Fordham Athletics. “Coach Harris has been a great mentor and I am thrilled that we will continue to work together.”

Under the duo of head coaches, Fordham achieved a top-20 national ranking and won 24 games last season. Harris will move on from the head coaching post as one of the winningest coaches in program history, having amassed 208 wins over his 16 seasons. Now, he will fully hand the reins over to Bacharach while remaining on his staff.

“It’s an exciting time for our Water Polo program,” Fordham Athletic Director Dave Roach said. “Under Bill Harris and Brian Bacharach’s leadership the team has had much recent success. That will continue with Coaches Bacharach and Harris switching roles as Brian will now be the head coach.” Roach is retiring at the end of June.

Bacharach was previously an assistant at Loyola Marymount, after scoring 141 career goals as a player at Cal. He takes over a roster that had three players — senior Jake Miller-Tolt and sophomores Bailey O’Mara and Dimitris Koukias — earn Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches honors at the end of last season. O’Mara and Koukias will be back next season.

NOTE: This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in May 2020.

A lot of people say they’d like to be Michael Jordan for a day or for a week, but let them try to be Michael Jordan for a year and see if they like it.” — Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan is one of the greatest athletes of all time. No one achieved more global recognition than he did at the time, and he brought the NBA to new heights over the course of his career. Anyone would have killed to have had his athletic skills, team success and financial fortune.

And yet, throughout episodes five and six of “The Last Dance,” we see Michael Jordan perpetually tired of that lifestyle.

The start of episode six is perfect: Jordan recording multiple takes of him saying that it isn’t so fun to be Michael Jordan. By episode’s end, he says that if he had to do it again, he never would’ve tried to be a role model. Ironically, Jordan’s carefully-cultivated image is the reason why so many expected him to be a role model, and his occasional failings off the court are made all the more shocking because of that persona.

To non-basketball fans, Jordan is a brand — a face from a commercial, an emblem on a sneaker, an otherworldly basketball player. However, with his popularity and fame, the likes of which had never been seen before his time in sports, Jordan has far more responsibilities to his fans, his image and his community.

Throughout Sunday’s two hours, we see all of those things at odds from time to time. When faced with whether or not to get involved in a 1990 Senate race — between Jesse Helms, longtime senator and noted racist, and Howard Gantt, who was bidding to become America’s only black senator at the time — Jordan declines. He even cops to one of his most famous but oft-disputed quotes: “Republicans buy sneakers, too.” Jordan has a well-publicized deal with Nike at the time, as his “Air Jordan” sneakers are the most popular in the country because of the man behind them. To get involved with politics, even when it seems so much more obvious than usual, isn’t an option. Jordan isn’t immoral; he’s amoral. Amorality is good for business, especially in 1990. (Jordan did donate to Gantt’s campaign privately.)

He was also in Gatorade commercials that featured an original song called “Be Like Mike,” which became a catchy earworm for basketball fans throughout the ’90s. This is part of the chorus:

“I dream I move, I dream I groove

Like Mike

If I could Be Like Mike”

By the sounds of things, being like Michael Jordan should be an aspiration, particularly for young people. You should want to live his life when you grow up. That isn’t necessarily true. 

In one scene from 1998, we see Jordan in a hotel room on the road, kicking back with a cigar and watching television. He talks about how the confines of this room are his only solitude, a place where he doesn’t have to be “on.” As soon as he leaves his room, he’s Michael Jordan. Fans flock to his side to get autographs, a wave, a smile or even just a piece of his air. Merely to be in the presence of Michael Jordan was, for some, to be as close to God as you could be on Earth.

But that existence, after years of being at the top, is overwhelming. The filmmakers of “The Last Dance” create a brilliant parallel between Jordan’s difficulties with fame in 1998 and his slow burn in the early ’90s, when he gets more and more worn out with being Michael Jordan. To get away from this constant grind — on top of the Bulls’ attempt to become just the third team in NBA history to win three straight titles — he looks for diversions, and that leads to trouble. 

His issues actually start in 1991, when golf hustler Slim Bouler gets charged on money laundering and drug charges. In the process of investigating Bouler, authorities seize a $57,000 check from Jordan; it’s a gambling debt. Jordan, one of the greatest competitors the world has ever seen, is getting tired of basketball. However, he is not tired of competition.

