Howard H White: Inside Nike, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter & athletes who define greatness, untold stories, leadership, resilience, mentorship, creating Jordan brand and the legacy of lifting others beyond success.

"Even a dog can wag its tail when it passes you on the street." Howard H White In this colorful episode of The Pivot Podcast, we have. the privilege of sitting with the legendary Howard H White, Nike executive, Jordan Brand ambassador, master storyteller, and one of the most influential figures in sports culture. H shares his remarkable journey from humble beginnings to becoming one of the most respected leaders at Nike and the Jordan Brand. He opens up about the pivotal moments that shaped his career, the obstacles he overcame, and the mindset that helped him turn purpose into impact. The conversation dives into his lifelong relationships with some of the biggest names in sports, including Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter, Charles Barkley, Serena Williams and countless other athletes and leaders who have helped shape generations both on and off the court. Howard offers a rare behind-the-scenes perspective on the trust, loyalty, and leadership that define those relationships. He shares personal experiences and never-heard-before stories of having a front row seat to the greatest athletes in history. More than a conversation about sports and sneakers, this episode is packed with timeless lessons on leadership, resilience, faith, mentorship, and building a legacy that extends far beyond personal success. This is a masterclass in character from a man who has spent decades inspiring some of the world's greatest athletes—and proving that the most powerful legacy isn't what you accomplish, but who you help along the way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Ryan Clark?

  Some conversations stay with you long after they end, and this is one of them. We stepped inside the office of Jordan Brand CEO Howard White in the Michael Jordan Building. We wanted to talk to a man whose impact reaches far beyond the sneakers, sports, or business. And his story starts long before any boardroom or championship celebration. We'll find out why the man simply known as H is a living legend. As a little boy, his mother gave him a lesson he'd never forget. Even a dog can wag its tail when it passes you on the street. It was a simple reminder to acknowledge people, show respect, and never believe you're above anyone else. That lesson became the foundation of a remarkable life. We talk about the influence of his high school coach, Coach Hathaway, the unforgettable day

• 1:14Ryan Clark?

  he first met Michael Jordan and the hamburger that almost spoiled it. The story behind one of the most iconic game winners in NBA history and what greatness truly looks like. Also, what did Howard White see in Tiger Woods that he also saw in MJ throughout his entire career? He opens up about his own heart health journey, the perspective it gave him, and why he makes it a point to speak to everyone he meets, regardless of title, status, or circumstance. And in the end, it truly came back to one moment, the day he walked by Mr. Lee. This isn't just a conversation about leadership. It's about humility, purpose, legacy, and the small moments that shape extraordinary lives.

• 1:57Ryan Clark?

  Please welcome Howard H. White as he joins me, Fred, and Chan for one of our biggest pivots.

• 2:28Channing Crowder?

  What's up, Paul? What's up with you, baby boy?

• 2:29Ryan Clark?

  Yes, sir, you're looking clean, too.

• 2:31Speaker 03

  Man, I'm glad to be here, you know?

• 2:34Ryan Clark?

  I knew you were gonna have the white pocket square, too, though. I knew that. I knew the white pocket square was coming.

• 2:40Speaker 03

  You know, just a little hint of that, you know?

• 2:44Channing Crowder?

  Just a little something.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  Just a little something, you know? You can always tell a gentleman, you know, they got a little pocket square on.

• 2:53Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 2:54Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:54Ryan Clark?

  Well, welcome to the Pivot. We're extremely excited to have Howard H. White. This is the godfather of the Jordan Brand. This is Fred Taylor, Channing Crowder. I'm Ryan Clark. Pivot family, thank you for pivoting with us. Man, it was just in learning about you throughout the history of this brand, it's truly refreshing to see someone who has reached the heights that you have, but still the foundation of that young man that grew up in Virginia. So I want to ask you, what does the saying, "Even a dog can wag its tail when it walks by you"? How did that come about? Why did your mother tell you that?

• 3:35Ryan Clark?

  How did it change the way the person was the rest of your life?

• 3:41Speaker 03

  I mean, that's quite an interesting analogy because that was eight, nine. I don't know how old that was, but we were walking down the street. And we lived on Pembroke, which was kind of a four-lane highway. And we turned, go down Calhoun Saturday morning. And what was amazing, I was throwing rocks at the stop sign. Very few people know this. If you hit the stop sign dead in the middle, the zero, cow jumps over the moon. So, see, a lot of people don't know that. That's why you don't see it that often. And Mr. Lee was coming. Mr. Lee had this huge limp, and as he walked by down south, "Hey, Miss Lee, how you doing?

• 4:26Speaker 03

  Hey, Lee, how you today? I'm beautiful. You have a great day, you hear?" I might have nodded, but I'm trying to hit the zero dead in the middle. You see Mr. Lee 50 times a day. When we got by Mr. Lee, she stopped me. She said, "You saw Lee the same as I did. You didn't open your mouth to speak. You let that be the last time in your life you ever walked by someone and not opened your mouth to speak, because even a dog can wag its tail when it passes you on the street." And I can't tell you why, but that changed my entire outlook in life.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  I've been around some of the greatest athletes on the planet, some billionaire, but that little piece of advice has carried my life.

• 5:22Channing Crowder?

  So go deeper into that. What is it, just people? Being pleasant, you know what I'm saying? How did that change your life?

• 5:27Speaker 03

  You know, I think what that told me was that everybody's the same. So regardless of what you think, Mr. Lee limping down the street, regardless of what you think, what you see, every single person is the same, and they deserve your respect. So when my old man left, when Dad left, and we had nowhere to go, we moved out into the woods with my aunt. And that's traumatic. But we in the middle of the woods. Ain't nobody to play with. You left all your friends, and put trees around, some few other people. But they old people. I mean, it's it. It's over. And my mother wouldn't let me, so I met this coach.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  I'm sure you'll get into Coach Hathaway. I couldn't play basketball. I was in eighth grade. I was at an all-black school, White's Thomas. We moved down there. I was still catching the bus, walk all the way out to a bus stop, catch a bus across town. And two of my friends, Carlton Mann and Terry Prescott, they rode their bicycles down. They said, "They let you play basketball at that new school? Now, once you got through the woods and a few houses, now that was all white." I never saw this sign, but the sign said, as they told me, "If you hear when the sun go down, you won't see it come up."

• 6:52Ryan Clark?

  And those were called, at that time, Jim Crow South, those were called sundown towns, correct?

• 6:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I never saw the sign, so I guess, who knows? Somebody, one of the girls, Patricia Corvair, she said, "Oh, yeah, my dad," because he was a professor at Hampton. "Oh, yeah, he took me, he showed me that." I never saw it. So I don't know if it was an old wives' tale, but you didn't stay down there after it got dark. I did know that.

