There’s no doubt in my mind that Michael Jordon will forever dance through basketball history for he is also without a doubt the greatest player in the history of the game.

North Carolina Tar Heels

I was fortunate to see the beginnings of his awesome career.

Being a North Carolina boy, and an avid University of North Carolina basketball follower, I saw Jordan play his way to winning the Atlantic Coast Conference Freshman of the Year honor in 1982 while helping lead the Tar Heels to the NCAA Championship, giving the iconic coach Dean Smith his first national title.

Though James Worthy was truly the Tar Heel MVP, winning the 1982 Most Outstanding Player award for the tournament, which included scoring 28 points in the championship game, many of them crashing dunks, some of which began at the top of the key, followed by a couple of gliding steps, ending with a slam.

But it was freshman Jordan who hit the game-winning shot with 17 seconds to go, a play set up by coach Smith who knew that both Worthy and Sam Perkins, another stellar Tar Heel, would be heavily guarded.

He hit the shot, later saying that he had dreamed of making a game winner, but at the moment of doing so, he didn’t even see it go in.

That shot, however, was the true beginning of his greatness for it gave him the confidence to become the great player he was destined to be.

Like any Jordan fan, I later actually bought a Tar Heel jersey with Jordan’s name and number 23 on it. Sure wish I’d kept that; I have no idea where it eventually went. I also have two publications, made like high school annuals, documenting the Carolina wins in the ’82 and 93 NCAA Championship games coached by Dean Smith, the ’82 one the game that made Jordan a hero.

And I actually got to see him play in person, finally. That was in his Junior year, 1984. Traveled to Greensboro, NC and saw the Heels play Wake Forest. The Heels won, but to be honest, I don’t even remember the score. But I do remember the great show MJ put on.

Chicago Bulls

It broke my heart when he opted to go NBA after his junior year, but he did so with coach Smith’s recommendation.

Ironically, I did not follow his pro career. I’d long before given up on following the NBA due to several player scandals and bad publicity.

That was my mistake for he brought new credibility to the institution.

I was aware, though, of his many contributions to the sport and of him leading the Chicago Bulls to two three-peats of NBA championships, only the third team in history to have done so, though one of the other teams, the Boston Celtics, actually won 8 in a row.

“The Last Dance“

What brings all this MJ (Michael Jordan) nostalgia about is the television documentary The Last Dance, chronicling what was to be not only Phil Jackson’s final season as the Bulls’ head coach but also MJ’s final season as a Bull as they attempted to win their second three-peat.

This documentary uses candid film of Jordan’s and his teammates’, filmed by an NBA crew during the 1997-98 NBA season, which was to be used for a future documentary. However, that show never came to fruition, waiting for MJ’s approval.

But it’s finally been put together and released by ESPN and it’s been so entertaining, as well as educational for I’ve discovered so much I missed and was unaware of over these past years, such as the murder death of his father and his first retirement from the game prior to returning.

The North Carolina Tar Heel basketball program has added greatly to their history since Jordan’s departure, winning four more national championships, one for the now late Dean Smith and three for Roy Williams, a former Tar Heel player and assistant coach who finally returned to his alma mater after a successful career coaching Kansas.

But of all the players and teams of Carolina’s history, it will be that ’82 team and “His Airness”, or “Air Jordan” – nicknames he got from his performances in slam dunk contests, making them from the free throw line, just as his former teammate Worthy did in that ’82 championship game – that I will always remember.

And I can’t help but close with these words that the late, great Tar Heel radio broadcaster, Woody Durham, was known to say after another Tar Heel victory: “How ’bout them Heels!”