The theme of Jordan and gambling, which we teased in last week’s column, takes a darker turn. In the midst of the 1993 Eastern Conference Finals against the Knicks, Jordan takes a fantastic voyage to Atlantic City, which is not exactly next door to Madison Square Garden, the night before Game 2. He stays until the wee hours of the morning, and the Bulls lose the next game, with Jordan running on fumes down the stretch. Jordan’s father — who I’m guessing will be prominently featured next week — takes on media responsibilities for his 30-year-old son, leaving Jordan to focus solely on basketball for the rest of the series. The Bulls win in six games, and the Atlantic City detour does not enshrine itself on the list of all-time gaffes in sports history.

And, for all the issues Jordan has — one report saw him blow seven figures on a golf match to Richard Esquinas — he’s still a God. Throughout the final season, Jordan is somewhat similar to a modern-day Elton John, with many assuming ’97-’98 will be his final season. However, there are a couple of key differences: Jordan’s farewell isn’t a certainty, and Jordan is still undoubtedly the best player in the league. He isn’t trotting out there years past his prime for the adoration of the crowd and a final salute to the fans. He’s trying to go out on top, not only as the best player in the world but also as a champion. When one player asks Jordan to procure a couple of tickets to a game late in the season, the player says that he would be fine sitting next to God. Jordan responds that he just got two tickets from God. On a road trip to Los Angeles, Jerry Seinfeld, arguably the biggest thing on television at that time, is in awe of Jordan, not the other way around.

However, with all of this in mind, Jordan still essentially confirms that the only thing that matters, on or off the court, is winning. He even says, “I don’t have a gambling problem, I have a competition problem.” He doesn’t need to win thousands of dollars on the golf course or at the blackjack table; he just needs to win. This is a documentary about winning no matter what, and this is the story of the man who did just that. Basketball, gambling, endorsements — it doesn’t matter. He just needs to win. Hell, he even plays a security guard in a quarter roll game and loses; the security guard, in maybe the funniest moment of Sunday’s episodes, hits Jordan with his signature shrug.

One of the Bulls’ legendary gambling stories, though, encapsulates Jordan’s competitive nature perfectly. Will Perdue, a player on the early ’90s Bulls, tells of Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Ron Harper playing blackjack on the back of the team plane for thousands of dollars. Perdue and some of the less-heralded Bulls players were playing on the front of the plane for only a dollar each. Jordan would frequently leave his high-stakes game at the back of the plane to come to the front and play for one figure. When Perdue asked why, it was for a simple reason: Jordan wanted to see his teammate’s money move to his pocket. The fact that it was only a dollar didn’t matter.

Other Things…

• Episode five was dedicated to the late Kobe Bryant, who passed away in a plane crash in late January, which feels like about 10 years ago. Bryant and Jordan played together in the 1998 All-Star Game; Kobe was frequently compared to Michael.
  • Jordan calls Bryant “that little Laker boy.” Bryant was 19 years old, the youngest NBA All-Star ever.
• The security guard who stole Jordan’s quarters was John Michael Wozniak. He also passed away in January.
• I’m glad director Jason Hehir dedicated a block of time to the Helms race. It’s important in understanding Jordan’s unwillingness to navigate that territory.
• These episodes deal with Jordan’s struggles with fame; this NBC intro for Game 4 of the 1991 Finals encapsulates this theme incredibly well. If you get nothing out of this article other than watching that video, I’m okay with that.
• “The Last Dance” soundtrack continues to slap. Viewers were hit with “If I Ruled the World” and “Can I Kick It?” in the first 10 minutes of episode five.
• Seinfeld: “I’m trying to make quitting the move of the ’90s.” 
• Dennis Rodman, last week’s center of attention, remains wild. When asked by coach Phil Jackson if he’s going to the pool with Jordan and Pippen off to a 3:30 tee time, he says he isn’t and proclaims that he’s going to Hooters for exactly the reason you think he’s going to Hooters.
• It’s evident in watching this documentary that Jordan was perfectly willing to make stuff up to reach new competitive heights. In the 1992 Finals, he used pundits mentioning Drexler in the same breath as himself as motivation to knock him down a peg. He did that.
• Piggybacking off that point, I was genuinely thrilled to see Toni Kukoc appear in these episodes. Kukoc was drafted by the Bulls in 1990 and joined the team later in the decade. However, playing for war-torn Croatia in the 1992 Olympics, Jordan and Pippen, who starred for Team USA, used Bulls general manager Jerry Krause’s fawning over Kukoc in their favor as the Americans cruised to two blowout victories over Croatia and won the gold medal.
• Barack Obama makes the leap from “Chicago Resident” to “President” in this episode.

