Jordan’s Son Is Happy to Be Just One of the Guys
They ride him when Hanes underwear commercials come on television. They point to a closet bursting with Air Jordan clothing and sneakers, his father’s arms extended in a familiar pose. They say he more closely resembles the rapper Soulja Boy or the actor Alfonso Ribeiro than his famous father.
Jordan relishes these jokes. He always wanted to blend in, to be recognized simply as a basketball player, instead of as the son of perhaps the game’s greatest player.
This has not come easily for the oldest son of Michael Jordan. But now, in his sophomore season, Jeff Jordan has earned an athletic scholarship and a limited role on an N.C.A.A. tournament team, as well as the one thing he always wanted most — a sense of normalcy.
“It’s like watching him come into his own,” Juanita Jordan, his mother, said.
The 6-foot-1 Jordan averaged 8.3 minutes a game this season, but he could play more in the N.C.A.A. tournament while guard Chester Frazier recovers from hand surgery. The fifth-seeded Illini (24-9) play No. 12 Western Kentucky (24-8) on Thursday night in Portland, Ore., in the first round of the South Region.
Illinois Coach Bruce Weber first heard of Jeff Jordan through his brother, a high school coach who worked a camp attended by the young Jordan. There Jordan ate lunch alone, separate from the other campers, surrounded by security. He was 9.
Early in high school, he wanted to try anything but basketball, and he played receiver and cornerback on the football team at Loyola Academy near Chicago. Eventually, he dropped football and developed into a tornado of a guard, a harassing and athletic defender, the kind of role player the Bulls used to surround his father with.
It may seem strange that the son of Michael Jordan rarely shoots — he has taken 31 shots in 267 minutes this season — but Jeff Jordan plays a style opposite his father’s, even if he claims to have beaten him and Denver Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony in a three-way game of rotating one-on-one a few years back.
Jordan stands five inches shorter than his father, wears No. 13 in honor of his mother’s birthday instead of the family’s famous No. 23, has a full head of hair and leaves the tongue-wagging to his father.
Despite the differences, Jordan remains proud of his dad’s legacy, as evidenced by the Jumpman23 logo and Chicago skyline tattooed on his left biceps.
“He’s very quiet by nature, very unassuming,” Weber said. “You would never know. He doesn’t hold up a sign reading, I’m Michael Jordan’s son.”
Jordan is majoring in psychology, and he has always been a thinker, observant and inquisitive, the kind of person who dissects and analyzes the smallest details. At times, this led to overanalyzing, but mostly it helped him become comfortable with his basketball bloodlines.
Juanita Jordan raised all three of her children with an emphasis on individuality. She was married to Michael Jordan for 17 years, and in that time she learned how to handle the mobs, the microscope, the endless attention and agendas.
In high school, teammates called him Bones, and when Jordan filled his 6-foot frame with just 150 pounds, it appeared the height gene had skipped a generation. He gained an inch and 35 pounds, but passed on scholarship offers from places like Valparaiso and Davidson to walk on at Illinois.
His father pronounced the college choice a gamble, but said he would have made the same decision, more proof that Jeff Jordan was Michael Jordan’s son.
Coaches saw the father in his son’s athleticism, in the 48-inch vertical leap, the developing midrange jump shot and the speed.
“Sometimes, when he goes to the basket and dunks, and I’m not exaggerating this, you would think somebody shot him out of a cannon,” said Wayne McClain, an assistant coach. “It just doesn’t seem right for a guy that small to get up that high.”
Early in his freshman season, Jordan questioned his decision. Illinois preferred to redshirt him, but did not have the luxury, and he spent the first two weeks of practice wondering if he belonged.
