Vanderbilt Stackhouse Regrets NBA Season Playing With Michael Jordan
Most sports fans would give anything if we could be physically gifted enough to have played professional sports with our childhood idol, but it wasn't what Vanderbilt Commodores head basketball coach Jerry Stackhouse thought it would be when he got the chance in real life.
Appearing on the Adrian Wojnarowski podcast, The Woj Pod on Wednesday, Stackhouse shared that he wishes he never played with his childhood idol Michael Jordan, with the Washington Wizards in the 02-03 NBA season, which ended up being Jordan's last.
It wasn't that Stackhouse disliked Jordan or wasn't excited at first to play with the man most call the greatest basketball player of all-time.
It was the fact that Jordan, who was at the end of his career, with his best days behind him as a professional athlete and a younger Stackhouse now being a better player than his idol that took the joy of Jordan away.
Both Jordan and Stackhouse hail from the state of North Carolina and both attended and starred at The University of North Carolina in Chaple Hill, so it should surprise no one to hear Stackhouse call Jordan his idol, as many players from that state held the same view during Jordan's heyday in the NBA..
As fans of sports, most of us have had to witness the end of the career of our childhood idol- unless it's Tom Brady- and it is painful to watch as someone who we waited weekly to see play not be able to perform at the level they once did.
Now imagine having a front-row seat and sharing the court, locker rooms, plane rides and hotels with that idol and living his end in live and living color.
It's no wonder Stackhouse regrets that season in this way while cherishing the fact he can say he played with the greatest, he knows inside that the player he called his idol was not the same player he called his teammate that season in Washington.
The old saying is that "father time is undefeated<" and it's true for us all, regardless of profession, but most of us won't see that time come for our idols the way Stackhouse did.
Follow Greg on Twitter @GregAriasSports and @SIVanderbilt or Facebook at Vanderbilt Commodores-Maven
