Michael Jordan told me not to mention this until the season was over and I promised him at that time. Now I think it's time. Early last season, I wrote a column about an act of kindness I had seen Jordan do to a disabled child outside the Stadium. After it _ ,I got a call from a man in the western suburbs. He said, "I read what you wrote about Jordan, but I thought I should tell you another thing I saw." Here it comes, I thought. It always does. Write something nice about a person, and people call you up to say that the person is not so nice. A few weeks later Jordan and I were talking about something else before a game, and I brought up what the man had said. Was the man right? Has Jordan really been talking to those two boys in that poor and dirty neighborhood? "Not two boys," Jordan said, "but four." And he named them. He said four names. And what did they talk about? "Everything," Jordan said. "I've asked to see their grades so that I can check whether they're paying attention to their schoolwork. If it turns out one or two of them may need teaching, I make sure they get it." It's just one more part of Michael Jordan's life, one more thing that no one knows about, one more thing Jordan does right. The NBA season is over now, and those boys have their memories. So do I! When the expert reviewers begin to turn against Jordan, as they surely will, I'll think about those boys under the streetlight, waiting for the man they know to come, for someone they can depend on. What can we learn from this passage?
Jordan is not such a great person. Jordan deserves the admiration he had from others. Jordan is always ready to make friends with young people. Jordan is always misunderstood by expert reviewers.