You're not just imagining it: the 1980s are back! It's not just Netflix drowning us in nostalgia with Stranger Things and Fuller House. Women are wearing scrunchies, Ghostbusters and Blade Runner are returning to the multiplex, Hulk Hogan is back showing off his moves on videotape, and Teddy Ruxpin is returning to toy stores. Just for fun, we even elected a 1980s curio as President of the United States! But is everything we remember about the eighties the totally tubular truth? "Just say no," says Jeopardy!'s Ken Jennings, so we've asked him to take us on a DeLorean ride back in time, separating the "Straight Up" facts from the "sweet little lies" of our foggily remembered Bartles & Jaymes youth. As they say, knowing is half the battle.
The Debunker: Was Michael Jordan Cut from His High School Basketball Team?
It was the most shocking high school failure since Einstein flunked math. Looming large in Michael Jordan's legend is the 1978-79 basketball season at Laney High School in Wilmington, North Carolina, where 15-year-old Mike Jordan famously did not make his varsity team. No one mentions this more than Jordan himself, who says the sting of the rejection motivated him for his entire career. The Bulls MVP even used to check into hotels using the name of "Leroy Smith," his sophomore friend who did make varsity that same year. At this point, it's pretty much his superhero origin story.
Or, if you're not a fan, I suppose it could be a super-villain origin story. As Sports Illustrated reported in a lengthy January 2012 profile of Jordan's high school coach, Clifton "Pop" Herring, Jordan was never actually cut. He was put on the junior varsity squad as a sophomore because that's where all Laney High's sophomores played, even very gifted ones, to make sure they got plenty of game time and leadership experience. Leroy Smith was a rare exception in 1978, because he was a 6'7" center, and none of Herring's seniors were taller than 6'3". (Jordan was still 5'10" when he played JV.)
Coaches and educators often use this Jordan myth as a motivational tool, the jock version of "Einstein failed math." (Another urban legend, by the way.) If you practice hard, kids, you can get better just like Jordan did before junior year! But at retirement and awards ceremonies, when His Airness flogs this story, it's usually a little more pointed. "You made a mistake, dude!" he says, jabbing at Herring from the stage to repeatedly re-settle an old score. In 1994, Herring was actually in the crowd when Jordan pulled this move, and was roundly booed. This seems more than a little petty, since Jordan is a jet-setting billionaire while Herring hasn't coached in decades due to problems with mental illness and alcoholism. Constantly being misrepresented in the media as "the dumb coach who cut Jordan" can't be helping.
Quick Quiz: What A-list actor recently praised Wally Buono, the coach who cut him from the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League in 1995?
Ken Jennings is the author of eleven books, most recently his Junior Genius Guides, Because I Said So!, and Maphead. He's also the proud owner of an underwhelming Bag o' Crap. Follow him at ken-jennings.com or on Twitter as @KenJennings.