• 7:20Channing Crowder?

  New rule.

• 7:21Speaker 03

  And when she said, "Well, you can go, but just get back before it's dark." And we went down, and we walked in. Well, no kids in that gym, first of all. Not one. It was three white men. After which you found out, one was a head coach, and the other one was a guy, was assistant coach, and the assistant principal shooting around. So here we walk in. First, I don't think we belong in here. I don't see no kids in here, these three white men. This school, we ain't supposed to be in here. So I'm like, we might need to get... I didn't know that this was the beginning of integration, that Terry and Carlton was at that school. To me, this was a foreign place, which we shouldn't be in. And they said, "Hey, you boys want to play a game?"

• 8:06Speaker 03

  I didn't play basketball, but I did look like they were old people. And since they were old people, you can be the old people. They shouldn't even be out there.

• 8:16Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 8:17Speaker 03

  We'll play. They changed the rules. Where not ever I played, what happened, when you get the ball, you can shoot it back up. Wherever you got the ball, you shot it. These people changed the rule. "No, son, you got to take the ball back behind the line." "No, son, the ball got to go back here." "No, son, the ball need to be..." "No, son, the way people play today, you got to take it back." They beat us to death.

• 8:42Speaker 03

  I walked off, I stopped to get some water. This man walked up to me. "How you doing, son? My name is Jim Hathaway, I'm the coach at Kiketan High. Howard White." He said, "You ever heard of the Big O, Oscar Robertson?"

• 8:57Speaker 03

  I said, "Yeah." He said, "If you listen to everything I tell you, you could be just like the Big O." Here's another lie. This man gonna tell me I could be like the Big O. I can't even play basketball. I did find this out. Sometimes a lot of people smarter than you. And I tell people all the time. I was just dumb enough to listen to people that saw more in me than I could see in myself. I went home, I was in the woods. I chopped some trees down. Then I went along the ditch, because it was like this two-lane road. Went along the ditch, found soda bottles.

• 9:41Speaker 03

  You know, they throw soda bottles out, went, took them, cast them in, went to Western Auto. I bought me a basketball and a goal. Went, had some plywood, dug some holes, nailed it up. I played a lot of basketball by myself. And it, literally, the worst situation of my life. Moving to the woods became the greatest moment in my life. I wanted to go to this new school. I think that girl told me, I think Dariel said that she was gonna be there. So I kept asking Mama, could I go? She said, "No. You're going right back to the same school your brothers and sisters went to. That's where you'll be going."

• 10:25Speaker 03

  I said, "Nope. You'll be going right back to the same..." Which was all the way across town. This school was like, you know, not that far down the street. My sister came to my rescue. Probably why I had to keep giving her money. Because she came to my rescue and said, "Mama, school is about an education. If the boy wanna go, you should let him go." I remember she said, "You children gonna be the death of me yet. Lord bless you. Go, boy, you can go."

• 11:01Speaker 03

  The girl won't dare. Matter of fact, it went for three blacks in the whole school. I ain't know the other two, so actually it was just me. And I called the girl when I got home. I said, "Hey, where were you today?" She said, "What do you mean? I didn't see you at school." She said, "I was at school." I remember it was three. I said, "No, you weren't at school." "No, I was at school." I said, "You were not at school." She said, "I told you where to go, I'm at Thorpe."

• 11:30Speaker 03

  "Where?" "My Thorpe." I said, "No, no, no, no, you didn't tell me you were going to Thorpe. You said you were going to Simms." She said, "Oh, you know what? We might have had that discussion once with my mother." I'm like, "But that's a heck of a time to tell me."

• 11:45Ryan Clark?

  You can't be chasing that, you can't be chasing tell. I have a question, though. How do you go, so even when we were checking in, right? I get to the front, I say, "Hey, I'm here for Mr. Howard White, we know we're doing all the check." Everybody calls you H. So you get the conversation with Coach Hathaway about the Big O, and then you become H. In my opinion, the most prolific college jersey of all time, to just have an H. How did you get to that point? To where that is what you were known by?

• 12:15Speaker 03

  Well, because I became pretty good. And again, the driving force was that, was literally, "If you listen, you could be just like the Big O." And, you know, people offered money and cars and this, the gold, and I said, "No." And finally, I chose Maryland. And I said, "Hey, you know what? I just want an H on the back of my jersey." And they said, "What?" "Just an H, that's all I want. H in quotations." And Lefty had just come there. So I'm sure in his mind,

• 12:52Speaker 03

  "That's a pretty good publicity thing right there, let's do that." So he talked to the PR guy, Russ Partz. "Hey, that could be cool, let's do that." So I was H. I mean, probably the only one ever to have that. I know in college, this single letter. Now, in pro, there was one, Big E. Alvin had that in the pros, but in college, the only one ever to have that. And it just stuck. Everybody, and I love playing away games. Because that was like, "Oh, you ain't supposed to be that good." And then, "Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm..."

• 13:34Ryan Clark?

  Get them up.

• 13:35Speaker 03

  "I'm pretty good." I said, "But, you know, some say so, some say no. I ain't bad." But that is stuck. It's one of those things that it just stuck. And my middle name is Lee, don't nobody know that, because they always say H.

• 13:49Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  So here's the question, I think a lot of the question for your audience. Are we who we believe we are?

• 14:02Speaker 03

  Or who you see yourself being? And most people, their whole world is filled with, "Oh, you can't, you shouldn't be that, or you can't be that, or, oh, these people are racist. Oh, don't go over here, don't do that." I've never seen the world like that. My mom worked for a family that owned a marina. So on a Saturday or a Friday, they have a party, I would go. So me and their kids, David, Nancy, Sal, we'd sit down, have, eat together, joke, have games. I'd get some hammy down, do the old bicycle.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  But what it's told me was, "They ain't no different to me. They're the exact same. We laugh together, we have fun, the exact same." So remember, at the all-white school? Ain't no girl there. I know I can't go home and say, "Mama, you can't get an education there, I made a mistake." That was out.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  But I got to play basketball. I want no good, and they want no good, so I got to play. And voted the most popular boy in class. That did not happen in the 60s down there, because it was all white.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  That did not happen.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  And so I said, "Well, how could that happen? Even a dog can wag his tail when it passes you on the street."

• 15:34Speaker 03

  Finally got to that, where that coach was. If you listen, that first year, probably wasn't a good, but I started. Worked hard, and I became better and better and better.

• 15:48Speaker 03

  Then I become an All-American. I go to New York City to see it, find the All-American Camping Clinic, New York City. The scariest place you ever been. Those yellow cars gonna kill you if you try to walk across the road. The building's so tall, you can't see the sun. Out of place. We finally going to the gym. Those kids dunking, they spinning in the air dunking. Throwing it up off the backboard, spinning dunking. And so, "We don't belong in here." It was me, two of my other teammates. My high school coach, Coach Hathaway, he says, "The man asked him, 'Your country boys don't see much like this, do you?'" He bowed his head. What'd he gonna say?