Come back next week for more on episodes seven and eight!

NOTE: This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in April 2020.

“The Last Dance” is only tangentially about the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls.

Sure, that season is the subject of ESPN’s documentary, which aired episodes three and four on Sunday night. All of the documentary’s exclusive footage comes from that season, and it provided the impetus for the show itself. But to understand everything that went into that season and the team’s most difficult title, you need to understand most of what took place in the years before.

Episodes three and four are masterful storytelling, from start to finish. The two hours went by in what felt like five minutes. Episode three starts in the late 1980s with the Bulls and new coach Doug Collins. Michael Jordan, by this point the undisputed best player in the league, is trying to get over the hump and win his first championship. Last week’s episodes were about Jordan and Scottie Pippen, the two stars of Chicago’s show. The two most recent episodes focus on Dennis Rodman and head coach Phil Jackson, the other two essential pieces to the ’97-’98 teams who — on the outside — can’t be more different.

Rodman, in the first 10 minutes of episode three, is framed as a genius, figuring out how many rotations on the basketball and where it bounced to ascertain where he should position himself for a rebound.  However, for the next 50 minutes, the other, wilder side of Rodman appears, in wild hairdos, ejections and partying. The fine line between genius and insanity is slim; it’s Dennis Rodman. 

Before getting into his 1998 antics (we’ll have plenty of time for those later), this episode delves into Rodman’s upbringing and play at Southeastern Oklahoma State before being drafted by the Detroit Pistons in 1986. Detroit would play foil to Jordan’s Bulls in the late ’80s, knocking them out of the playoffs for three straight years beginning in 1988. Detroit, coached by Chuck Daly and led by Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Bill Laimbeer and Rodman, did so in a particularly soul-crushing fashion, with a special defensive game plan against Jordan known as the “Jordan Rules.” Essentially, the object of this defense was to prevent him from getting near the basket; if he did, he was going to hit the deck. The Bulls of that time couldn’t handle the constant physical abuse.

Rodman is at the center of this, and Seattle Sonics guard Gary Payton sums it up perfectly: “Dennis Rodman was the f—up person. He just f—s everything up.” Diving on the floor, hard fouls, fighting opponents — nothing was off the table. But after the Pistons fall off in the early ’90s, Rodman goes off the rails; late in his Pistons tenure, he is found in his car asleep with a rifle next to him. He then gets traded to the Spurs, and his story veers from tragic to absurd. Dyed hair. Many ejections. More fines. A public relationship with Madonna, who Rodman says offered him $20 million to get her pregnant. If he was the sad clown in Detroit, he becomes Jay Gatsby in San Antonio. 

However, upon arriving in Chicago in 1995, Jackson, Jordan and Pippen figure out how to channel Rodman’s chaotic energy into positive results. His willingness to play tough and take on any assignment ingratiates him with players and fans, and the Bulls win two championships in 1996 and 1997. In 1998, with Pippen taking a Hot Girl Summer and missing the first three months of the season after foot surgery, Rodman’s energy and willingness to step into a No. 2 role help the Bulls stay afloat through a tough early-season stretch. However, when Pippen returns in January 1998, Rodman goes back off the rails, culminating — for the time being — in him burning out and telling Jackson and the team he needs a vacation. We’ll pick up that story after we dive into Phil Jackson.

As I said earlier, on the surface, Jackson and Rodman are very different. Rodman is the devil-may-care, play-hard-party-harder mega celebrity. Jackson is the zen, mastermind general of the team of the ’90s, the perfect fit for a group of large egos. Jackson had an illustrious playing career of his own, winning two championships with the Knicks and, by his own admission, tripping on acid from time to time while doing so. After his playing career, he coaches in the Continental Basketball Association (CBA), where his passion for the game drips through, but he lacks the finer points of coaching. He also isn’t your typical coach, wearing short-sleeve shirts on the sidelines and sporting a laid-back attitude in the process.

Jackson earns the start of his big break with the Albany Patroons of the CBA, winning a championship in 1984. Jerry Krause, the much-maligned general manager of the team, wants to hire him as an assistant in the mid-’80s, but Jackson shows up to the interview in jeans and a casual shirt and gets spurned for the job. However, Krause’s lust for Jackson hasn’t faded, and Jackson is hired as an assistant to Collins in 1987. 

