Michigan players enjoy rap session with Michael Jordan

Ann Arbor – Michael Jordan, Michigan’s honorary captain for the season opener, watched from the Michigan Stadium sideline as the Wolverines debuted their new Nike Jordan Brand uniforms featuring the Jumpman logo he made famous.

Jordan met with the Michigan players for about 45 minutes Friday in the team meeting room in Schembechler Hall and took questions from them on a number of topics.

Michigan, which moved to Nike apparel on Aug. 1, is the first football program associated with the Jordan Brand.

“Everybody was like ‘Oh, man, it’s MJ,’” said Michigan fullback Khalid Hill, who scored on a 4-yard run in the Wolverines’ 63-3 rout of Hawaii on Saturday, said. “He sat next to me and I was freaking out.”

Hill, who apparently is on an “MJ” name basis with Jordan, said the legendary basketball star was open to answering any question. Hill was asked if he was nervous about meeting him.

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“It was just MJ,” Hill said, drawing laughter because he referred to Jordan with such familiarity. “It was like wow, this is amazing. Him being in the meeting room with us, sitting down with us and talking to us and being real. He was keeping it real and telling us, ‘Hey, this is how everything goes.’ I appreciate him for that.”

Freshman running back Chris Evans, who scored two touchdowns in his debut, said he was the first to ask Jordan a question.

“Like how did he feel during the ‘flu game’ because that was one of the games that really stood out to me,” Evans said, referring to Jordan’s performance in the 1997 NBA Finals Game 5 in which he exhibited flu-like symptoms but managed to score 38 points. “Like if I’m ever feeling sick, I’ll watch the flu game, the whole game, just to see what he was going through and he was pushing hard. He told me the love for the game and his love for the teammates pushed him through that.”

Evans said he was feeling sick at practice within the last two weeks and drew strength from Jordan.

“Like how am I going to do this?” Evans said he asked himself. “Just pushing through it, like what he told me. I just use it on a bigger scale because Michael Jordan did it.”

Center Mason Cole said it was “cool” to see Jordan and Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh sharing the floor.

“We just had an open conversation asking him questions about competing and about his love for sports and his love for basketball,” Cole said of Jordan. “It goes with everything Coach Harbaugh has been saying. You get so much better in sports by practicing and practicing hard, and I think coach Harbaugh has made it like that for us. We go out and we practice hard.”

Harbaugh joked that his players listened more to Jordan than they do to him.

“Michael Jordan said to the team Friday night, and I think it resonated with everybody, he got good at basketball because he practiced it,” Harbaugh said. “That’s such a great carryover to football because you get good at football by playing football.

“He said if you love it, then you want to do it every day. And you want to do it as much as you can every day. He said it’s like ice cream. If you love ice cream then you’re going to eat it every single day. That’s what resonates with me, because that’s what our football team has been doing for the last month.”

Hill said he cringed when teammate Chase Winovich asked Jordan if he really get cut from his high school team. Jordan confirmed it.

“He told us the story of his high school coach who cut him picked him every day at 6 a.m. to work him out and help him get better at his sport,” Hill said. “That coach is why he’s here today.”

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Former interim athletic director Jim Hackett, who negotiated the deal with Nike before his run as AD ended earlier this year – he also hired Jim Harbaugh – attended the season opener sporting several Michigan Nike Jordan items.

Hackett modeled his new Jordan shoes saying they are his favorite new item from the collection.

On Friday night, Hackett shared dinner with Dan Dierdorf, Jim Brandstatter and Harbaugh’s parents, Jack and Jackie, and he decided to send Charles Woodson, the 1997 Michigan Heisman Trophy winner, a text.

Woodson was the first to think of joining the Michigan and Jordan brands and messaged Jordan about the possibility. When Jordan responded in the affirmative, Woodson took the idea to Hackett.

“I sent him a text and said, ‘I want to thank you,’ because it was his idea to use Jordan,” Hackett said. “He was at the very, very beginning of this. And he replied, ‘Nice kicks.’”

Hackett, who has moved on to his new role with Ford, was not at the midnight sale at the M Den when the Nike apparel was first made available. But he did drop by a store in west Michigan where he lives and did some investigative work.

“I asked the young salesperson, ‘So how’s the gear selling?’” Hackett said. “She said the Jordan is selling really well, but she said, ‘But it’s very expensive.’ I said, ‘It’s really popular?’ And she said yeah. That really made my day.”