• 16:33Speaker 03

  He scared too.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  Then I noticed something.

• 16:39Speaker 03

  That rim was about the same size as that rim I built in my backyard. Same size. Court might have been bigger, but the rim was same size, same height, the same everything. And one day, someone told me this. It was dark, and I was getting ready to go in. "Say, you quitting?" "Say, I can't see nothing." "So you gonna just..." "I can't see." "See, you know it's still light in California." "I said, 'It can't be light in California, it's dark here.'" "Son, I can only tell you the truth." So every night, I had to go out. Because the California people found a way to cheat. I don't know how they did it.

• 17:17Ryan Clark?

  They got to play later, didn't they?

• 17:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, they found a way to cheat. I said, "They, I might run into them California people one day, and I better be ready." When we got in that gym in New York, I looked and said, "I don't know who here from California, but I've been getting ready for you."

• 17:37Speaker 03

  And when I left that gym as MVP,

• 17:41Speaker 03

  my coach said, "And I guess you all don't see much like this, do you?"

• 17:45Ryan Clark?

  Tables had turned.

• 17:47Speaker 03

  Tables had turned. So that's, that's kind of life. What do you see? Everybody sees something. And now, y'all play pro ball. Guess what?

• 18:00Speaker 03

  What people see and what people are willing to work for, two different things.

• 18:05Speaker 03

  And I did not know this until I talked to Coach yesterday, the other day. He said, "You know what? I heard something. Then I figured out why you became so good." He said, "I've told people things. I ain't never had this kind of results." He said, "But I figured it out." I said, "What'd you figure out, Coach?"

• 18:26Speaker 03

  He said, "I couldn't put two and two together before. I have now." I said, "What?

• 18:34Speaker 03

  You obsessive." Everything you've ever done, I took for granted when you came over with Tiffany, your Doberman. And whatever you said, you pointed a finger, she boom, you did ditch, snap her. He said, "I'm like, I've never seen a dog like this." And then it hit me.

• 18:55Speaker 03

  He trained that dog? And the only reason I had the Doberman was one of my boys, old Cotton, came over one day. He said, "He had a Doberman, he had his dog Duchess." He said, "Duchess, sit. Duchess, sit." I said, "That is amazing." She just sat right down. He said, "Yeah, yeah."

• 19:18Speaker 03

  Really? Let me know when you have a puppy. About seven, eight years later, he called, he said, "Duchess had puppies." I said, "Really?" Now, I'm living in efficiency. But I know I went down there to get a puppy. And I picked the one that she wouldn't get in, all the food she's staying. I said, "That's her, right? That's Tiffany."

• 19:39Speaker 03

  Man, we get up at 4:30 in the morning. We go out and train, we up late at night, go out and train. Because my whole goal was when I said, "Sit," that she would sit. Because I saw Duchess sit. She had, she became a C.D., C.D.X. Because I was obsessed with she would sit just like Duchess. And I saw Wink, he said, "Duchess ain't never been this trained, eh?"

• 20:05Speaker 03

  So, you take things to the levels that unbeknownst to you, it makes things happen.

• 20:14Ryan Clark?

  That wouldn't make sense, though, if, well, why were you getting a hamburger when you're supposed to be meeting with Michael Jordan?

• 20:21Speaker 03

  You know what? Because my guy, old Smitty, David Smith, who was a lawyer in DC. And he was here, he said, "H, let's go to this, we'll go to this restaurant, get a burger." I said, "Man, ain't Michael Jordan coming in town?" "Oh, we'll be right back, it's right around the corner." I said, "Man, Smitty, Michael Jordan gonna be in town."

• 20:46Speaker 03

  "Man, it's right around the corner." I said, "All right, we got time." First of all, it was not right around the corner. That thing all the way out 26th, all in the Boondocks, I'm like, "Smitty, this ain't around the corner." "Oh, that's, you'll love it, we'll be out of here in a jiffy." The hamburger's about this big. And I said, "Man, we got to go." So, I don't know if I was late, MJ was early, but I do know they were there when I got back.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  Here's what's very interesting. And I know Pop said, "The only black guy in the room, and he late."

• 21:28Speaker 03

  There ain't no hope for us. Just maybe, there's something bigger at play than we even know. Spending the last two years with your pops, you couldn't have forecast that. It just happened. Me being, guess what? All of a sudden, we all became family. You know? I stay at his house when I go, he stay at my little house when he come to DC. Mom, Pop, moms were just out here a few weeks ago. Family. Just maybe, that happening was a part of the plan that I couldn't see.

• 22:12Speaker 03

  See, I'm one of those people that things happen for a reason. So, was that one of those things that happened unbeknownst to me? It was supposed to happen. Big Mo, who's my guy.

• 22:29Ryan Clark?

  Moses Malone.

• 22:30Speaker 03

  When I recruited Mo, Mo was like, I mean,

• 22:34Speaker 03

  I tell you how good Moses was. Mo averaged 35 points a game, 25 rebounds a game, and 12 block shots a game.

• 22:46Ryan Clark?

  He was the team.

• 22:47Speaker 03

  Was he playing against H? Whoever he played against, that's what he did. Even when he played like in those All-Star, he dominated. Mo, Mo was, I mean, he was amazing.

• 23:03Speaker 03

  When I knew he was amazing, I went down to recruit him, and everybody was there. I mean, coaches from everywhere, assistant, head coaches. Somebody would say,

• 23:13Speaker 03

  "I saw Moses," and then all the coaches running out of the hotels to find, I'm like, "Really?" They all were, so I went by the house one day. Met his mother, she came, she had just finished work, Murray Malone. So, I came, knocked on the door. "Hey, hey, how you doing?" I said, "Hey, hey, Miss Malone, Howard White." "So," she called him Tiny, she said, "Well, Tiny not here now." I said, "Oh, okay, okay, no problem, I just thought I'd run back." "Well, come on in, come on in."

• 23:44Speaker 03

  Now, down south, you know, she had just got off work, Fred. So, you know what, they, they watching stories. They got the,

• 23:51Ryan Clark?

  The stories.

• 23:52Speaker 03

  The agent, they got the stories on, she got the, got to catch up on my stories. "All right, I just got in town, she watching stories, we wa," I'm asleep, she asleep. About an hour, "Ooh, she, oh, God, I went to sleep." I said, "Oh, don't worry," and I went to sleep too.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  "I'm gonna tell Tiny you came by here." I said, "Yes, ma'am, no problem." The next time I go to, I told him, "He not here now," you know, he was never home. And eventually, Tiny was home. Me and Murray become just like that.