Collins’ downfall as the coach came from his rift with Tex Winter, another assistant Krause had an affinity for. After the Bulls’ 1989 playoff ouster to Detroit, Krause tells Jordan he’s going to “rock the franchise” by firing Collins and hiring Jackson. Winter and Jackson combine to espouse the “triangle offense,” meant to get players other than Jordan numerous scoring opportunities. This is in stark contrast to Collins, who, after a Jordan game-winner in Game three of the 1989 Conference Finals, said his strategy on the play was “get the ball to Michael, everybody get the f— out of the way.”

Of course, Jackson would succeed as the Bulls’ coach. But the team’s initial reluctance to hire him was because of his identification with the counterculture of the 1980s, one in which Rodman thrived in the next decade. So, about that vacation…

Rodman said he needed to “decompress” by going to Las Vegas for 48 hours. Jackson, in a move that would make most hard-nosed coaches puke, let him do it on the stipulation that he would come back at 48 hours and one minute. Rodman has the time of his life, drinking and partying with friends, including actress Carmen Electra, who he married later that year. However, Rodman doesn’t come back after the 48 hours, so Jackson sends Jordan out there to pick him up. Needless to say, it wasn’t easy to get Rodman out of Vegas.

Once he returns, Jackson has the team participate in drills that are entirely meant to get Rodman back in playing shape. One exercise, which initially angered Jordan, had the team run in circles around the court. A coach would blow his whistle and the person in last would have to catch the person in the lead before the drill could end. Jordan instructed the team’s best runners, Steve Kerr and Jud Buechler, to jog at a light pace so the person he thought would be last, the seemingly hungover and strung-out Rodman, could catch the leader so the team wouldn’t waste too much time on the drill. 

Jordan’s plans were foiled, though, when the drill started: Rodman was laps ahead of the field. It took the last-place runner four trips around the court to catch him.

Other Things…

• Just a wonderful two hours. I feel like I need to say that again.
• The soundtrack to this series has been wonderful. My favorites from Sunday night were Prince’s “Partyman” and the Beastie Boys’ “The Maestro.”
• Jordan may be the pettiest person ever; on a flight to Salt Lake City, he calls teammate Scottie Burrell an alcoholic for his mom and dad to hear. Congratulations, Michael. Mission accomplished.
• Jordan flaunts a $100 bill after apparently betting on that year’s Super Bowl between the Broncos and Packers. More on Jordan and gambling in the coming episodes. 
• Rodman also flaunts a $20 bill that was given to him by TNT sideline reporter Craig Sager to help him pay a fine from the league. Rest in peace Craig. There will never be another like you.
• This episode was a quote machine. Some of my other favorites:
  • “I’ll play the game for free but get paid for the bulls—.” — Rodman
  • “Go home, m—–f—–s, go home.” — Jordan, after sinking the Cavaliers with a buzzer-beater to advance in the 1989 playoffs.
  • “He’d say there’s no I in ‘team.’ And I said, ‘there’s an “I” in win.’” — Jordan, on Phil Jackson.
  • “It was definitely an occupational hazard being Dennis’ girlfriend.” — Electra
  • “Straight-up b—–s.” — early-’90s Bull Horace Grant, on the Detroit Pistons. The Pistons walked off the floor without shaking hands after the Bulls swept them in the 1991 Conference Finals. 
  • “F— this bulls—.” — then-Cavalier Ron Harper, on not guarding Jordan on the final shot of their 1989 playoff series. History likely would have been different if he did.
  • “When you do come to Detroit, you’re gonna get your ass whooped.” — Todd Boyd, author of “Young, Black, Rich and Famous.”
  • “I want to go out there and get my nose broke. I want to go out there and get cut. I want to do something that will bring out the hurt, bring out the pain. I want to feel that.” — Rodman
  • “There’s a lot of things I don’t see. But most of the time, I see the s— you do.” — a referee, talking to Rodman on the court at the beginning of episode three.
• None of these quotes would’ve been nearly as good if ESPN censored the documentary.
• Jordan’s security guys were known as the “Sniff Brothers.” This leads to several jokes, including one about Bill Clinton, none of which I will relay here.
• Jerry Krause dancing is the thing I didn’t know I needed and now can’t live without.
• Rodman’s starring role in “The Last Dance” coincides with reports about the failing health of North Korean dictator Kim-Jong Un, who Rodman has visited on multiple occasions. I do not wish to advance this discussion; I am merely pointing this out as an observation.

