 | Blogs > bilingual > The English Blog > Michael Jordan |
4/6/2006 1:29 am |
The year was 1982 and I was in my third year of my first real job. I was working for Dunlop Sports Company. I had recently been promoted to Territory Manager, for our largest territory, gross volume wise, Florida. I lived in The Grove in Miami, after all it was the GoGo Eighties. I had a house on the beach in Naples. It was a great job for a young ex athlete. My Job was managing two salesmen who were great guys. I also handled marketing and advertising as well as promotions and the all important, Miami Sporting Goods Show. The Miami show was at this time, the largest in the world, everyone was there. While my bosses from the US and the UK (Dunlop is a UK company) were there in force, basically I was the young host. The promotions were abundant as Florida had several major tournaments. Many of the tennis professionals lived in Florida so if we were their sponsors, I would handle them too. Florida also had many DBA accounts ( Doing Business As) because the South and Central American's could buy their supplies from me rather than the UK and save money. The first year with Dunlop I was the Sales Rep for Southern Florida, I worked hard and at the end of the year I had doubled the sales of my predecessor. This raised some eyebrows. I was on a salary plus bonus, all expenses paid. Dunlop was very generous. It was a awesome job for a young pup like me. The second year I started creating the DBA accounts and had also worked out a raise , bonus amounting to another 50%and commission, because of the newly created DBA accounts my commission was huge. My territory quadrupled it's sales. I bought the beach house. So as year three rolled around I was promoted again. My brother, who I have written about here many times, was at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He was in his second year. During the first year, I had visited half a dozen times and he had come down to Miami and Naples, for his breaks and the occasional weekend. Dude, the girls were incredible at UNC and my brother was a handsome, popular young man. I was only in my early twenties so .....well you can imagine we had a terrific time. I had met the famous Los Angeles Laker James Worthy who was a friend of my brothers. Oh course, we both loved basketball and frankly James loved to party so, we were a good combination. I had also met the UNC athletic director who happened to be interested in getting his golf team on some of the major private very exclusive golf courses in Florida. Every year I learned from him, the golf team traveled to Florida and practiced during the Spring break. Well as every club was my client it was not too difficult to arrange. In return the A.D. gave me three tickets to every home basketball game including the tournaments. University of North Carolina basketball is a tradition and a way of life, in North Carolina. Tickets were impossible to obtain normally. The waiting list is something like 100 years for tickets. Here were my tickets located in the student section ten rows off the floor next to the band. My brother was on the moon as were his Friends. So year three rolled around and I bought a big Mercedes that happened to be Carolina Blue. Every Friday, ( sometimes Thursdays ) during the basketball season, I would arrange to be in Jacksonville, located the north east corner of Florida. I would then, blast off in the Benz at breakneck speed in about six hours I was at Chapel Hill. Well in the course of things the UNC team won the National Championship.. Nope I was not at the game but I was at Chapel Hill on Franklin Street, with my Brother celebrating. I left Dunlop the following year to pursue some patent rights they owned. Negotiated for these rights in London and stayed for the year commuting back and forth to Aspen. With these rights, I started a ski manufacturing company located in Aspen, Colorado. Sold it after less than a year and moved back to Chicago. I was trading commodities on the Chicago Board of Trade. It was 1984. I was dating a famous newscaster who was also a fan of basketball. She was friends of the General Manager for The Chicago Bulls Basketball team. The Team was terrible and poorly attended games did not help. The ticket price for box seats was, I think, 15.00 per seat. She had two sons who also liked to watch basketball. Well amazingly the Bulls drafted a oaf but traded him for Michael Jeffery Jordan with the number 3 pick in the draft. Micheal Jordan had made the winning shot in the National Championship. I had met Michael a few times but we were not really friends more acquaintances. I thought it would be fun to get some tickets watch a guy I slightly knew, and make my girlfriends kids very happy, in the dead of the Chicago Winter. No big deal really, the 4 tickets in the 8th row behind the Bulls bench were $2500.00 USD for the entire season. About the price of a week in Europe. There were 42 home games. The seats were awesome. No I did not expect what happened next. It was just dumb luck, or destiny some might say. So we fast forward to Now and yep I saw almost every game and yep, every championship game and tournament game. My four seats (oh yeah, I still have them ) Now cost a whopping 100.00 per seat What inflation? Michael Jordan is retired and I am waiting for the second coming of any decent player for the Bulls, here in Sunny Arizona. I must be nuts. I really miss those times at Chapel Hill. Of course I miss my brother too. |
 |
 |
 |
| Become a member to comment on this blog | ||
 |
