Even though basketball has its own tightly-knit and niche fanbase, you definitely don’t need to be a sports enthusiast to obsessively binge-watch the latest ESPN docuseries about Michael Jordan. The Last Dance is a deep dive into Michael Jordan’s final season with the Chicago Bulls of 1997-98, and it’s bound to keep your eyes glued to the screen. Thanks to the NBA Entertainment crew’s extensive access throughout the championship season, the ten episodes feature fascinating never-seen-before footage from behind the curtains.
The miniseries solely focuses on Michael Jordan and includes little mention of his life outside of basketball, leaving out plenty of details about Jordan's family—but, as it happens in celebrity-centered documentaries, it leaves us wondering about the rest of the Jordan family and the basketball star’s private life. Jordan’s first marriage with Juanita Vanoy blessed the couple with three babies, the second of whom is Marcus Jordan. With a dad like Michael Jordan, who wouldn’t follow in the father’s footsteps and approach basketball? Of course, Marcus did, but there’s way more to him than just casually shooting some hoops.
Marcus Jordan in 2009.
After playing in Wilmette, Illinois with his older brother Jeffrey Jordan in his high school Loyola Academy’s basketball team, leading it to a remarkable success during the championship, Marcus proceeded to transfer to Whitney Young High School in Chicago for his last two seasons.
When he went off to college to the University of Central Florida in Orlando, FL, in 2009 Marcus joined the basketball team, and ruffled some feathers in UCF’s partnership with Adidas. During a UCF exhibition game, the young Jordan, who had just entered his freshman year, refused to change out of his Nike Air Jordan in an attempt of showing loyalty to the brand—or better, to his own father. As a result, Adidas raised their eyebrows, and ended the sponsorship contract with UCF, which cost the school its $3 million deal according to Bleacher Report. Ouch. But alas, there’s always a price to pay for success—Marcus was, indeed, good at the game, and led the team to multiple victories and successes.
His troublemaker college days, though, were far from over. Per ESPN, in 2012, during his junior year of college, Jordan was arrested in Omaha, Nebraska due to “disturbance outside a downtown hotel,” and the basketball player was described by the authorities as "very animated, intoxicated and uncooperative." Apparently, it took more than one police officer to handcuff him, and was subsequently booked for resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and obstructing.
Luckily, though, with Marcus’ college years, problems ended too. After encountering some obstacles—which translates into, his dad Michael Jordan initially told him “no”— Marcus opened a new, unique Jordan-inspired sneakers boutique, called Trophy Room, in 2016. Originally located in Orlando’s Disneyland, the shop moved online-only last year—but still sees Marcus Jordan as CEO.
Marcus’ basketball days might be over, but his basketball (and Jordan) passion is far from gone.
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