NOTE: This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in April 2020.

“That wasn’t Michael Jordan out there; that was God disguised as Michael Jordan.” — Larry Bird

If the first two episodes of “The Last Dance,” ESPN’s 10-part documentary about the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls, will set the tone for the rest of the series, the documentary’s central theme will be winning — at any cost. Within that theme, there will be characters on both sides of the fence: Jordan, the player who was willing to do whatever was necessary to win and earned six championships in doing so, and Bulls general manager Jerry Krause, who thought long and hard about breaking up the Bulls before ultimately bringing back head coach Phil Jackson and the team’s core group of players for one last ride. Then, there was Scottie Pippen, the Robin to Jordan’s Batman, who crossed that picket line a couple of times over the first two episodes on Sunday night.

The first two hours of “The Last Dance” establish the subtext for Chicago’s most difficult title. But this isn’t just a documentary about that season, it’s about everything leading up to the Bulls’ sixth and last championship. Like how an up-and-coming shooting guard from North Carolina went from Mike to Michael with one NCAA-title-winning shot in 1982. Or how Pippen went from an NAIA team manager at Central Arkansas University to one of the best players in the NBA. 

With each of the 10 episodes focusing on different aspects of the season, each one will also focus on a central character. Episode one focuses on Jordan and his attempts throughout his rookie year to change the Bulls’ losing ways. Things get so bad that on one road trip, Jordan becomes familiar with something called the “Bulls Traveling Cocaine Circus,” which needs to be printed on a shirt immediately. After winning just 27 games the year before, Chicago makes the playoffs in Jordan’s first season, only to be quickly ousted. 

Episode two zeroes in on Pippen, who rises to stardom but at a drastically cheap rate, having accepted a seven-year, $18 million deal right before the NBA took off financially in the ’90s. In a fast forward to the 1997-98 season, Pippen injures his foot and delays surgery until October to thumb his nose at management and, specifically, Krause, who had nearly dealt Pippen over the time. This led to the best quote of the night, with Pippen explaining that despite the injury, he wasn’t going to “f— (his) summer up” by having foot surgery earlier. Pippen’s actions draw rebuke from Jordan, Krause and owner Jerry Reinsdorf, and the tension comes to a head on an early-season road trip to Seattle, where Pippen curses out Krause on a bus ride and later demands a trade, a wish that ultimately goes unrequited. 

The Bulls start out the season slowly, going 4-4 in their first eight games and needing double-overtime to defeat the Clippers, who would get the No. 1 pick in the next year’s draft. Despite the bickering between teammates — Jordan is shown berating teammates in practice that season — the common enemy is Krause. Jordan and Pippen can be seen openly mocking Krause, with all of their jokes revolving around Krause being short and fat. He earned credit for building the Bulls’ championship teams but was scorned for his handling of legendary head coach Phil Jackson.

This was never more evident than in his noncommittal attitude towards bringing him back after the ’96-’97 season. Krause was even openly courting Iowa State head coach Tim Floyd to fill the void Jackson hadn’t yet left. Ultimately, Jackson and the Bulls agreed to a one-year deal, and Krause announced — before a single game had been played — that 1997-98 would be Jackson’s last season as the team’s coach. Jackson, perhaps the preeminent master motivator in sports history, called a team meeting and gave that season a theme: “the last dance.” And here we are. 

The theme of central characters will continue in parts three and four, set to air next Sunday at 9 p.m. on ESPN. Episode three will focus on Dennis Rodman, while episode four will hone in on Jackson. However, as much as the supporting cast was key to the Bulls’ success — Krause himself said that “organizations, not players, win championships” before the ’97-’98 season — the story of the ’90s Bulls will always center around Jordan, one of the two best players in NBA history. This documentary came about because NBA Entertainment, then headed by current commissioner Adam Silver, reached a deal with Jordan to let a film crew follow the team around for the entire season; the footage would only get out if both sides agreed to let it. Jordan only gave the okay in 2016, and production started two years ago.

As such, with a year’s worth of footage and over 100 interviews conducted, we were bound to get an inside look at Jordan’s psyche, the likes of which we haven’t seen before. One story in particular, towards the end of episode two, tells you much of what you need to know about Jordan.

