This was the day the boys had been waiting for. That morning, the first thing, the list would be posted in the high school gym: the list of names of those who had made the team.
Mike and his buddy waited at the front door of the school, anticipation buzzing between them. The custodian unlocked it, and they streamed inside. Both were sophomores; both had played on the Laney High team early in the season. But now, the coach had made his final decisions. Who would stay, and who would be cut?
Mike and his friend could scarcely wait to learn the rest of the story. They raced down the hall into the gym, their footsteps echoing in the cavernous space, and skidded to a halt before the paper taped on the wall.
Mike blinked in disbelief. His pal's name was there, all right. But his own name was not.
Maybe his eyes had scanned the list too quickly, he thought. He re-read each name, deliberately, his finger tracing the letters. But the result was the same. Mike's name was not on the list.
The rest of the day, Mike was numb. He endured his classes but heard nothing, felt nothing. Then the last bell of the day rang, and as the hallways emptied, a terrible, aching void began to open in his chest.
He hurried home. Nobody else was in the house. Mike ran upstairs to his room, closed the door, and he cried. He cried harder and longer than he had ever cried over anything before. Making the team had been the most important thing in his life, and now that dream had died.
But Mike's heartbreak and humiliation had only just begun.
You see, the Laney High team made it to the district playoffs that season. Mike pleaded with the coach just to let him accompany the other boys on the bus. It took a lot of begging, but the coach finally relented. Mike could go to the district tournament and watch the team compete—but only on one condition: he had to be willing to carry their uniforms.
Then came the day of the playoffs. Mike was there, dutifully holding the stack of fabric that represented his failure. But somebody else was there that day, too: his parents. They were among the spectators in the stands, and Mike ached at the thought of them seeing him, equipment carrier instead of a participant.
What if they saw him carrying those uniforms into the building? Seething with resentment, Mike sat on the sidelines during the game, wishing with all his heart that the team—the team which had rejected him—would lose. He wished for their defeat, believing it would show them. He thought it would prove how much they needed him.
But in the end, they didn't need him. They didn't need him at all.
It was only later in Mike's life—much, much later—that he came to appreciate the profound disappointment he had experienced back then. Because it let him know what real failure felt like. And that searing feeling made him determined, fiercely determined, to never, ever succumb to disappointment again.
I said the team didn't need him. That list of boys who made the Laney High basketball team a dozen years ago went ahead and won their tournament without him.
The missing name—the boy not deemed good enough to play—was Mike Jordan.
You mean the Michael Jordan?
That's right. The Michael Jordan.
And now you know the rest of the story.
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