WILMINGTON, N.C. _ Michael Jordan's footsteps don't echo off the cinderblock walls any more. Almost 40 years have passed since the crowds and college coaches filled the stands at Laney High School's old gymnasium to catch a glimpse. Even the Bucs moved down the hall to a $6 million new arena three years ago.
He is a face on a poster, a silhouette on the floor, a name above the door at the Michael J. Jordan Gymnasium.
"No Jordan ghost walking through there," Fred Lynch says, and laughs and laughs.
Like any spot of historical significance, the people who made it famous have long ago vanished. People come looking for some sense of Jordan. Instead, they find Lynch, curator and keeper of the flame, Laney's last link to its most famous graduate, a man who is still Mike to him.
Lynch was an assistant coach on Jordan's varsity team, the one he didn't make as a sophomore, the original sin in a career and a legacy built upon such slights, each constructing a foundation for the next row of greatness. Lynch became head coach, then athletic director, and he has been at Laney ever since. He appeared on screen in the second episode of "The Last Dance," the Jordan documentary which concludes Sunday on ESPN. Lynch says he sat for the interview almost two years ago.
The old gym still hosts gym classes and sports, far from neglected or forgotten, but it lacks the size and comfort and polish of Laney's shiny new gym, which has a massive and priceless display of white Air Jordans in a case in the lobby. Lynch got an office with a window out of it, but if it were really up to him, the Bucs would still play in the cramped old barn with its pull-out wooden bleachers and floor with that hazy patina that only comes with the bounce of a million basketballs and the breath of crowds that far exceeded the listed capacity of 1,250. Maybe that would wake up the echoes.
Jordan himself came back to the old gym for the first time in decades in 2017 to film a Gatorade commercial, sitting in the stands, walking through the lobby: "You want to know the secret to victory? Fail to make the varsity team." The house where he grew up still stands, down the road and across I-40 from the high school, but Jordan and the rest of his family are long gone.
Often criticized in his hometown over the years, a place Jordan openly wanted to escape, Jordan's Wilmington appearances have become more frequent in his retirement, Thanksgiving giveaways and hurricane relief. But Laney, he never forgot.
"As far as Laney, he's always taken care of us," Lynch said, a pair of black Jordans on his feet.
When the new gym opened, Lynch says the principal at the time asked if they really needed that Jordan logo at center court. "You're a kid who plays varsity here three years, you walk out with new sweats every year and new Jordans every year," Lynch told her. The logo is on the floor.
There are always seekers at Lynch's door, from random basketball tourists to the Chinese exchange students who arrive on UNC Wilmington's campus every spring and make a beeline to Laney's campus. Everyone wants to see where it all began, the pictures on the walls, the posters with motivational quotes. Lynch has to shoo them away during school hours.
If it weren't for the coronavirus, the retelling of the old Laney stories in the second episode of "The Last Dance" probably would have provoked a line outside. Lynch could be selling tickets for tours right now. Even as things are, with all of the attention surrounding the documentary and Lynch's bit part, it has been overwhelming.
It won't stop the pilgrims. If they seek some touchstone to where it all began for Jordan, there really isn't one. Laney's old gym is what any visitor makes of it. It is an empty stage for us to envision our own imaginary Jordan scenes, a place that hints at his legacy without providing any tangible sense of it.
They come to Laney looking to grab onto Jordan. They end up grasping at air.
