Michael Jordan has always been a fierce competitor, one of the few in NBA history with a near-unmatched work ethic, willing to do whatever it took to reach the top. This drive was not something he developed later in his career, as he had it from the start. In an interview with Playboy, Jordan revealed that even as a kid, he lived and breathed basketball.<\/p>\n
All Jordan wanted to do as a child was play outside. It didn\u2019t matter if it was basketball or baseball, the two sports he would later pursue at the professional level. All he craved was being in the thick of competition.<\/p>\n
Like most kids, Jordan<\/a> had a fairly normal childhood to navigate. He had chores to do and received an allowance for personal spending. Most children would use that money on candies, movies, or little treats, but Jordan, being the ultimate athlete, revealed in the interview that he never spent his allowance on himself.<\/p>\n The Chicago Bulls<\/a> legend would instead use the money to pay off his brothers, James and Larry, to complete his chores, just so he could go out and play whenever he could. When asked if he was always a star athlete, Jordan replied, \u201cNo, but I had ambitions of being one. All I wanted to do was play all the time. I used to give up whatever allowance I had to my brothers, for them to wash dishes for me and clean the house.\u201d<\/p>\n Unlike his brothers, Jordan was always an outdoorsy child and, much to his father\u2019s chagrin, wasn\u2019t much help in the garage, where James Sr. made a living fixing cars. He explained that his brothers, much like their father, were \u201cmechanical\u201d and always knew exactly which wrench was needed at the right time.<\/p>\n \u201cMy father is a mechanical person. He always tried to save money by working on everybody\u2019s cars. And my older brothers would go out and work with him,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cHe would tell them to hand him a nine-sixteenths wrench and they\u2019d do it.\u201d<\/p>\n MJ wasn\u2019t much help in the garage, and his blank expressions often left his father irritated. \u201cI\u2019d get out there and he\u2019d say, \u2018Give me a nine-sixteenths wrench,\u2019 and I didn\u2019t know what the hell he was talking about. He used to get irritated with me,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n That said, it never diminished his relationship with his father. When the time came, he dedicated his whole life to him. After James Sr. died in 1993, Jordan retired from the NBA to pursue a career in baseball<\/a>, which was, in part, a fulfillment of his father\u2019s lifelong dream.<\/p>\n Michael Jordan on how being competitive shaped him<\/p>\n MJ was always that guy on the floor. Even when he switched to baseball, he may not have been the most skilled, but nobody could question his competitive fire<\/a>. The challenge, however, is that when you spend most of your adult life competing, it\u2019s very hard to let that feeling go. Jordan has spoken about how that drive continues to affect his daily life after retirement.<\/p>\n