In 1985, Jordan’s second year in the league, he injured his foot in an early-season game. Further examinations revealed a broken foot, and this likely meant the end of his season before it really got going. Jordan convinced the organization to let him go back to North Carolina and soon enough, he was back on the court, unbeknownst to Krause and Reinsdorf, both of whom would have to sign off on Jordan’s return. Jordan’s doctors said that if he came back before season’s end, he would have a 90% chance of not reinjuring his foot. If the 10% materialized, his career would be over.

The Bulls, for obvious reasons, didn’t want Jordan to play; they didn’t have a good team and could use a bad year to get a high draft pick. Jordan, though, only knew how to do things one way: at the highest level. He didn’t believe in tanking and desperately wanted to come back and lead his team to the playoffs. Eventually, Jordan returned and dropped a combined 112 points in two games against the Celtics in the first round of the playoffs. The Bulls lost both games.

Reinsdorf used this analogy to impress upon Jordan that he shouldn’t play: “If you had a terrible headache, and I gave you a bottle of pills, and nine of the pills would cure you, and one of the pills would kill you, would you take a pill?”

Jordan: “Depends on how bad the f—–’ headache is.”

Other things…

• ESPN aired an uncensored version of the documentary on its main channel and a G-rated version on ESPN2. In a rarity, the network let the f-bombs fly, and the lack of censorship added to the experience, as this humble viewer was never distracted by the bleep sound.
• Two U.S. presidents were interviewed: Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Obama was listed as “former Chicago resident” and Clinton as “former Arkansas governor.” Whoever wrote those titles gets an A+.
• Another A-grade goes to the film crew for capturing a conversation on the bench from an overseas trip at the start of the 1997-98 season. As the Bulls beat Olympiacos in Paris, a couple of players celebrated on the bench. Jordan admonished them with, “It don’t count.”
  • That Olympiacos team featured Arturas Karnisovas, who became the Bulls’ executive vice president of basketball operations last week.
• I feel bad for Jerry Krause. He got continually dunked on in these two episodes and he can’t defend himself; he sadly passed away three years ago.
• Also, Krause was hired by Reinsdorf in 1985 after being a scout for the Chicago White Sox. Huh?
• Krause’s step-daughter got married in the summer of ’97. Floyd, the would-be coach, was invited. Jackson was not. Reinsdorf: “If somebody doesn’t invite me to a wedding, I’d thank them.” Well then.
• Is Jerry Krause the new Carole Baskin?
• Young Bob Costas looks a lot like I do after not seeing my barber for three-and-a-half months.

NOTE: This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in April of 2020.

Incoming Fordham interim Athletic Director Ed Kull is a very happy man. After spending the past three years as Fordham’s senior director of development and senior associate athletic director, he’ll be making the leap to interim athletic director on July 1, when he takes over for the soon-to-be-retired Dave Roach.

“Dave and I have a very good working relationship,” Kull says. “I have a ton of admiration and respect for him. He’s been a tremendous mentor to me and I know he will continue to be for his next few months that he’s still on the job.”

Kull will be taking over the job at about the most uncertain point he possibly could have. As the coronavirus continues to spread in the United States, athletic facilities at Fordham, and around the country, remain shuttered, which may bring fall seasons into question. That time has not yet come, but Kull and the rest of the Fordham Athletics staff are already trying to figure out a plan for the future.

“Until everybody’s really comfortable with the safety,” Kull says, “I don’t think there’s much we can do.” He has been holding meetings with various members of the Athletic Department to plan for various outcomes, as none can be ruled out at this early stage in the pandemic. In our interview, he spoke of dual plans: one where campus reopens for the summer to allow for fall seasons to take place, and another scenario that is less optimistic. 

In addition to the current situation presenting challenges for Fordham Athletics, it also presents issues for a first-time athletic director. It remains to be seen whether or not Kull can go into the office on his first day on the job; in the meantime, he uses Zoom for meetings like the rest of us. While the transition is being made at a dead time for college athletics, it also means that there will be no formal passing of the torch and fewer opportunities to get to know his staff in person.

In response, Kull has taken it upon himself to personally check in on Fordham coaches and staff members. He credits that approach to his background in sales, marketing and promotions, having previously worked at the Coca-Cola company, the NFL and the POWERADE brand. According to Fordham Athletics, he has helped increase athletic fundraising by 51% and donor participation by 93% in his three years at Rose Hill. 

He also isn’t necessarily talking like an “interim” athletic director.

