James R. Jordan, Sr.
| James Raymond Jordan | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 31, 1936 Wallace, North Carolina |
| Died | July 23, 1993 (aged 56) Bennettsville, South Carolina |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Father of Michael Jordan |
James Raymond Jordan Sr. (July 31, 1936 – July 23, 1993) was the father of basketball player Michael Jordan, and the paternal grandfather of University of Central Florida players Jeffrey Jordan and Marcus Jordan.
James Jordan was born in Wallace, North Carolina on July 31, 1936. He met Deloris Peoples after a basketball game in Wallace, North Carolina, in 1956. She was fifteen, and he was going off to the Air Force, but he told her he would be back some day to marry her. She eventually went off too, to the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, but she returned home soon, homesick. Not long after her return, they were married.
Working for General Electric as a forklift operator, James eventually worked his way up the company ladder to supervisor. However, in 1963 he and his family moved to Brooklyn, NY in order for James to get mechanic's training on the GI bill. He studied airplane hydraulics, while Deloris found work at a local bank. The parents had moved to Brooklyn in 1962 along with their oldest son Larry, but then left their two eldest children with James' mother in Wallace, North Carolina. Michael was born in Brooklyn.
The drug and gang culture was beginning to take hold in the streets of Brooklyn, making it a less than ideal place to raise a family. So after having stayed in New York for only 18 months when James finished his training, he decided to move the family back down to Wilmington, North Carolina when Michael was still a toddler. Altogether he and Deloris would have five children: James Jr., Larry, Delores, Michael, and Roslyn.
A lifelong basketball fan, Jordan played a large role in inspiring his son Michael to become an athlete and traveled the United States to follow Michael's career, first at the University of North Carolina and then with the Chicago Bulls.
Nonetheless, the senior Jordan was also a very big baseball fan, having gone semi-pro himself. Michael recounted in his autobiography and interviews that it was his father's vision that he become a baseball star. Baseball was in fact the first sport that Jordan Sr. had taught him to play. Michael recounted that this was a major factor in his decision to switch to the sport after his first NBA retirement.
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