• 24:23Ryan Clark?

  She had told so many stories about you.

• 24:26Speaker 03

  "Man, we going," I'd go, "Hey, we going to the mousetrap," and, "Okay, I'm going, I'll be with you, you and your girls," boom, boom, had a ball.

• 24:35Speaker 03

  Then Big Mo, then we become this, like this. Now, remember, we sitting on the porch one day, and he said, he said, "Howard." I said, "Yeah, Mo." "The guys were by here last night." I said, "Really?" "The guys, the pro guys," he said, "They had a suitcase full of money. They said, 'If you take this,

• 24:56Speaker 03

  you sign this, you can take that money.'" I said, "You didn't sign that, did you, Mo?" He said, "No, Howard, I didn't sign it." "Okay." I said, "Whatever we do, you know, it's a, it's a right way and a wrong way to do it." "No, I didn't sign it, Howard." "It's okay." Then boom, boom, boom, later, and he came to Maryland.

• 25:13Speaker 03

  Spent the whole summer there, playing at Melvin's Crab House, the league, and they had a ball. Then they drafted him, Utah Jazz. We went down, spent some time with the agents. And he told me afterwards, he said, "I think if I don't do this, something bad will happen to me." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "I wrote down and put in my Bible, I wanted to be the first player to go from high school to the pros."

• 25:44Speaker 03

  "So, I think that was a promise to God. And if I don't do this, something bad will happen." I said, "Mo, you got to go there." "I mean, you'll be all right, go." And he went. When I got this job, first person that was here, he'd just signed with Nike, Moses Malone. See, we often think things just happen. Do they?

• 26:07Fred Taylor?

  H, you, you speak about, you said basketball, or sneakers doesn't define you, you're a believer in people. Basketball was just a vehicle. You also speak about the teachers who believed in you before you believed in yourself. Could you, kind of looking back, how much of your success can you contribute to someone simply saying, "I, I, I believe in you?" And how the power of encouragement push you to, to, to all of this?

• 26:34Speaker 03

  Fred, all of it. Let's get that out of the way, all of it. I haven't done anything. But I was crazy enough to listen to people who said this was possible. I was held back in the second grade. Now, come on, you can't be held back in the second grade. What they want, some A, B, C, count to 100?

• 26:54Ryan Clark?

  Could spell your name?

• 26:55Speaker 03

  Exactly. How you gonna keep me back in the second grade? And obviously, my mama went along with it, and here I am, repeating this second grade, which is almost embarrassing, because I'm a genius, so how they gonna keep me back?

• 27:10Fred Taylor?

  But you're talking about timing, if it didn't happen,

• 27:13Speaker 03

  Timing is everything, Pre. Timing is everything.

• 27:18Speaker 03

  That teacher, the next teacher, Miss Vaughn,

• 27:22Speaker 03

  she said, "You know all of this. All you have to do is apply it."

• 27:29Speaker 03

  Wow. She believed in me.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  When I got married, I went back, took my wife and daughter to meet her. And she told, when we were leaving, she told Donna, she said,

• 27:44Speaker 03

  "You have one of Hampton's finest. Make sure you take care of him." I didn't know, Miss Vaughn never thought like that, was she watching him, I don't know.

• 27:55Speaker 03

  Coach had the way. Told you, I just talked to him the other day.

• 28:00Speaker 03

  If you listen, you can be just like the big O. When I got to the ninth grade, there was a teacher, Nancy Newstep. Nancy said, "You are a great writer. I take your papers home, and me and my mother read them every night." Nancy was probably lying. But I believed I was a great writer. Now, I've written books, I've written film scripts, I've written, because, because of Nancy. When I first did a book, I thought, I think everybody should do a book. I wanted to do a blueprint of me for my daughter. And Mark Vanzel, who did MJ's very first book. So, I went to Vanny, I said, "Vanny, I'm gonna write a book." He said, "Really?" I said, "Yep, yep, that's about what?"

• 28:45Speaker 03

  "I don't know, life, I'm just gonna write a book." He said, "Okay, okay, okay, you write it, and I'll find you somebody to be a ghostwriter." "It's okay, all right." So, I wrote the book, spent a lot of time. After I did it, he said, "Oh, that's good, let me send it to the," sent it to this woman. And she said, rewrote, they write like a chapter or two,

• 29:11Speaker 03

  which was good, it's called The Book of Possibilities. My wife read it, and she said,

• 29:19Speaker 03

  That's pretty good. But it's not you. This is somebody interpreting what you think you want to say, what she thinks you want to say. You know what I did? Nancy said I was a great writer. Let me write my own book. There was a woman. It's awkward. I was on a plane going to Atlanta. It's a woman sat beside me. And she said, uh, what you doing? I said, I'm working on a manuscript. Hmm. So can I see it? Sure. She read that from here to Atlanta. Then she said, she said, you know, I got my degree in this and that, but I also got a degree in English.

• 30:04Speaker 03

  Let me send this to, send it to me. I just want to edit it some.

• 30:08Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  And I did. Then I gave it to Coach Ravel. George Ravel was a voracious, I mean, you talking about Reed, you go and he was a assistant coach at Maryland. Raveling had like newspapers stacked to the ceiling. There's ain't no way he reading all of this stuff. He got stacked to the ceiling. So I knew Rav liked to, I said, Rav, you know, Reed, this is the book and work. He said, really? He said, okay. He called me back that Monday. He said, Diddy saw it. I said, what she say? She said, well, is this true? She said, H gave it to me and says, like, I want to help. So I got a white woman from all the way down there in Tennessee.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  Black woman in LA that had grown up in St. Louis. Both of them working together to do an H White book. Incredible. Because the woman said, if you listen to me, you're a great writer. Okay. So my entire life, I speak, not because I think I'm any good at speaking, but in my 410 leadership class was Dr. Charlotte Leedy. Dr. Charlotte Leedy asked me to stay after class one day. I'm thinking, did I do my work? I swear I turned that paper in, what you want with me?

• 31:32Speaker 03

  I sit down, she said, um, what do you want from this class? I said, if you're giving A's out, that'd be good, I'd take one.

• 31:40Ryan Clark?

  I'd take one.

• 31:42Speaker 03

  No, you, you should be wanting to learn. I said, yes, ma'am, and that too. She said, I've only known two people that could command the attention of an entire room. Who were they? Bill Cosby, she said, I told him I was at Temple. And Howard White. I said, who are you talking about? She said, you. She said, well, here's the difference. Bill Cosby is from the city, he from Philly. When he speaks, everybody know who he talking about. Howard White is from the South Hampton, you got that Southern dialect. When you talk, I don't know what you talking about half the time.