“I’m focused on creating a full-blown, strategic plan for athletics,” Kull says. “I think it’s important, I think it’s one that we need. Whether that be a three-year look, a five-year look, I’m really focused on continuing a massive facility plan for athletics, and again, that probably is a five-to-10-year look of just renovations and upgrades we need, and obviously, that would be tied to my skill set of fundraising and my focus and efforts of bringing more revenue generation to athletics.”

He also speaks of culture-building and the “energy and enthusiasm” that it requires. He is active on social media, often sharing and retweeting Fordham-related press. He is often in attendance at Fordham sporting events and is expected to bring that energy to the job on day one. 

Before the end of our interview, I leave the floor open to Kull if he wants to add anything. He chooses to talk about the work Fordham athletes are doing in their communities. He doesn’t want to talk about himself.

NOTE: This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in April of 2020.

On the night of January 27, the sports world was still reeling from the sudden loss of Lakers legend Kobe Bryant in a helicopter crash the day before. The deaths of Bryant, his daughter Gianna, Orange Coast College baseball coach John Altobelli and six others left the world in a state of shock. I was among those in that category, having grown up with Kobe’s greatness and outward invincibility on the basketball court. 

The next night, ESPN replayed Bryant’s last game, which celebrated its fourth anniversary this past Monday. Despite the fact that it happened four years ago and I knew how it ended, I still found myself glued to my television for the final three-and-a-half minutes, where Bryant scored 15 of his 60 points to lead the otherwise hapless Lakers to a victory over the middling Jazz. 

Little did I know that late January night would be a preview of events to come in the televised sports world.

That day, there were five documented coronavirus cases in the United States. Today, there are over 600,000, with new cases and deaths — of which there are over 25,000 — spiking with each passing day. As such, all sports are on hold in America, as the hyper-infectious nature of the disease does not allow for teams to play each other or for any large gatherings to take place.

With that in mind, networks that would typically carry live sports right now have been forced into uncharted territory, and they have responded by airing old broadcasts of classic sporting events. As much as I thought this would be boring for hardcore fans like myself, it has actually been a joy to watch.

Easter Sunday was a great example of this. CBS, which would have been airing the final round of The Masters on Sunday afternoon, instead aired last year’s final round, which saw Tiger Woods win his fifth green jacket and first major since 2008. The event is one of the best sports moments of my lifetime, and Woods’ victory is one of the crowning achievements of his already illustrious career. 

In rewatching the round, I found it to be equally as riveting as seeing Tiger’s victory the first time. CBS’s broadcast also included an interview with Woods conducted by Jim Nantz, the preeminent voice of the network and arguably all of sports broadcasting. At times, the round felt like a director’s cut, with Woods walking viewers through the final round and the tournament’s turning point when four of his challengers found the water on the Par-3 12th hole. Woods’ analysis, believe it or not, was that his competitors had all hit good shots, but their golf balls were knocked down by a vicious wind. This kind of insight could only be found from someone who was right in the middle of the action; that person just happened to be the tournament champion himself.

This was not the only example of networks replaying classic events for their viewers in this difficult time. ESPN has been showing many classics, ranging from the greatest college football game of all time, the 2006 Rose Bowl, the Saints’ first game in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, the last two games of the 2013 NBA Finals and Cal Ripken, Jr.’s record-breaking 2,131st consecutive game for the Orioles in 1995. 

These are not just for fans of particular teams. Everyone can find some enjoyment in watching sports during this difficult time in which we are all forced to stay at home. For so many years, sports have been a sign of normalcy in our country. They have guided us through wars, crises and national catastrophes like the 9/11 attacks. In fact, after Sept. 11, the return of sports was a clear signal that the country was ready to resume normal activity despite the horrific loss of life in New York City.

But at this time in which we don’t have sports, we can take solace in all the great events we’ve seen over the past few decades. If anything, the past month has reinforced just how much we’ve taken sports for granted and how much we’ll appreciate it when they come back at some point, whether that’s in the summer or fall — hopefully not later. The roar of the crowd may be hushed and the games may be halted, but this is not a sign they will be forever.

So the next time you see an old game on TV, don’t shrug it off as something you already know the outcome to. These events have already happened, but you can watch an old game like you would rewatch an old movie, noticing details you hadn’t seen previously. In the meantime, these events are more than capable of supplementing live sports. 

Get comfortable, because it’s going to be a while until sports return. Until then, maybe the reruns aren’t so bad.