Michael Jordan

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.

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.

PHILADELPHIA - Maybe the end of one era will finally allow the NBA and the Washington Wizards to usher in another one. The Michael Jordan farewell tour is over. Finally. That's what most of this NBA season has been about: the Wizards and Jordan. Ever since Jordan and the Chicago Bulls won their sixth title five years ago and Jordan went into Retirement No. 2, the league has feared that the younger crop of superstars couldn't carry the league. So they were just as happy as Jordan was when he announced he would play again two years ago, this time in the nation's capital with the lowly Wizards.

From New York Knicks center Patrick Ewing, there was disappointment. Indiana Pacers guard Reggie Miller said the news left him with an empty feeling. And Miami Heat coach Pat Riley spoke of not having that one last chance to defeat his No. 1 rival.All three were responding to the retirement last month of Michael Jordan, and the disappointment they felt of not being able to beat him on the road to a championship.On the surface, those responses seemed rather noble. But, deep down, those three -- as well as others in the league who expressed similar sentiments -- probably were bubbling with joy.They all knew that Jordan's departure meant the end of the Chicago Bulls' dynasty.

NEW YORK - As successful as his comeback has been so far with the Washington Wizards, Michael Jordan has proved himself rather human in one regard: his inability to lift his new team to new heights. As extraordinary as Jordan looked during the preseason, the Wizards still looked very ordinary. Or worse. When Jordan's return to the court becomes official tonight against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden, the Wizards will be trying to put a disappointing 2-6 exhibition record behind them.

When Orlando Magic coach Brian Hill was asked in October who is the best player in the NBA, he could have walked the company line and mentioned either of his two stars -- Shaquille O'Neal or Anfernee Hardaway -- and gotten few arguments.But he knew better."I think Hakeem Olajuwon has earned the respect of being the best player in the NBA," Hill said, referring to the Houston Rockets center's two straight NBA titles. "But you have to put an asterisk next to that because of a guy named Michael Jordan."

One of the most accomplished directors of television commercials ever, Joe Pytka would rarely seem at a loss for how to make one. He has created thousands of TV ads, from Pepsi and McDonald's spots to the famed "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" series. His portfolio includes more than 30 Super Bowl commercials and the 1996 Warner Bros. cartoon movie Space Jam. His fee is $15,000 a day. But when presented last spring with a concept for a Gatorade commercial depicting Michael Jordan playing basketball against a younger version of himself - to air during Super Bowl XXXVII on Sunday - Pytka was uncertain he could pull it off. "It was almost like an impossible project.

BEAVERTON, Ore. -- Howard White, the former University of Maryland basketball guard who is Nike's most influential adviser to its athletic superstars, was in Hawaii when he saw a man with a chisel and a hammer standing beside a beautiful figure carved from a tree."

WILMINGTON, N.C. -- For as long as Jerry Stackhouse can remember, talk of one kind or another has been running after him like an opposing guard through a screen. His critics, from his collegiate days at North Carolina, into the NBA, where he supposedly couldn't play with Allen Iverson or Grant Hill, branded him selfish, and it took seven years of his professional career to finally quell that talk. Now, as he begins a new season as the shooting guard for the Washington Wizards, Stackhouse is preparing to go head-to-head with the chatter that has dogged him the longest: that he would never measure up to Michael Jordan, the man he has been compared to, seemingly, through his entire life.

Gary Gait scans the field and sees the accustomed double team waiting.No space in the middle of the field. No opening around the goal. Nevertheless this is Gait, the quickest, strongest and more importantly, the most creative lacrosse player ever.So with one quick move behind the goal, he catapults himself in front of the goal and whips an airborne shot over his shoulder."Gary can do things that no one else can do," Thunder coach John Tucker said. "He is the Michael Jordan of our sport."In the United States, he's compared to Jordan.