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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama named former North Carolina guard Michael Jordan as among 21 people he plans to recognize with the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Jordan will join his mentor, former Tar Heel head coach Dean Smith, as recipients of the award. Smith won the award in 2013.
Many consider Jordan to be the greatest basketball player of all-time, and he was enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009. ESPN named him the Greatest Athlete of the 20th Century, and he was named the Atlantic Coast Conference's No. 1 Male Athlete in the league's first 50 years. He was a consensus All-America in 1983 and 1984. He won the Sporting News National Player of the Year award as a sophomore and was the unanimous National Player of the Year in 1984.
Jordan was the third overall selection by the Chicago Bulls in the 1984 Draft, eventually leading the Bulls to six NBA championships. He was a five-time NBA MVP (1988, 1991, 1992, 1996, 1998), a 10-time All-NBA selection, anine-year all-defensive team choice, a six-time NBA Finals MVP and a three-time All-Star game MVP. He led NBA in scoring a record 10 times, and is now the owner of the Charlotte Hornets.
Obama also plans to honor fellow basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, longtime Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully, actors Robert DeNiro, Cicely Tyson, Tom Hanks and Robert Redford and entertainers Ellen DeGeneres, Diana Ross and Bruce Springsteen.
Other honorees are philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates, polymath physicist Richard Garwin, architect Frank Gehry, designer Maya Lin, “Saturday Night Live” producer Lorne Michaels, attorney Newt Minow, mathematician and computer scientist Margaret H. Hamilton, and Eduardo Padrón, president of Miami Dade College in Florida.
Posthumous honors will go to Native American advocate Elouise Cobell and Rear Adm. Grace Hopper.
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama named former North Carolina guard Michael Jordan as among 21 people he plans to recognize with the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Jordan will join his mentor, former Tar Heel head coach Dean Smith, as recipients of the award. Smith won the award in 2013.
Many consider Jordan to be the greatest basketball player of all-time, and he was enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009. ESPN named him the Greatest Athlete of the 20th Century, and he was named the Atlantic Coast Conference's No. 1 Male Athlete in the league's first 50 years. He was a consensus All-America in 1983 and 1984. He won the Sporting News National Player of the Year award as a sophomore and was the unanimous National Player of the Year in 1984.
Jordan was the third overall selection by the Chicago Bulls in the 1984 Draft, eventually leading the Bulls to six NBA championships. He was a five-time NBA MVP (1988, 1991, 1992, 1996, 1998), a 10-time All-NBA selection, anine-year all-defensive team choice, a six-time NBA Finals MVP and a three-time All-Star game MVP. He led NBA in scoring a record 10 times, and is now the owner of the Charlotte Hornets.
Obama also plans to honor fellow basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, longtime Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully, actors Robert DeNiro, Cicely Tyson, Tom Hanks and Robert Redford and entertainers Ellen DeGeneres, Diana Ross and Bruce Springsteen.
Other honorees are philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates, polymath physicist Richard Garwin, architect Frank Gehry, designer Maya Lin, “Saturday Night Live” producer Lorne Michaels, attorney Newt Minow, mathematician and computer scientist Margaret H. Hamilton, and Eduardo Padrón, president of Miami Dade College in Florida.
Posthumous honors will go to Native American advocate Elouise Cobell and Rear Adm. Grace Hopper.
