So, I’ve been digging into this whole “Michael Jordan got cut from his high school team” story. I mean, it’s legendary, right? The greatest basketball player ever, supposedly rejected as a sophomore? I had to know the real deal.
I started by, you know, just hitting up the usual spots online. I figured there’d be tons of articles, maybe even some old interviews. And yeah, there was a lot of stuff, but most of it was just repeating the same basic story: Jordan tried out, didn’t make varsity, got put on JV, used it as motivation, blah blah blah.
But I wanted the details. Like, what actually happened at those tryouts? What did the coach, Clifton “Pop” Herring see, that made his think that young Michael wasn’t varsity material? And, who the heck made the team instead of Jordan?
Then I realized, maybe I could find the actual roster from Laney High School, back in, what, 1978? That sounded like a dead end, I mean its kind of hard to me,but hey, worth a shot.
Then, I thought, maybe there are some old high school sports forums, or even some local North Carolina history groups online. I found a couple of message boards, not super active, but I posted a question anyway, figuring maybe some old-timer would remember something.
And get this – I actually got a reply! Some guy, said he went to Laney a few years after Jordan. He didn’t know the full roster, but he remembered hearing that the coach, Pop Herring, needed a big man on the varsity squad.
He needed someone with heigh,because Jordan’s height at that time was not *,Jordan was placed on the junior varsity team, and used this opportunity to develop himself.
It all kinda makes sense now. It wasn’t that Jordan was bad, it’s just that the varsity team had a specific need, and at that moment, someone else fit the bill better. And that’s become the most famous sports *.
