Michael Jordan

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. -- Just after 11 a.m. yesterday, Michael Jordan entered the Road America facility with an eager stride, thermos and cigar in hand, a glint in his eye as he waited for a day of racing to begin. A foreboding, gray sky draped over the distant hilltops. Jordan hardly noticed. The former Chicago Bulls great took a perch on the deck, offering an enthusiastic wave to his Jordan Suzuki team prepping across the track. In 2004 - a few months after a late-night encounter with other riders at a downtown Chicago gas station - Jordan formed his own motorcycle racing team, Michael Jordan Motorsports, fielding racers in the AMA Superbike and Superstock series.

When his mother visited Israel in November, Tamir Goodman asked her to bring him back one thing: a sky-blue yarmulke. The color would match his basketball uniform at the Talmudical Academy in Pikesville."

On the 6 o'clock news, the sports guy was getting all weepy about Michael Jordan, to the point where you wondered if Jordan was retiring today or had been pushed under a train.After showing the requisite highlight videos of the Chicago Bulls superstar, accompanied by a maudlin, Barbra Streisand-ish musical score, the sports guy intoned somberly: "Michael, we'll never forget you."Forget him? How could we forget him?We'll see him every day for the rest of our lives.We'll see him every time we turn on the TV and he's flacking for Nike, or McDonald's, or Gatorade, or WorldCom.

NEW YORK -- Michael Jordan, basketball's pre-eminent player and the world's best-known athlete, will retire from the NBA for the second time in five years, according to three officials in the NBA with knowledge of Jordan's plans. They said last night they expected the Chicago Bulls star to make an announcement tomorrow at a news conference in Chicago.Jordan's retirement also was reported last night by the Associated Press, USA Today and Denver Post.Jordan's future has been the biggest issue in basketball in the wake of the bitter labor dispute that ended last week after an impasse that lasted six months and wiped out the early part of the season.

For all the things Coppin State senior Fred Warrick does well, shooting is the thing he does most.The 6-foot-5 swingman averages 21 points, makes nearly four three-point shots a game and attempts many others. Yet, he has a yearning to be known as a jack-of-all-trades, a guy who can succeed in any facet of the game."I would describe myself as a player," Warrick said, "someone who will do whatever it takes on both sides of the court."But the essence of Warrick's play was revealed in the final moments of Coppin's 80-77 overtime loss against South Carolina State last Saturday.

"Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism," by Walter LaFeber. W. W. Norton. 160 pages. $22.95.If you came to believe while watching Michael Jordan play basketball that man could fly, you may, while reading this book, come to believe the retired Chicago Bull also accomplished with his oversized Nikes what the Roman legionnaires could only dream of: total world domination.LaFeber's book, the latest in a career's worth of thoughtful self-examinations of American influence, is a primer on what some see as the coming global conflict of culture.

CHICAGO -- In 13 illustrious seasons, he carried the Chicago Bulls to six NBA titles. He also served as an ambassador to the NBA, and in the process became a global hero.Yesterday, Michael Jordan said he had had enough.On center court at the United Center, with the floor that hasn't been played on since June laid down and the baskets rolled out, Jordan officially announced his retirement from basketball."Mentally, I'm exhausted. I don't feel I have a challenge," said Jordan, who was joined on the podium by his wife, Juanita.

The direct impact is less obvious here, halfway across the country from what has been the epicenter of the NBA during the past 13 seasons. But in Chicago, yesterday was a day of mourning as Michael Jordan announced his retirement.However, though there was no sobbing among the folks who watched Jordan's televised news conference at the ESPN Zone at the Inner Harbor, his departure left impressions on young and old alike.At noon, while a tardy Jordan allowed the media at the United Center one last bit of anticipation, Edward Nottingham sat in a plush leather chair in the front row of the screening room at the ESPN Zone.

CHICAGO -- Michael Jordan was the overwhelming choice of business and advertising executives asked to name the top sports endorser of the 20th century.Jordan received four times as many votes as golfer Tiger Woods, the runner-up, in a poll asking executives to name the sports celebrity from the 1900s that they'd want most to pitch their products. Chicago-based Burns Sports Inc., which hires sports figures as endorsers, conducted the survey.Golfer Arnold Palmer finished third.Even though Jordan retired before last season, the five-time National Basketball Association most valuable player is earning $69 million annually from endorsements with companies such as Nike Inc. and McDonald's Corp.

Almost 15 years after Michael Jordan and Buzz Peterson became close friends, the two men were golfing in Chicago when Jordan -- out of the blue -- thanked his college teammate for making him a "very, very good basketball player."Peterson, who never made it to the National Basketball Association, was mystified: Why would Jordan be thanking him? Because, as Jordan explained, Buzz had been the golden boy of North Carolina high school basketball, so at every practice in college, Jordan was telling himself, "You've got to be better than Buzz.

