At age 16, Jordan grows four inches in three months, makes varsity, gives up baseball after his junior year to concentrate on basketball. At age 17, he accepts a scholarship to the University of North Carolina. At age 21, he becomes a two-time All-American and wins second Player of the Year Award, drafted No. 3 by the Bulls in his first round.

As a teenager, Jordan was embarrassed by his big ears. He was so sure that no one would marry him that he enrolled in home economics class to learn how to cook and sew. Jordan's first hero was his older brother, Larry. At 5'9", Larry could dunk the ball, and he starred on the high school team. When Jordan made the team, he chose No. 23 as a tribute to Larry, who wore No. 45. It was his way of saying he hoped to be half as good as his brother.

After being cut from the High School Varsity Team as a sophomore, Jordan began skipping classes to practice basketball and was suspended from school.

The turning point in Michael Jordan's basketball life was not his amazing buzzer-beating jump shot to win the 1982 NCAA Championship. Nor was it his Rookie of the Year Award in 1985. The real turning point occurred at the Five-Star Basketball Camp in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where American's most promising high-school players are invited to learn and compete under the tutelage of top NCAA coaches.

At age 17, Jordan had grown from 5'11" to 6'3" and was still getting used to his body. In his first varsity season, he had exhibited a strong work ethic and good instincts, but he was hardly overwhelming. No one was more surprised than Jordan when he received the invitation to Five-Star.

But when he arrived and walked onto the court with the best players in the country, JOrdan could feel something changing within himself. Whenever he made a movie, took a shot or went up for a rebound, he seemed to be playing in another dimension. The coaches were going crazy. Who was this kid flying through the air with his tongue hanging out? Normally an ultra-competitive camp, Five-Star became the Michael Jordan show. Everything he did in games and drills went above and beyond anything anyone had seen before on any level. For some mysterious reason, all of his talents finally came together at that basketball camp.

Jordan, who won five trophies that week, then stayed another week and won five more, credits his camp experience with changing how he felt about basketball. When he returned home, Jordan decided to give up his first love, baseball, and concentrate fully on basketball. He averaged more than 27 points a game his senior year and accepted a scholarship to the University of North Carolina, where he led the Tarheels to an NCAA Championship his freshman year. By the time he graduated he was a two-time All-American with a golden future.

Jordan has no fancy tips for improving your game -- his philosophy is simply to play as much as you can. Even after he made his high school varsity, he still attended JV practices just for the extra drills and conditioning work. He would spend weekends in the gym, playing all day. Says his assistant high school coach Fred Lynch: "Other kids had just as much talent as he did, but they didn't want to pay dues the way Michael did."

When Nike signed Jordan in 1984, they hoped to sell $10 million worth if Air Jordan sneakers. After one year, sales reached $130 million.

In 1994, Jordan "retired" from basketball to pursue his life-long dream of playing pro baseball. By practicing relentlessly, he earned a roster spot on the Triple A Birmingham Barons as a 31-year-old rookie and led the club with 30 steals and 51 RBIs.

I'm back. With those two words, Michael Jordan announced his return to basketball, and the impact was felt all around the world. Stocks of the companies he endorses rose, TV ratings for Bulls' games zoomed, and the level of play in the NBA took a quantum leap skyward. AFter all, when a player wins seven straight scoring titles and three NBA championships in a row, he's obviously very special. But in the case of Jordan, those numbers barely tell the story of how great he really is.

No athlete has ever been unstoppable, but Jordan has come as close as anyone. He alone raised professional basketball to a new level, causing us to rethink human limits--how high, how far, how fast? There has never been another player like Jordan, and there may never be again.

In addition to his public work with the Michael Jordan Foundation to raise money for scholarships, medical research and children's charities, Jordan shows he cares in other, more personal ways. For years, he would stop in the same tough neighborhood after games and just hang out with the kids. He wanted to show them that they were important and that somebody cared about them.

With Jordan, the 1993 Bulls became only the third team to win three NBA titles in a row.

Felton Spencer, Utah Jazz Center, comments "You don't hesitate with Michael, or you'll end up on some poster in a gift shop".

Quote: "I'm a competitor. I always keep score in everything. I want to win."