3 Life Lessons Chicago Bulls History Can Teach My Son
By Keith Cork
1. Pride, 6 Championships in 7 Years
“That’s why at the start of every season I always encouraged players to focus on the journey rather than the goal. What matters most is playing the game the right way and having the courage to grow, as human beings as well as basketball players. When you do that, the ring takes care of itself.”
― Phil Jackson from Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success
In winning 6 championships in just 7 years, the Chicago Bulls established themselves as one of the premier basketball franchises to ever take the basketball court. Everyone around the world who wasn’t a Knicks, Lakers, or Celtics fan was a Bulls fan for nearly a decade, and you’ll see relics of this dominance even to this day in Bulls logo merchandise being worn all across the globe.
The Bulls, in winning so much and overcoming many, many obstacles, became emblematic of an entire decade: The 90’s. The reason for this is that they played (and won) with a lot of pride.
Pride is not given, little man. It is earned. And it is earned every day, every game, every moment on the basketball court for a Bulls player. When they hit you, you hit harder. If you get cut or overlooked, you take that anger and that frustration and you turn it into fuel for your fire. And you never let that fire go out until they understand that you have something special. You have heart.
I was still a young boy when the Bulls won their first three championships, but still I could tell that there was something different about the way they played. I could tell that I had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of greatness watching Michael Jordan play the game of basketball. At times, some even considered him “God disguised as Michael Jordan.”
But the best I can do for you is to describe him like water and fire wrapped all up into one. Water in the sense that he was everywhere, permeated everything, and you could not stop him despite your best efforts. On offense, you held your breath, just knowing he would get the ball in his hands and do something you had never seen before. Fire for the other team.
A destructive and totally devastating force that choked the life out of you and left nothing in its wake. If the other team had the gall to score or stop our beloved hero, there would be a reckoning. Scoring on Michael Jordan did nothing but stoke the flames. You could set your watch by it. You could see it in his eyes.
But the best thing I could remember to tell you is that Michael Jordan and the 90’s Bulls gave everyone that watched them a sense of pride. Not just because they did jaw-dropping things or showed flashes of transcendent brilliance, but because they kept a level of sustained greatness for longer and were unfailingly better than any other team that dared to challenge them. And they had essentially the same players year after year, unlike today.
The players stayed because it was different back then, but they also stayed because they wanted to win. They were hungry. They had something to prove, even after they’d proved it once, twice, three times, four and five times too.
That was true greatness, and we have yet to see anything quite like that before or after. They called it a dynasty, and while the Celtics or Lakers may claim their own, ours was better. Remember that.
And some will tell you, while you’re growing up, that it’s just a game. While they’ll be right on some level, you’ll know that those people never lived it. They never saw the gleam in your grandfather’s eye, or glanced around the room at the wonder on every single person’s face, no matter who they were or how much they knew about basketball, when the buzzer sounded and the unthinkable was yet again wholly and unequivocally true: We had triumphed, despite the seemingly insurmountable odds.
The biggest reason we watch this game and the deepest feeling we can achieve is a sense of pride in everything that ‘team’ stands for. Our people, our warriors, who take the court night after night with the intention of leaving everything out there for no other reason than it gives you joy.
Those 90’s Bulls strove for greatness, for themselves sure but for the city and for the people as much as anything. And the best thing? It will happen again. All you have to do is keep watching, my son, and one day you’ll know exactly when you see it, because you’ve been so blessed to have seen it before. Real champions.