Heir Jordan

From March 2007: He has weathered the pressure of being Michael Jordan's son and managed to build a strong high-school record. Now Jeffrey Jordan has his sights set on college hoops.

By Noah Isackson

(page 3 of 4)

Photograph by McArthurphotography.com

Jeffrey Jordan, photographed at Loyola Academy

Jeff Jordan stands about six feet one with a thick upper body, the product of a rigorous weightlifting routine. These days he wears his hair short, a relatively noticeable change from the cornrows he wore until recently. His mother asked that he cut them before his high-school graduation this spring.

As his senior year winds down, Jordan busies himself with academics, college applications, and basketball. Several days a week, he wakes at 5:30 a.m. for a light workout inside the gym of the family estate in Highland Park. The goal is to complement the practice he'll have several hours later with the Ramblers, and some of the conditioning comes at the suggestion of his father. "My dad told me I should be getting in at least 500 shots a day," he says. Other days, he jogs while wearing a weight vest or runs through a series of defensive slides, a fundamental crouch-and-shuffle technique dreaded by even the most eager players.

Sometimes the Jordan brothers team up against their father on the court, but Michael Jordan says he avoids playing one-on-one. "I'm there to answer questions," he says. "We may sit down at the beginning of the season, and I may give them suggestions on what I feel they need to work on, but it's up to them to go and do it. I'm not standing over them."

After the morning workout, Jeff Jordan, early riser that he is, usually stops at a Starbucks and grabs a latté before school. During the day, he chews caffeine gum. He maintains a B-plus average at Loyola and already plans to major in psychology or business in college.

Exactly where that will be has not been determined. Jordan is cautious about discussing his plans, and the recruitment process will likely continue through the spring. Just to be safe, he sent in applications to Illinois, Michigan, and Georgetown-campuses where he would likely give up the sport and be just a normal freshman. But if he had it his way, he would play Division I college basketball. Until recently, there were doubts about whether he was good enough to play at the top-tier schools. In early 2006, smaller programs like Northern Iowa and Davidson were pursuing him, but that was before a series of spring and summer tournaments against the country's best prospects sent Jordan's stock soaring. Now he's waiting to see which schools come calling.

"He's going to have an outstanding college career," says Dave Telep, national recruiting director of Scout.com. Another college scout, Van Coleman, compares Jordan to a young B. J. Armstrong, the former unknown who played at the University of Iowa and, years later, helped the Chicago Bulls win three NBA championships.

Basketball and school keep Jordan occupied, but in his downtime, he's a typical high schooler. He loves sports video games and says his father has hooked him on old Westerns (Clint Eastwood gets the nod over John Wayne). With his dad, he pores over old episodes of Law and Order. "We could sit on the couch and watch Law and Order for days," the young Jordan says. Somewhat sheepishly, he admits to liking ABC's Grey's Anatomy, which he first watched with his mother. Like other teens, he's also into music. Jack Joyce, a friend since freshman year, says he and Jordan have been making up their own raps. Joyce describes his friend as humble and easygoing. "If you're hanging out at the same party, you would never be able to tell that he was Michael Jordan's son."

Jeff's attitude reflects how he and his siblings, Marcus, 16, and Jasmine, 14, were brought up. Both Michael and Juanita came from relatively humble beginnings. "We raised our children to be as down to earth as they could possibly be, given the circumstances," says Juanita Jordan. Though the family has lived in Highland Park since the children were little, the parents insisted that they spend time in and around Juanita's old Roseland neighborhood on the city's South Side. They hung out at Evergreen Plaza Mall and played in Fernwood Park. They traveled to Michael's hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina, too. "We wanted them to understand that the lifestyle that they have, and the amenities that come with it, weren't just given to them," their mother says. "You have to start somewhere."

Early one winter morning, Jeff Jordan, who is recovering from a bout with the flu, sits in the office of Loyola's guidance counselor and explains that his parents "were never afraid to tell me no." He earned his allowance based on how good his grades were, and it was all the spending money he'd see until the next batch of grades. "I know I asked for a lot of things when I was younger that they could have easily given me," he says. "But they were like, ‘No, you have to wait; you have to earn it.' So I think the values that my family instilled in me have definitely factored into how I look at things and how I want other people to know me."

Jordan also learned to be discreet-he declines to say how much spending money he actually got.

"We raised our children to be as down to earth as they could possibly be, given the circumstances," says Juanita Jordan. "We wanted them to understand that the lifestyle that they have, and the amenities that come with it, weren't just given to them."

Last year, Forbes ranked Michael Jordan the 26th richest celebrity in the world with a 2006 income of $32 million-and that's income drawn by a man who is, technically, retired. The Jordan name is a commercial brand worth millions, and the family is extremely guarded. Hovering over everything, one assumes, is the 1993 murder of Jeff's paternal grandfather, James Jordan, who was shot and robbed while sleeping in his car alongside a North Carolina highway. The accused, Daniel Green and Larry Demery, were sent to prison for life in 1996.

Today, security trails the Jordan family almost everywhere. Personal bodyguards monitor the children when they're on their own or traveling with their Deerfield-based Amateur Athletic Union team, the Rising Stars. Brian Davis, the boys' AAU coach, said he typically gives the security detail the team's game schedule and travel itinerary months in advance, just so they can make the necessary preparations. Davis says he even gives bodyguards notice if the team goes off schedule and, say, visits a McDonald's.

Security issues aside, the protective bubble also exists because almost anything a Jordan does makes the news. The on-court exploits of Jeff and his younger brother have grabbed the most attention of late, but so has their parents' plan to divorce, which made the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times in December. (As with most matters related to their personal life, they have refused to comment.) For his 18 years, Jordan has lived with ironclad rules and operated under the watch of a complex network of friends, family, teachers, coaches, and security staff. The boundaries between outsiders and insiders are distinct and difficult to penetrate.

My first meeting with Jeff, for example, took six weeks to arrange, and, at the request of his mother, interviews happened only on school grounds. In person, the young man is careful to filter himself. "[My parents] just told me, straight out, We don't want you to tell people this and we don't want you to say that," Jordan explains.

He says that, over time, he has established his own personal boundaries. To this day, there are certain subjects he'll hardly touch: anything comparing him to his father, for example, or any insinuation of a rivalry between him and his younger brother Marcus, or questions about "the North Carolina stuff"-references that link Jeff to his father's past. "I'm not him," the son always says. But he is also resigned to the fact that the questions may never stop.

Jeff Jordan was nine years old when the Bulls won the last of their six championships, so memories of his father's career come, he says, "in bits and pieces." He remembers driving with his father to games, visiting the locker room, and sitting on his mother's lap during championship rallies in Grant Park and informal get-togethers with other Bulls families. "I'd always have friends there, like Horace Grant Jr. [son of the former Bulls forward]," he says. "We'd just be hanging out." Much of that time involved basketball, Jordan says, and it was a sport he loved almost immediately. The Circus didn't exist back then. In fact, during basketball games at Bannockburn Elementary School, a carefree Jordan wore his father's number 23. He thought it was funny.

The Circus started after Jordan left the protective bubble of elementary school and stepped on an unfamiliar basketball court. "I asked my dad where the best middle-school players go, and he started throwing out some names of camps," he says. "Finally, he just started sending me to them."