Each morning, publicist Estee Portnoy flips through a stack of newspaper clips to track any fresh mentions of her boss, Michael Jordan.
Often, though, Portnoy winds up reading not about a retired hoops legend but about a bass fisherman and a heart surgeon. Or a poet and a surfer.
“There are so many hits on his name, and usually half are not referencing Michael Jordan the person,” Portnoy says. “They are using him as an adjective.”
Make way for a population boom of clonelike proportions. It’s rumbling through almost every nook of American society, from the somber halls of academia to the fringe world of pro poker. Folks who leap to greatness – doing whatever they do – are regularly dubbed the “Michael Jordan” of their worlds.
And suddenly, the Michaels are everywhere.
Scramble up enough icy cliffs, like Reinhold Messner, and you’ll be known as “the Michael Jordan of mountaineering.”
Swoop through enough ocean darkness, like Sheck Exley, and you’ll be christened “the Michael Jordan of cave diving.”
Drop enough dudes with colorful rifle shots to the gut – like Chris Lasoya – and you’ll forever be known as “the Michael Jordan of pro paintball.”
“I first read that about me in a French magazine. It was surreal,” says Lasoya, whose paintball exploits have earned him a national cult following and a six-figure salary. By day, he promotes parties and raves at Denver clubs.
“Don’t get me wrong. It’s cool and all,” Lasoya says. “But I kind of chuckled when I heard that.”
So did Tom Sobal, a Salida resident whose foot speed during frigid, 100-mile races led competitors to refer to him as “the Michael Jordan of snowshoeing.”
“Oh, geez,” says Sobal, 48, after being reminded of the nickname. “At one time, I might have been there. I was the dominant guy. Or, at least, there were no faster people around.
“But Michael Jordan had all these marketing deals and everything. And when I saw that about myself in print, I thought, ‘Well, where are all my marketing deals?’ ”
Jordan, the adjective, has blown by Babe Ruth when it comes to this metaphorical madness.
A Google search of the phrase “the Michael Jordan of …” spit out 76,600 hits, including the MJs of morning news (Katie Couric), economics (Dr. Gary Becker) and furniture restoration (Jeffrey Arnstein).
By contrast, Google listed 32,600 “Babe Ruths” of everyday eminence, 705 “Lance Armstrongs, 750 “Muhammad Alis” and – gaining fast on the outside – 39,300 “Tiger Woodses.”
“Yes, but there’s a profound difference between doing a triple somersault and slamming the basketball down versus making one, calm exacting golf swing after another,” says Brad Mudge, a pop culture expert and English professor at the University of Colorado-Denver.
“When you think of Tiger, you don’t think of someone leaping through the air and performing an amazing physical act that is always new. There’s something in that creative genius.”
Indeed, it’s the artistry of the moment, not just the result of the game, that elevates a person from everyday legend to eternal “Jordan,” says Gary Gait, coach of the Colorado Mammoth and a man often called “the Michael Jordan of lacrosse.” As a player, Gait also was tagged as “the Babe Ruth” and “Wayne Gretzky” of his sport.
“It’s a tremendous compliment. And I liked them all,” Gait says. “They all represented something different. … Jordan represented that pure style of play, the creativity and the domination.”
In other words: It’s not just that Jordan beat his opponents, it’s how he beat them – with the sheer power of his will. He owned them, laughed at them, disposed of them. “Air” Jordan was supremely gifted, sure. But that basketball prowess was powered by mental muscle, says Mark Vancil, who has written three books with Jordan, including “Driven From Within.”
“What was the difference physically between Dominique Wilkins and Michael Jordan? Not much,” Vancil says. “But you would never use Dominique in the same sentence with Michael.
“There are 18-year-olds somewhere in this country right now who, purely physically, (are Jordan’s equals). I’m talking about running and jumping and moving quickly. But that is so far down the list of what defines him.”
And that may be the deepest reason why people are so quick to use Jordan’s name as shorthand for greatness. Jordan, by the way, declined to be interviewed for this story.
“Michael has said, ‘I have failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed.’ People have seen that in Michael,” says his publicist, Portnoy. “People still remember when he played in the (1997 NBA Finals) with a fever, too weak to stand, but he scored 38 points and hits the game winning shot.
“Inside all of us, we all think, if I perch my life like that everyday, I can achieve. … That’s why he has become a reference to excellence. And I think the use of Michael Jordan as an adjective is increasing.”
Actually, she has heard it firsthand.
When Portnoy’s son was 18 months old, he faced a hernia operation. Portnoy and her husband went to see a surgeon who explained the procedure. When the doctor saw that the parents were still nervous, he pulled out one line intended to calm them. Instead, it made them laugh.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “I’m the Michael Jordan of hernia surgeons.”
Staff writer Bill Briggs can be reached at 303-820-1720 or bbriggs@denverpost.com.
