Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan spoke to the Alabama football team Tuesday night, BamaOnLine has learned. Jordaan addressed the team via Zoom during an already planned team meeting and even answered some of the players’ questions after his speech.
According to a source, Jordan talks about winning, being a competitor, dealing with noise outside and being the best, along with reassurance and sacrifice and being a leader.
Alabama later shared photos of Jordan‘s Tuesday night chat.
‘I can accept failure, everyone is missing something. But I can not accept that I do not try. ‘
– ??#WeWantToPlay pic.twitter.com/M9DvvaZWig– Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) August 12, 2020
The six-time NBA champion is one of several guest speakers the Crimson Tide team has tackled this offseason, along with Condoleezza Rice, Charles Barkley and Tony Dungy.
Alabama head coach Nick Saban was a fan of The Last Dance’s Docu series that focused on Jordan’s last season with the Bulls and could relate to the 14-time All-Star’s approach.
“I really think the last three minutes of the last show … was something I could really relate to, that we could really relate to,” Saban said in May. “We have always maintained a very high standard here in the program of how we want everyone to be the best versions of themselves, personally, academically and athletically, because we are college coaches. We are not alone in the professional ranks and it’s all about winning the game. It’s a lot about winning the game in college, but there are some other things we’re trying to develop in players as well. But when they referred to him as some of your teammates thinking you might be a tyrant and he paused and actually almost got tears in his eyes when he said there is a prize to be paid for winning.
There’s a price to pay for being a leader. You have to push people to get them to do things they might not want to do. It might make her uncomfortable. Everyone wants to be comfortable, but you have to live to be uncomfortable if you are going to be really successful and you are going to be really good. And I could really relate to that, because that’s what we’re always tried to do to get the players into our program. Some understand it, others do not. Some people use that against us when recruiting sometimes because I’ve heard, ‘You have no fun in Alabama.’ Well, we have fun here. I mean, the structure we have is so that the players do not have too much fun.
“But at the same time, we also try to create a culture of responsibility in which the players have the best opportunity to develop the kind of habits that will help them to be successful in their lives, in their future. Sometimes if you hold people accountable, it may be to a standard that they are not accustomed to, but in the long run it really benefits their chances of being successful. And I think that’s what Michael Jordan was trying to say, and I think that’s something we can really relate to here. ”
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