• 32:25Speaker 03

  Like, she wrote the name down. Call that number till I told you to call. At first I threw that thing in trash can. I'm like, I don't know what she talking about either, who she thinks she is. Then I went back and get it. Simple. I call that number, ask, as, at, how to enunciate and pronunciate the King's English. I took Dr. Leedy to lunch when I graduated to thank her. After I wrote my book, I kept calling around and see if anybody knew her. But when someone went, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, Charlotte, I think she's Georgia. Let me, I think I might have a number for her. She gave it a number.

• 33:10Speaker 03

  I kept calling, never got anybody. She had this rhapsody voice. And one day she picked up, hello? She said, Dr. Leedy. Yes, yes, yes, who am I speaking with? I said, this is a voice from your past. She said, this Eddie? I said, well, no, not that past. She said, it was two. She said, Howard White. I said, yes, ma'am. She said, Howard White, I was just telling a group of students about you just last week. I said, Dr. Leedy, you liar. You have not seen me in 35 years. You were not telling a group of students about me. She said, I was. Tell me what you doing. Boom, boom, boom. She said, I told you so.

• 33:56Speaker 03

  I said, you a angel? She said, simply your teacher.

• 33:59Ryan Clark?

  Hmm, that's powerful.

• 34:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. So maybe, and I often ask myself this, and you all having played in the league, you can tell me, how many people have told you something and you disregarded it?

• 34:17Ryan Clark?

  Plenty of times.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, they don't know me. What they talking about? Suppose you regard that and say, hmm, maybe it's a possibility, I don't know. But then you have the wherewithal to work so hard on what they told you was possible that it's hard to keep you from it.

• 34:43Ryan Clark?

  I have a question about when it seems like failure is coming. Like you think about after, I think it was the Jordan 2, people didn't love it, right? You have designers of the first shoe who are now at Adidas.

• 35:00Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 35:00Ryan Clark?

  And Adidas is a main, a main competitor. And this is when you start to develop a relationship with a new designer for the three, which had to be big because if the three don't, if the three ain't fire.

• 35:12Speaker 03

  The brand may not be.

• 35:13Ryan Clark?

  Jordan might be with Adidas at some point. Tell me how you went through creating a new creative process between yourself, Mike, and the new designer to create the Jordan 3 that gave us the jump, man?

• 35:26Speaker 03

  Tinker Hatfield, you know, and Tinker and I, Tinker and I just like this. It didn't start off like that. We were down in LA and Tinker done this, of course, I don't know them. They had been working on this shoe and this whole time and finally I think MJ was probably out on the golf course and he don't know these people. And eventually we got, okay, he comes. We going through, they showing them all of this. And M said, um, he said, H, what you think? Don't do that much for me, MJ. Yeah, he said, me either. Now, you know, I caught a lot of flack from that.

• 36:10Speaker 03

  And he said, now, H, the only one who probably can hurt you is Tinker. Uh, he's a little upset. I said, upset about what? He said, well, he's up. I said, well, let me call, I'll call him, I'll contact him, I called him. I said, Tink, uh, hey, man, this is H. He said, hey. I said, well, what's going on? He said, well, I ain't afraid to tell you, I'm gonna tell you. I said, what? We work extraordinarily hard for this, to make this presentation. We work hours and hours and months to make this. Good. Well, how can you just come in and say you don't agree with it? I said, he asked me. He said, well, what do you mean he asked? I said, you sitting there?

• 36:54Speaker 03

  He asked me, what did I think? He said, yeah, but. Well, you want me to lie now? He asked me a question. He said, well, are you that important? I said, I don't know that. But he asked me a question and I told him. He said, well, should we meet with you first? I said, that's on you. All I can tell you is what happened. So Tinker and I got to be the best of friends because all of a sudden now, he can go to MJ's house, he can go through the garage, he can go through his closets, he can talk to him, he can see all the things that MJ like, don't like.

• 37:35Speaker 03

  So all of a sudden, an entire world opened up from a disagreement. Oftentimes, we really don't know what someone else is saying, doing, or thinking.

• 37:56Speaker 03

  So really, what he needed was a bridge.

• 38:00Speaker 03

  That's all he needed. Was a bridge from his thought process to the guy he actually had to design these for. So, there it is.

• 38:13Channing Crowder?

  Piggyback off that. The story is, you was the man. You can get just eight foot on the back of your jersey. You know what I'm saying? Like, the request that from a university is crazy to me. I don't know if it's arrogance or marketing, but it is. It's pretty cool. You could bowl. And then you, but you had knee injuries.

• 38:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, I did.

• 38:31Channing Crowder?

  And end your career. Then the thing was like, oh, you didn't care. You just moved on to the next step. You, it had to be something in there from you playing ball, getting to that level. Your knees get hurt. And, oh, I don't care. That wasn't an obsession of mine. Let me move forward. It had to be something that hurt you when you couldn't play ball no more.

• 38:46Speaker 03

  Well, a lot of people say that. I know the greatest thing that you've never done. You wanted to be a professional. Man, that had to crush you. Really? Oh, I know it did. Life pretty good now.

• 39:03Channing Crowder?

  Not now.

• 39:06Speaker 03

  But when you go, when you go backwards in time. And I got hurt the first time. I was a senior in high school. Came down the side of somebody's foot. And, of course, you know, they didn't know. Tore this up and... They didn't know. They looking at it and doing something. Yo, you okay? But then I found out that if I tied something around my knee, which wouldn't let the cartilage pop out. I could, I just couldn't do my knee all the way. I could do it like this. And so, you know, I kept playing, which was further damaging the knee. Eventually got it operated on. They didn't know what they was doing either. They tore it up, you know, they cut you open.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  They take out a lot of stuff. They throw stuff away. They sew stuff up. Then they put you in a cast for a couple of months, which now we know is probably the worst thing that can ever happen. By the time I got to Maryland, the woman I'm talking about, no rehab. So you just put a lot of tape on. And you just, you keep going. And probably the worst thing, I could jump real high.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  But now you're just jumping off one leg. By the time you were senior, that knee's gone. And I remember I went to the doctor, Stan Levine, like, the end of my junior year. We just won the NIT. Now, we expected we probably can win the NC two way. And I go to, he said, oh, it'd be fine. Just rest it over the summer. So I rested. Come back, practice started. Man, I couldn't even make it to class the next day. I told, I said, I'm getting an operation. Oh, no, no, you'll be all right. I said, I'm not gonna be all right. You gonna be, I'm not gonna be all right. I'm getting an operation. So I did. I got the operation. Fortunately, a young fella came through, John Lucas.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  Now, JL was an All-American tennis player, All-American basketball player from Durham. So Lefty asked me about coaching. First, he asked me, was I on red shirt? I said, no. I am out of here. Well, what you planning on doing? I said, I have no idea. But it won't involve this. He said, well, let's think about something. So he named assistant coach. He said, you can help that young man. You really can help him. Yeah, he a little, but you can help him. So I spent a lot of time with John and Mo Howard and all of them. And things, you know, they, well, obviously, John was the number one player picked in the draft. Here's the difference. I just played basketball.

