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| First championship for Chicago Bulls, leading the way to 'The Last Dance' |
Prior to all the hoopla of the Bulls winning those six NBA championships was the build up to the team they would become as Michael Jordan showed in the highlights from his rookie year of 1984-85 all the way through the 1997-98 championship season.
Jordan was obviously the central figure on all the title teams. Scottie Pippen was the other main cog in the machine and along with Head Coach Phil Jackson, the trio formed the winning combination throughout that decade.
Earlier in the run power forward Horace Grant was a key figure on the team. Grant was drafted out of Clemson in the 1987 NBA Draft along with fellow rookie Pippen (Central Arkansas) and that duo, paired with Jordan was the beginning of the run the team would eventually have from the 1990-91 through 1992-93 seasons during the Bulls' original "three-peat" title teams.
Dennis Rodman came along later on when the team was reforming around Jordan and Pippen after MJ came back from his year-and-a-half retirement in March of 1995. That was all documented and during the ten episodes the timelines jumped around from that final season of '97-'98 back to the early '90's and of course the beginning of Jordan's career with the team.
Having been associated directly with the team from 1987 through 1994 as the Bulls sound engineer at all home games, I noticed there were some things amiss during the jumping around on the timeline throughout the ten episodes. But that was because it was Jordan's career path alone being followed for the production of 'The Last Dance.'
I remember seeing a lot of the folks who were behind the scenes featured in the documentary, including the security detail guy named John Michael Wozniak, who was tossing quarters with Jordan and also Gus Lett, whom MJ remembered quite fondly. Both of those fellows passed away in recent years.
They had been around since the days of the Chicago Stadium, (wearing yellow "security" windbreakers instead of the lavish suitcoats and fancy ties of the United Center days) where they would escort Jordan around and through the throngs of people mobbing him as he made his way from that memorable old arena located at 1800 West Madison street on Chicago's west side.
Jordan loved Chicago Stadium, so much in fact that when he played in Scottie Pippen's All-Star charity game on September 9th, 1994, he kissed the Chicago Bulls logo at center court after scoring 52 points in what was the last event ever held at Chicago Stadium. That was the last time the Bulls music staples of Rock and Roll Part 2 and the Sirius intro. theme played at the old barn.
That moment of MJ wasn't included in the timeline during the documentary even though it was his first basketball action in public in over a year before his famous comeback.
Another key part in the development of the Bulls team during the 1980's that was left out of the timeline was the big brawl at Chicago Stadium during a game with the hated Detroit Pistons. It occurred in a game during the 1987-88 season and was really the beginning of the heated rivalry between the Bulls and Pistons that would run through four seasons as the Bulls would eventually knock out Detroit in a four-game sweep in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals en route to their first ever NBA championship. Former Bulls Head Coach Doug Collins was flattened by Pistons forward Rick Mahorn during the scrum and afterward had a nice shiner under his eye.
Another incident that was a funny one happened during the 1989-90 season prior to the change of public address announcers when Tommy Edwards was still the man behind the microphone at Bulls games.
The Bulls were playing the Detroit Pistons that night and prior to tip off, Pistons center Bill Laimbeer was mean mugging, making faces and pointing over at the Bulls layup line along with teammates and pretty much taunting the Bulls. Tommy saw the game ball sitting on the table in front of us and then remarked how Laimbeer was such an ass and then he took the basketball and scribbled something on it . . . Bill L. blows was what he wrote.
So of course during the game, Laimbeer ends up at the foul line for free throws and he sees the words and he bitched and whined to the refs about the expletive written about him in between free throws. The game was stopped so the refs could get a new basketball in there and Tommy and myself are doing all we can to keep from busting out loud with laughter.
But Laimbeer is the same guy who in the documentary was calling the Bulls players whiners and saying they need to get over the fact that most of the Pistons' players walked off the court in the closing seconds of that famous Game Four, refusing to shake hands, when the Bulls were wrapping up the 1991 sweep of the Pistons.
Typical Laimbeer. Screw the 'Bad Boy' Detroit Pistons. Bill L. still blows . . . Tommy Edwards had it right all along.
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| MJ waiting to get back in the game (from left to right behind scorer's table) as official scorer Bob Rosenberg, Bulls PA announcer Tommy Edwards and myself running sound board look on at old Chicago Stadium during 1988-89 season. |
A couple more to wrap things up -- Back in 1988 prior to the start of the season, the Bulls had a 'meet and greet' for the season ticket holders at Chicago Stadium to get autographs and all that sort of thing. That was the second season I was involved with the team as sound man and the team management wanted to have a "game atmosphere" for the fans to enjoy so we had the music going in a low key manner while the throngs of fans lined up at various spots of the stadium to meet the players prior to a brief practice session for the people.
Over at the west end of the stadium was the main entrance to the basketball court area and Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were seated there to sign autographs, so of course that was where the most fans were at and that's when I noticed MJ had stopped signing autographs and was walking toward the center court scorer's table where the music set up was located.
Apparently, he was a big fan of Bobby Brown and the song "My Prerogative" had been playing until one of the front office people faded the song out and went into a different song while I was organizing some music tapes to play as the event went on. When MJ asked why the song was cut off, the management rep told him the fans may not recognize it and the music is for them. Needless to say after a short exchange, they asked me to recue the Bobby Brown song and MJ went back to the area to continue signing autographs, head bobbing to the music as he did so.
Reason to bring it up is because a few years later during the 1990-91 season, MJ had scored his 15,000th career point in a road game against the Philadelphia 76ers and the Atlanta Hawks were in town two nights later and that was the game where Bulls marketing director Steve Schanwald decided it would be good to announce Michael first and give him recognition for the feat during the famous 'lights out' introduction song.
By that time, Ray Clay was the Bulls' PA announcer and the music set up was in the organ loft on the east end of Chicago Stadium and it was a first of its kind computerized system in professional sports. When MJ was notified of the decision over the two-way radio, he wasn't happy about it during his shoot around session a couple of hours before game time. But this time, he relented and that was the only time in his Bulls career he was not the last player introduced during a home game in the pre-game ritual.
Wonder if MJ remembers that particular night in January of 1991 because he always wanted things to be a certain way with the game routine as he pointed out during 'The Last Dance' documentary. He let Schanwald know that, but that was (as MJ said it would be) the first and only time that would happen. The Bulls won that game as Jordan scored 31 points to lead the way.
Those were just some more of the behind the scenes activities of the Chicago Bulls during the championship years and prior years. Everyone has their own memories as well from those times, so it's always great to be able to remember and share those times.
That's what sports is all about and 'The Last Dance' helped bring it all back again.
Bravo!
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