Jordan vs Russell….Why?
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009I was there. I was actually at the game and I brought 3 of my 4 daughters with me. Now they don’t know Michael Jordan from anyone else so to them it was nothing and I was going to take them to the game regardless if Jordan showed up or not. I wasn’t alone as 7800 other fans made their way to the gymnasium in hopes of seeing MJ take on Bryon Russell in a 1-1 matchup. I was very skeptical at first and I should’ve stuck with it but after 10 minutes of hopeless promoting by team owner Brandt Anderson I actually started to believe that Michael Jordan was at the game to play Russell in a game of 1 on 1. What an idiot i was.
My daughters were and are very confused as Utah county is predominantly white so any african american they see is either Sammy Sosa, Derek Lee or Corey Patterson (all Cubs or former Cubs). They think that fake guy that showed up was actually Michael Jordan. I had to explain to them that the best they could do was a 5*6 impersonator who looked 20 years younger, 1 foot shorter and 50 pounds lighter. NOT EVEN A GOOD TRY.
What killed me was that once you realized it was a hoax it was immediately known that the owner had screwed up big time. Fans were booing like crazy and yelling at Bryon Russell. Russell came out and said that he knew Jordan wasn’t going to come because he spoke with him on the phone months before and he told him he wouldn’t come. The owner claims not to have known but he knew. HE KNEW and that’s what is bothering all of us. While some fans were booing other fans were throwing free t shirts onto the court and telling Russell he sucked. I felt for him because he learned again that even during his successful career while playing for the Jazz that nobody cared about him truly and that was sad. Russell gave the best years of his career to Utah and they played in a couple finals with him. He deserved better from the fans, but more importantly from the owner. I guess it wasn’t enough that Russell was going to show up he needed a real ticket salesman and fake Jordan did it.









