NEW ORLEANS — Spring 1982. Sixteen seconds left in the NCAA final, and a skinny freshman from North Carolina buries a jumper that delivers a championship and changes his life.
He showed up in New Orleans that week as Mike Jordan. He left as Michael.
By that point, the sprawling steel building that provided the stage for Jordan’s arrival into the national consciousness — the seven-year-old Louisiana Superdome — was used to gripping theater unfolding within its walls. In November 1980, as the seconds ticked away at the end of the eighth round of the world welterweight championship, boxer Roberto Durán, tired of chasing Sugar Ray Leonard around the ring, waved
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