• 41:42Speaker 03

  Remember, I didn't play, start playing basketball until like the ninth grade. So it wasn't something I'd longed for my whole life is to be this. I only started playing because the man said, if you listen to me. When I couldn't play, when I couldn't like jump and do the things I wanted. I said, God must not want me to do that. He already took it off the table once, and I wasn't smart enough to listen. Now he taking it off the table again. He must not want me to do this. So I figured that was the case. He don't want me to do this. He must have something else in store. Which I had no idea what that was.

• 42:19Speaker 03

  You know, the one thing I do have? Maybe the greatest patience in the world. So that little part, if he wanted me to do something, it would reveal itself.

• 42:31Speaker 03

  All I had to do was wait. What am I waiting on? I don't know. But I supposed to be waiting. Got into some, got out of coaching, got into doing this and that. And one day, John Lucas come back. John had been doing crazy some things. And he came back, he said, White. I said, what?

• 42:50Speaker 03

  At a job, perfect job. You love it. I said, what?

• 42:55Speaker 03

  Nike. This is 1981. And I said, Nike? What you talking about? Nike, you would love it.

• 43:03Speaker 03

  He said, Deb, tell him, his wife. He'd love it, wouldn't he? Oh, he would love it.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  Nike. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I didn't know, but his, the guy Kenny White was going with his sister Cheryl. And so what we did was, really, when he told me, Nike. I'm gonna call that guy. So I'm looking in the telephone book, which a lot of the young people won't know what that means. But that was the residential was the White pages and then the industrial stuff. Business at the yellow pages. I'm looking in the White pages for Kenny White. And then it dawned on me. Oh, whoa, whoa, okay. Maybe Kenny. Maybe Ken. Could be Kenneth.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  Could be K. White. I don't know what I'm looking for. Then it popped up. K. H. E. N. I. White. I said, that's the guy right there. I don't know who it is. I called the number. And the guy answered, said, hey, hey, hey, this Kenny? He said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I said, this, this Howard White. Oh, I heard of you. That looking, oh, okay. We talking. He said, hey, they're gonna give me a going away party. 507 Second Street. Why don't you stop down?

• 44:27Speaker 03

  Cool. So I stopped down. We boom, boom, nice time. I said, uh, said, why don't you send me a resume? Okay. Sent him a resume.

• 44:38Speaker 03

  Probably about a month or so, month and a half, he calls. He said, hey, they going in a different direction.

• 44:44Speaker 03

  Okay, cool. Couple of months later, Cheryl calls me first. She said, you gonna get that job. I said, what, what are you talking about? You gonna get that job. I know you gonna get it. That later on, now this is after months. Kenny calls and said, when can you start? Wow. Well, give me a couple of weeks. I, he said, okay. And here it is. Here I am at Nike. I don't really know what they talking about, but, you know, boom, I had to come out here, do all of this. That's when that Moses hit. I said, Big Mo, what you doing? Man, I told him, I told him, this H. White, that's the only one out there had this job. H. White should be having this job.

• 45:29Speaker 03

  And so my guy there, then John was an NBA player at that time and all of them. So you know all the people involved. And here I am. I'm showing their mind. We, they don't know who it is. They just got this guy, you know, played at Maryland, coached at Maryland, boom, boom, these guys are known. So I doubt if they knew that they were probably getting this evangelist. After all those months, maybe there was a greater plan than I could see. And as we're going along, obviously, MJ comes, then CB comes, David Robinson, all the guys.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  And then Kenny, when the guy, when he called me on a Sunday morning, he said, hey, you know, Kenny not here anymore.

• 46:20Speaker 03

  But you can do this. Just put basketball on your car. Just put H. White basketball in. Just do your thing. Okay.

• 46:30Speaker 03

  Worked out well. It worked out well.

• 46:35Speaker 03

  Worked out pretty darn good. So, and guess, if you were gonna plot a course out, Fred, could you plot your course out? You could plot it out, it's been pretty darn good. You could plot your course, you could plot your course out. But is it the greatest course in the world? Maybe you got somebody else with a compass, just a little stronger than yours. And they, it, the you, whatever it is, they plotted out. And I just followed the yellow brick road.

• 47:06Fred Taylor?

  Hey, just talk about greatness. You know, you say you've been around a lot of great people, worked with a lot of great people. We here to go debates constantly across all sports.

• 47:17Speaker 03

  All sports.

• 47:17Fred Taylor?

  Not just basketball, but all sports, right? In that, if we stripped away the rings, we stripped away the, the wins, what's the one singular attribute that the people that are in those conversations, what does greatness share?

• 47:31Speaker 03

  Fred, that's a great question. I think when you start thinking about what does greatness share? And I was thinking about this last night. Thinking about it hard. Chris Tuck, he calling, saying, Ben, that, that, that Michael, that you got to see. I said, okay. Oh, because, because him, they were ten, very close. And so we watching, me and the wife watching, I was watching again. And something hit me that you will find very deep.

• 48:02Speaker 03

  Now, we know how good, matter of fact, how good he was and how good. And look at what he's done in the theaters and, you know, you're talking about thrones of people.

• 48:14Speaker 03

  Was it Michael? Well, you know, Joe was a little off the rails now. But look how he pushed them. Let's go to another one. Serena and Venus.

• 48:29Speaker 03

  Richard was here. They was, he was out here representing the girls and them.

• 48:34Speaker 03

  So he came, we had met, then we were having another meeting the next day. Because Ern Goodwin, Ern had the girls and he had Richard, they came out. Now, we sitting in the conference room.

• 48:47Speaker 03

  Richard pulls out two legs from dummies.

• 48:54Speaker 03

  He must have been like scouring the streets all night long. And I mean, literally, he pulls out these two legs, the dumbest, he set them on the table. And he says,

• 49:08Speaker 03

  the people that don't sign Venus or Serena, this is the way their opponent's legs gonna look. Cause they gonna kill him. And people would say, well, he's crazy. I say, yeah, courtesy like a fox. And that dumb, Earl and Tiger.

• 49:26Speaker 03

  Okay? Now, these are people that have been pushed to the nth degree.

• 49:36Speaker 03

  They probably, of course, they didn't like it. You know that.

• 49:41Speaker 03

  Would they have been that good had someone that pushed them

• 49:47Speaker 03

  to over the limit? And then I look at like MJ. I mean, he's different because, you know, even childhood, then he goes to Carolina. Black is so obsessed

• 50:01Speaker 03

  with the small things. So here's a guy. We literally, this before he ever wins a championship.

