Okay, so I saw this thing online about Michael Jordan getting cut from his high school basketball team, and I thought, “No way, that can’t be right.” So, I decided to dig in and see what really happened. I mean, it’s Michael Jordan, right?
I started by, you know, just Googling it. “Michael Jordan cut from team” – that’s all I typed in. I figured I’d get a bunch of crazy conspiracy theories, but surprisingly, there were a lot of articles from pretty legit sources talking about it.
So, I started clicking through these articles. Most of them were saying the same basic thing. It happened at Laney High School in Wilmington, North Carolina. Apparently, sophomore year, MJ tried out for the varsity team, but he didn’t make the cut.
I kept reading, trying to find some solid details. I learned that the coach, a guy named Clifton “Pop” Herring, chose another player, a sophomore named Harvest Leroy Smith Jr, over Jordan. The reason? Apparently, Smith was taller, and at that time, the coach thought height was more important.
I even found a few articles that had quotes supposedly from Jordan himself, talking about how devastated he was. He said he went home, locked himself in his room, and cried. Can you imagine? Michael Jordan, crying in his room because he got cut from the team? Crazy.
Then, the story gets even more interesting. Instead of giving up, Jordan used this as motivation. He worked his butt off. He played on the JV team, and he dominated. I saw some accounts saying he was scoring like 40 points a game. He was clearly determined to prove everyone wrong.
- He practiced constantly.
- He focused on improving his skills.
- He never gave up on his dream.
And obviously, it all paid off. He made the varsity team the next year, and the rest, as they say, is history. He became a high school star, then went to the University of North Carolina, and well, we all know what happened after that.
My takeaway from this?
It’s simple. Even the greatest, and I mean the greatest, face setbacks. I guess what is more important is how you use that setback for the good. So, if even Michael Jordan can get cut from his high school team and still become the best basketball player ever, it just goes to show that failure isn’t the end. It’s just a chance to get better, to work harder, and to prove everyone wrong.
