Michael Jordan is one of the most decorated players in the NBA, having made an impressive record in his heyday. He was the childhood hero of many a young fan, yours truly included, and remains admired long after his retirement from the league. You have to admit that his track in the 1990s was incredibly impressive even today.
But many laypeople would be quite surprised that Jordan was far from the only excellent player produced by UNC, or for that matter does he rank the highest among all its alumni (though, let's face it, he did make the top 10; we're talking about Jordan here).
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At least two players performed statistically better than him in the entire history of the university. Phil Ford, who later became a gold-winning Olympian, held an impressive record of statistics as a UNC alumnus, and the Lakers' Big Game James (a contemporaneous co-alumnus of His Airness) surpassed him statistically back in college. In fact, it was under James Worthy's captainship of the Heels that Jordan would make the historic shot in '82 that would then characterize his future stellar career in professional basketball. This would parallel his best moments later in his career where his best performance was but a complement to precision teamwork.
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So, the young Jordan didn't achieve an all time superlative at UNC. Indeed, he never seemed to shy away from his occasional failures when speaking about his successes. And don't think I'm dissing my idol here. Even though he was far from an overnight success, he was still a force to be reckoned with back in college, and it shows. He was named Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Rookie of the Year for 1982 and led the ACC in scoring in both his sophomore and Junior seasons, where he was named college player of the year for both by The Sporting News.
It just goes to show, you don't become the Greatest of All Time overnight.
Hey, John Bradberry, Charlotte-bred, true blue NC college sports fan here. If you like college sports, you might want to drop by my other blog.