• 50:10Speaker 03

  We out in the driveway washing his cars.

• 50:14Speaker 03

  And he says, you know, H,

• 50:17Speaker 03

  we win this thing this year, you know? I probably quit.

• 50:21Ryan Clark?

  When was this, H?

• 50:22Speaker 03

  This before he ever won a championship. You did battling with Detroit. He said, we win, I probably just quit. I said, you give it up? Yeah. Yeah, that'd be enough. If we win it, got that championship, that'd be enough. I'd probably give it up.

• 50:37Speaker 03

  Well, obviously, that wasn't the truth. We didn't see that. But they can't stop this from working. Three championships. Leave to play baseball.

• 50:50Speaker 03

  Lord have mercy, sitting up there in them double heaters that night. Oh, Lord. And he would say, he said, I know y'all were asleep up there. No, no, no, man. We watching, we would, we would, no, no, I bet y'all were asleep. How he went after that? I mean, literally, he changed his entire weight room into like a baseball workout room. But that's who he is. He's obsessed with whatever that is. Three. Okay? And had they not had that strike, I ain't sure he would have left because he was check, he knew this is what he could do this.

• 51:33Speaker 03

  Then they had the strike, he couldn't go in the locker room.

• 51:38Speaker 03

  We'll call the jet, we out. Tip the wing as you roll over that stadium, we gone. And when I saw him the way, because he wasn't planning on coming back to play basketball, but I saw how he went after this.

• 51:55Speaker 03

  Those times that you can't see. When nobody's around, it's just us in an empty gym.

• 52:03Speaker 03

  He running sprints like a madman. When they got beat, and I, in my mind, he might say something different.

• 52:13Speaker 03

  He called me that summer, that's when they were shooting Space Jam. Before that, he said, if I had done my part, I think we could have won. So, man, it's a team sport. He's in, oh, yeah, I know, but if I had done my part.

• 52:29Speaker 03

  So he was obsessed that, okay, can the guy just stop playing baseball?

• 52:35Speaker 03

  That, he couldn't sit with.

• 52:39Speaker 03

  Shaq, it was Penny, Nick. And remember Nick said,

• 52:46Speaker 03

  yeah.

• 52:47Ryan Clark?

  Four five.

• 52:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, four five.

• 52:51Speaker 03

  That ain't, that ain't Air Jordan, that's, that's just Michael Jordan.

• 52:57Speaker 03

  Of course, that probably ain't the right one to say it to.

• 53:01Ryan Clark?

  He poked the bear.

• 53:03Speaker 03

  That probably is not, because in his mind,

• 53:09Speaker 03

  if it was your mama, Fred, if it was your mama, if it was your mama, okay, it's a Sunday game, you know? He gotta win. Okay, this is old lady, what, no.

• 53:22Speaker 03

  What that got to do with anything? His mentality is winning. I cycled. And again, I'm a little obsessed. I got into cycling, so I took bikes wherever I would go. I would travel with a bike, riding miles, hundred miles. And he had told me before, he said, you know what, H, well, get me a bike. Yeah, yeah, yeah, get me a bike and some of those pants instead of, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a cycle, I'm gonna go cycling. I'm gonna use that to train.

• 53:52Speaker 03

  Okay, cool. We get there. When we get there, it's about three in the morning. I go to bed. The wife stay up and look at the sunrise and all that. She comes up and she said,

• 54:05Speaker 03

  Michael looking for you. I said, what? She said, Michael looking for you. I said, Michael's looking? You're crazy. She said, he just told me, where were you? I said, like, what, like, sex is, what are you talking about? She said, hey, so I go up. I said, Em, what's up, man? You were gonna try to leave me. I said, what? You were gonna try to go riding without me. I know that's what you was gonna do. You were gonna try to leave me. Well, man, my, no, my bike ain't, well, go get it together, put it together. So we, I go put the bike together, I come back down. And, you know, we got this. Well, I ain't wearing them shorts. So he put some basketball shorts on.

• 54:50Speaker 03

  It's giant T-shirt. I mean, the wind blowing and and the bears with, this was with Richard Dent and that whole crew that, you know? So, me and Dent, Dent had been doing some spinning. So he said, H, I'm, I'm riding these days, I'm riding. He said, let's go riding tomorrow, I'm gonna come out to the house. Cool. So he come out, him and his masseuse, so they come out, we go riding. Beautiful day in Chicago. We get back. He said, MJ. Hey, what y'all doing, man? Me and H, I just went thirty miles with H White. We, man, we went thirty miles. MJ ain't say nothing. Thirty miles, Em, that's what we did. Okay.

• 55:38Speaker 03

  So we walk down to the Y, get the bikes. I said, Em, how far we going? About ten miles or so, just to get used to it. We going at least thirty miles. I said, but we going at least thirty miles. Richard Dent was never gonna beat him doing anything. We went about thirty-five or forty that day, like they killed him.

• 55:59Ryan Clark?

  Wasn't even the same sport. They don't even play the same sport.

• 56:02Speaker 03

  I'm just saying, whatever he, had to. His mind, he can't help himself.

• 56:10Ryan Clark?

  And that greatness, H, and you mentioned Serena, you obviously brought up Tiger and, and being pushed and the different things you get to see. What was it like your experience being at the nineteen ninety-seven Masters? To watch

• 56:28Speaker 03

  Man.

• 56:29Ryan Clark?

  Tiger really accomplish history that's never been touched.

• 56:34Speaker 03

  You know, because obviously, I didn't know a thing about golf. But I'm go with Phil and all of them, which was funny, we placed a little golf bet on the, on the plane. I don't know what I'm doing, so I just put some things down. And I win it. I mean, all the other guys, they golfers. I'm like, well, you won. I said, I won, I'm just writing stuff down. But the amazing thing about that, you can thank him, see what he did.

• 57:01Speaker 03

  We played like table tennis after the round, we go back to his place. That Tiger wasn't no great, but you saw how he went after it. I mean, he was like picking balls up and I said, look at this, he don't even know what he doing, but he, it's competitiveness. See, that part, you can't teach. I called MJ, the first time I ever met Tiger. We were right down there, old campus was Jonny's. I called him up. Cause I'm sitting there, I'm listening to, it was his dad, his moms, Tiger and Phil and a few of us around.

• 57:44Speaker 03

  I'm listening to them.

• 57:47Speaker 03

  In there. Pops was a Green Beret, so you know how hard they had to train the Tiger like he was gonna get ready for the Green Beret. So I was listening to it. I go outside. I call MJ. I say, Black. He said, hey, boy, what's up? I said, I just saw you. He said, what? I said, I just saw you. He said, you never said anything like that before. I said, I just saw you. Take away the field of play, take away as a court or football field or, take away that. He said, who'd you see? I said, Tiger Woods. He said,

• 58:27Speaker 03

  I'm telling you. Because it was this same mental mentality. So that's what I saw from Tiger. You know, we walk around the course and we see all this. But it was this, that mental mentality of I'm here. And greatness has a few things with a friend.

