SPORTS

A Poisoned
Pen?

Sam Smith answers
his critics.

STEVE STEIN

Special to The Jewish News

s Michael Jordan anti-
Semitic?
Someone could get
that impression after
reading The Jordan
Rules, the best-selling. book
on the Chicago Bulls' 1990-91
NBA championship season.
Author Sam Smith, a
Chicago Tribune sports
writer, sparked a controversy
over Jordan's views toward
Jews by reporting an incident
which took place when the Il-
lionis Lottery jackpot had
reached $60 million.
Several Bulls were talking

I

in the locker room about what
they would do with that kind
of money. Jordan, who
already has that kind of
money, said he'd remove his
uniform at midcourt, retire
and open a country club
which had a sign that read,
"No Jews Allowed."
Guilty? — not quite, Smith
says. The author, who is
Jewish and the grandson of
an Orthodox rabbi, insists
that Jordan's remark must be
taken in context.
Smith said Jordan made
the statement shortly after he
was denied membership at an
all-Jewish country club.
"It wasn't a smart thing to
say, but it was less anti-

Chicago Tribune sportswriter Sam Smith drew a firestorm of
controversy for his book, The Jordan Rules.

Semitism than it was a reac-
tion to the racism toward
him," Smith said in a recent
interview from his home out-
side Chicago.
"It was an inappropriate
statement. Make no mistake
about that. But I can under-
stand why he would joke in
that way."
Smith, 44, says the anti-
Semitism charge is a good ex-
ample of the kind of er-
roneous information which
came out about the book
before it was released at the
beginning of the current NBA
season.
He claims much of the con-
troversy was generated by
people who either made
assumptions about what was
in the book or saw only
excerpts.
All Smith was trying to do
in the book, he says, was
paint a realistic portrait of a
team which won its first
world championship despite a
season of turmoil caused by
contract disputes, personality

conflicts and philosophical
differences.
"Everyone on the team
knew from the beginning of
the season that I was writing
a book and I didn't betray any
confidences," Smith said.
As part of the literary pic-
ture, Smith tried to show, for
the first time, the human side
of Jordan, perhaps the most
famous athlete in the world.
"There was a hysterical
reaction in Chicago before the
book was released, and the
media got caught up with it,"
Smith said. "Someone said it
had stories about the Bulls'
sexual exploits on the road,
and there's nothing in there
about that.
"People here said I was out
to destroy the team. Well,
when the Bulls ran off their
14-game winning streak at
the beginning of this season,
that silenced those critics.
"Everyone seemed to forget,
too, that I wrote a column
before last season picking the
Bulls to win it all. I knew

they were better than they
were being given credit foe"
Even though the book's ti-
tle bears Jordan's name,
Smith says it "is so much
more than that. He's the
hook, I understand that. But
I thought a better title would
be 'Turbulence,' or 'Bull
Run.' "
The early critics said Smith
portrayed Jordan as an
egotistical tyrant.
They pointed to two stories
Smith told about Jordan. One
reported that Jordan punched
teammate Will Perdue during
practice in retaliation for
what Jordan perceived as a
cheap shot in an earlier prac-
tice. Another revealed that
Jordan told his fellow Bulls
not to pass the ball to Bill
Cartwright late in games.
"I just wanted to provide ex-
amples of Jordan's com-
petitive side," Smith said. "I
give him justification for
everything he does.
"Anybody who reads the en-
tire book can see that Jordan

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