Reznet

Like Mike, well, almost.

By Dalton Walker

He dribbles, spins, leaps high above the defender, floats and dunks the basketball with his trademark tongue hanging out.

Repeat.

I still have the taped games, probably stored in a closet somewhere, of Michael Jordan scoring 55 points or swishing a game winning basket. When I need motivation or ideas, I still look to him. He was my unofficial hero growing up.

He is now retired. But he is not forgotten, at least not by the 20-year old and higher crowd.

Jordan was LeBron James before LeBron James. He was Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade - combined. He left a mark on the game that will never be duplicated.

That is why I feel so bad for his two sons, Jeff and Marcus Jordan. The sons recently revealed themselves to a national audience on ESPN2. Jeff, 18, and Marcus, 16, play basketball for Loyola Academy, a Chicago suburban school.

Loyola Academy was blown out that night but they were still the talk of the game. TV analysts speculated how much pressure they must be under or how tough it is to play in the shadow of a legend.

I wondered the same.

I watched. There was no tongue hanging or mirrored explosives of their dad. Jeff, a 6-2 senior wears No. 32. Marcus, a 6-3 sophomore, wears prescription goggles and wears No. 11. Both shoot left-handed.

They didn’t have the best game. They scored four points each. The potential was obvious.

Shots of a stoic dad sitting near by were frequently shown.

The two sons were featured in USA Today the same day. I assume they have received publicity ever since they checked into their first high school game, if not sooner.

The older brother is being recruited by smaller Division I programs while the younger sibling is considered a higher-rated college prospect, according to USA Today.

More than likely they will never escape the shadow of their dad or reach the NBA.

It will be fun to keep tabs on their progress because if they have a sliver of their father’s determination they will reach the professional ranks.

Remember, Michael Jordan was cut from his high school team as a sophomore. I’m sure a loss on national television won’t be that huge of a setback for the Jordan brothers.

Stay tuned.

Dalton Walker, Red Lake Anishinabe, is a reporter at the Argus Leader newspaper in Sioux Falls, S.D. Walker is a graduate of the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and the American Indian Journalism Institute. A longtime reznet staff writer and a Chips Quinn Scholar, Walker had reporting internships at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis and The New York Times.

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