PLANET POSNER ON JORDAN SHOE SCANDAL

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IT'S NOT WERE THE SHOE FALLS
FOR KATHY POSNER
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Marcus Jordan

I do not read the sports pages of the papers simply because I do not care what is happening in a world I am not a part of. But when I was throwing away the Tribune sports section the other day a headline caught my eye, “Jordan Shoe Flap Causing a Stink.” The story sounded intriguing, so I read it. The readers of this blog who know the background can skip this paragraph! Others should read on. Marcus Jordan, son of former Bull Michael Jordan, is a freshman basketball player attending the University of Central Florida (I had never heard of UCF but it happens to be a part of the nation's third-largest university system. With 12 colleges located in Orlando, Florida, it serves more than 53000 students. The tuition is only $3800/year, so how good can it be! And Marcus is an athletic scholarship student! But I digress.) UCF has a $1.9 million contract with Adidas that requires all athletes to be dressed in their logoed athletic wear. Marcus will only wear shoes from the Jordan brand of Nike. UCF told Marcus when they recruited him they he could wear his father’s shoe brand. Adidas says he has to wear only their shoes. Marcus refuses to wear Adidas shoes. At jeopardy now is the extension of the Adidas contract which is worth $3 million to UCF. Marcus’s father Michael, while unquestionably one of the greatest basketball players ever, has an ego bigger than even Oprah’s and mine. He fortified that reputation again during his grandiloquent and pompous Hall of Fame induction speech last month when he said, "There is no 'I' in team but there is in win." So how does this problem get solved? The coach of the CFU basketball team has to wave adieu at Marcus as he walks off campus wearing his Jordan sneakers. The coach of a team has to be a czar and a ukase from his lips is an edict that must be obeyed. If the coach folds here, he loses his creditability with all of his athletes. There should be only be one Jordan who is allowed to live his life under the Jordan rules; and it should not be 18 year old Marcus.