1963-
Basketball Legend

Air Jordan.

Michael Jordan's spectacular style of play set the standard for athletic creativity and earned him a special place in basketball history. Jordan had the ability to make the apparently impossible routine and to remain airborne as long as necessary to score a graceful or explosive basket. Even as a rookie with the Chicago Bulls in 1984, Jordan was compared to such celebrated and legendary basketball acrobats as Elgin Baylor, Connie Hawkins, David Thompson, and Julius Erving. The comparisons proved prophetic, for Jordan dominated professional basketball — offensively, defensively, and aesthetically — during the latter part of the 1980s and into the 1990s. With the guidance of agent David Falk of ProServe, the affable Jordan also made his mark in the advertising world. He served as a spokesperson for Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Wheaties, and Gatorade. Because Jordan was so enthusiastically embraced as an athlete-endorser...