Michael Jordan is considered as being one of the hardest workers in the sports world, but his way up to fame and success shows an entirely different picture. Before he was the most legendary face for basketball greatness, the six-time NBA champ confessed that he did everything in his power to get out of doing house-chores at home… by having his brothers do them for him. The most incredible thing is that it worked.
In a 1992 interview with Playboy, Jordan said: “I used to give up whatever allowance I had to my brothers, for them to wash dishes for me and clean the house.” It was a new hidden feature of the Chicago Bulls icon that rarely had the chance to be known by the world: a boy so devoted to playing sports that he negotiated deals at home simply so that he could remain available to practice.
A boy without patience for work
According to biographer Roland Lazenby’s reports, Jordan was the “laziest” of his brothers when it came to work around the house. Even temporary jobs did not catch on. Jordan once quit a hotel groundskeeping job because he could not stand the routine. His father, James Jordan, joked that if Michael had to survive on factory jobs, “he’d starve to death.”
But when Jordan was a bit lazy with household chores, he compensated for this with boundless energy on the field. As a young child, he had only one goal: sports as his key to success.
The important role of his siblings
Jordan frequently credited both his brothers and sister for helping him to develop a competitive flame that later characterized his fabulous playing career. In his 2009 Hall of Fame induction ceremony, he named his brothers and sister as his initial true competition against whom he had to compete for personal improvement.
By letting another person do his tasks, Jordan had more time to play and develop his skills. In retrospect, that transaction provided the basis of the discipline and competitiveness that made him the “GOAT” years later.
Humanizing the legend
These memories make Michael Jordan human again, reminding the world that even the most devoted athletes had humble origins. The boy who once bribed his brothers to not do the dishes became a man who demanded nothing short of perfection on the playing field.
It is a story of the dualities of Jordan’s life and personality, a tale of a boy trying to weasel out of doing house-chores and an icon who in the end became a sports figure with an unmatched devotion for the game and his profession.
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