Kristi Toliver is a quiet, thoughtful soul content to strum her guitar and go to class like any other college senior. Unless you put a basketball into her hands. Then, the Maryland point guard becomes something else entirely - Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant distilled into a 5-foot-7 female form, the kind of kid who knew from birth she would make the biggest shots in the biggest games. "She's just ruthless," says Dena Evans, one of her basketball mentors. "She can take the heart out of a team with one shot."

Bulls@Pacers Noon [WGN] Michael Jordan (left) and Scottie Pippen face off against Reggie Miller and Rik Smits as Chicago takes on Indiana in a possible Eastern Conference finals preview - if this were 1997-98. Instead, watch the bottom two teams in the Central Division fight over draft lottery position. Almost as good, right?

Considering what you have endured, how have you resisted the temptation to become frustrated with what has happened? I don't think about it like that. I don't think about football in a frustrating way at all. I just don't. I won't allow myself to let anything take away from what we've got going on here. Do you believe that contracting tonsillitis was part of a bigger plan? Everything definitely happens for a reason. Obviously, my plan will come somewhere later on down the line. The things that I have gone through and go through now are definitely part of what I have to do to become the quarterback that I want to become.

Michael Phelps is strolling the red carpet with rock stars. He's sitting knee-to-knee with Oprah, signing book deals, making cameos, commanding attention from Access Hollywood, canoodling - as the tabloids say - with young ladies, endorsing products and ringing the New York Stock Exchange opening bell. Earlier this week, he's hunched into Jay Leno's seat of honor, squirming a bit as the host prods him about what a big deal it will be to host Saturday Night Live (which he's doing tonight on NBC)

Yes, Michael Phelps has been called a rock star. But online - at least on Facebook - the Rodgers Forge swimmer is actually much bigger than that. So many comments poured in yesterday, part of his fan profile site temporarily crashed, Facebook officials said. By noon yesterday, the Olympic swimmer had more than 700,000 fans, from high schoolers to parents. That's second only to presidential candidate Barack Obama (1,344,000), and more than Coldplay (501,000) and Michael Jordan (108,000)

Goodbye." It's a simple word, but sometimes it's just hard to say. OK, well maybe it's easy to say and hard to, you know, stick with it. That has been Brett Favre's problem. He has come so close to saying goodbye so many, many times. Then, in March, he did say it. There were tears and everything. But we all know what has happened since. Today, he'll be there when the Packers resume training camp. But before we accuse ol' Brett of an acute case of vacillation, let's point out that he's hardly alone.

Standing 2 feet tall and weighing 20 pounds, three-time pretty-baby contest champion Alex Wilmeth retired Saturday after a knockout performance as Elvis at the Howard County Fair. His father, Michael Wilmeth, offered this statement on his son's victory in his final year of eligibility: "He is the Michael Jordan of baby parades." In 2005, the Cooksville native debuted in the nonwalking division as Harry Potter. At the age of 1, he steered his "Black Pearl" wagon as Pirates of the Caribbean character Jack Sparrow.

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. -- Just after 11 a.m. yesterday, Michael Jordan entered the Road America facility with an eager stride, thermos and cigar in hand, a glint in his eye as he waited for a day of racing to begin. A foreboding, gray sky draped over the distant hilltops. Jordan hardly noticed. The former Chicago Bulls great took a perch on the deck, offering an enthusiastic wave to his Jordan Suzuki team prepping across the track. In 2004 - a few months after a late-night encounter with other riders at a downtown Chicago gas station - Jordan formed his own motorcycle racing team, Michael Jordan Motorsports, fielding racers in the AMA Superbike and Superstock series.

School's out, but the library was open yesterday at McCormick Elementary School. A group of youngsters listened eagerly to a reading of Salt in his Shoes, a book about basketball great Michael Jordan. Then they colored paper sneakers, and listed their goals -- which for Chaquiera Wharton included playing on a basketball team, trying to earn straight A's and reading more than 30 books this year. Chaquiera, an eighth-grader at Golden Ring Middle School, comes to McCormick Elementary every Wednesday with her sister and cousin.

The telephone message emanating these days from the offices of the Boston Celtics identifies the franchise as having won 16 NBA championships. What it doesn't mention is this: It has been 20 years since the last one. On June 8, 1986, the Celtics closed out the Houston Rockets in Game 6 of the NBA Finals. A little more than a week later, the Celtics selected Maryland star Len Bias with the No. 2 overall pick in the draft. On the morning of June 19, less than 48 hours after he put on a Celtics cap and was introduced by NBA commissioner David Stern, Bias was dead of cocaine intoxication.