• 58:53Speaker 03

  We always think that so, they so great, right?

• 58:58Speaker 03

  Remember the opponent.

• 59:01Speaker 03

  You got to do it too. So you start thinking that you have to be perfect. So you can take perfection off the table. Exactly. You, so with that red shirt is around, your mind shifts.

• 59:20Speaker 03

  Whew, okay, all right. All right, I, I, I, okay, I can't miss it, okay? The universe doesn't work like that. All the stuff that I told you about me,

• 59:34Speaker 03

  you have to be in line with the universe, because it's gonna give you what you wanted to give you. When I say the universe reflects back

• 59:46Speaker 03

  what you are.

• 59:50Speaker 03

  Think about this for a half a second.

• 59:54Speaker 03

  Within each of us, you literally have the power. You can think something is bad, but you keep telling yourself it's bad. Pretty soon, you can't get out of bed. You depressed, you can't get up and carry on your day, you can't inner faith, you can't. He said, "Well, I don't have control." Well, you've been telling yourself that. Same person, same opposite. But they telling themselves something completely different. They happy-go-lucky, they getting up, going about. They saw the same thing. So if that has that kind of power,

• 1:00:34Speaker 03

  what other kind of power does it have? We have no idea who we are, what we are, we don't. The woman that can pick a car up to free her child. Now, you could ask her to do that a zillion times and she could not replicate it in that moment.

• 1:00:53Ryan Clark?

  Ain't that baby?

• 1:00:56Speaker 03

  Where did it come from? I mean, the things that happened that you cannot, I asked MJ this. And you all remember the shot against Elo in Cleveland. You remember that?

• 1:01:10Ryan Clark?

  Yes, indeed.

• 1:01:12Speaker 03

  You know what people forget? Friday, Michael Jordan missed a couple of free throws, which he never did. Certainly never missed it in the close of a game.

• 1:01:26Speaker 03

  MJ missed free throws that would have won the game? Now, we back in Cleveland, Sunday. We ordered a movie. Now, back then, if you order a movie, it's 1:15, and they say the movie on at 2? The movie was on at 2. At 1:15 was a blank television screen.

• 1:01:47Speaker 03

  We sitting there. He looking, I mean, not just, I mean, he is literally stirring into this. It's black, it's nothing. And you know, that went on for a while.

• 1:02:00Speaker 03

  "Black, you all right, man?" "Yeah, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good." He just said, "Okay, okay." Just about a few weeks ago, I was writing this thing, I called him. I said, "Let me ask you something. What was in that television screen that you kept stirring at before that shot?" He said, "Man, I was, I was visualizing the game before the game and what I would be doing." I said, "You, you saw that, huh?" He said, "Well, I was visualizing that." So we saw what happened. He didn't drive, tried to drive, he got the ball, boom, boom, bam.

• 1:02:43Speaker 03

  Are we more powerful than we give ourselves credit for? They say a genius use about this much of their brain. And that's a genius. So how much else is left up there? If you can find the key to that, Lord, what can you do?

• 1:03:02Ryan Clark?

  You talked about, you know, you're speaking about the brain. A lot of it is about the heart as well, which is something you've battled with. MJ called you on three-way with Jeter to have a conversation with you because apparently you decided you weren't going to disclose that you were dealing with-

• 1:03:23Speaker 03

  With heart issues.

• 1:03:24Ryan Clark?

  With heart issues. Talk a little bit about that experience from you and what that adversity taught you.

• 1:03:32Speaker 03

  You know, here's the beauty of that. When this happened, first of all, this can't happen to me. I'm in great shape, I ride my bicycle, I'm doing, I'm up, I'm eating, I think it's healthy. Drinking water, I don't stay out at night, don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't...

• 1:03:55Speaker 03

  Me? And here we are, I'm there. They finally, you know, my wife said, "Okay, okay, okay." We going in the hospital. I said, "I think I be-" "No, no, no." Like that Monday was 4th of July. She said, "It'd be our luck, something happened, and there would be no doctors at the hospital. It's gonna be 4th of July." So we go, they do, first, you know how they do it. They say, "Well, we're gonna just keep you overnight for observation." "Okay." Overnight turned out to be about 10, 12 nights. And they came back with this amyloid thing. So I was good for about three years, so everything was good. And then this started, just, just wasn't. So I asked the nurse.

• 1:04:41Speaker 03

  I said, "Same thing I just told you." "How can this happen to me? Eating right?

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

  Exercising? I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't stay out. How could this happen to me?" She said, "Well, maybe that's the reason you still here." I said, "Okay, touche, I'm with you. I'm good with that, I'm good with that, all right." And what happens is this puts you into this place.

• 1:05:11Speaker 03

  That place is the internal dialogue that you have with yourself. That's the real killer, the internal dialogue. For me, this is great.

• 1:05:25Speaker 03

  They said, "Well, how can you look at it like that?" I said, "Is it another way?" So we good. And what happens is this. I was here, walking up some steps.

• 1:05:39Speaker 03

  I was out of breath.

• 1:05:42Speaker 03

  What am I doing out of breath, walking up some steps? I can go ride 100 miles, you telling me I can't walk up some steps? Then Miller, I was talking to him, who was his president at the time, Larry Miller, he the CEO now of the board. He said, "Maybe you should blood pressure medicine." He just said, "Well, never thought of that, cool."

• 1:06:03Speaker 03

  But I'd had the leg swelling and ankle swollen. But those are things that, eh, okay, you don't even think about that. Then the fatigue, fatigue and, you know, you don't want to do a whole lot. You sitting there because breathing is hard. Again, the last thing I'm thinking, I got heart problems. Yeah, it must be something might not be right.

• 1:06:31Speaker 03

  So you keep going and eventually it was. And you have no idea when someone said you have heart failure.

• 1:06:42Speaker 03

  What does that mean? Does it mean your heart failed, you gonna die? Does it mean your heart failed? What, I mean, what does that mean? Don't you need your heart to keep going? And you, you start thinking. So me and the doc, we became very close. Dr. Abraham, MJ guy.

• 1:07:02Speaker 03

  Here's the Six Rings man right here. Here's the MJ guy right here. He's a doctor, and this is what he told me. He said, "First, you remind me of my dad a little bit, that's why I want to make sure." He said, "But," when he tell me about the Jordan and all of that. When he was in high school, he was an immigrant from India. Now, you're immigrant from India in Tennessee. You probably gonna get teased a whole lot.

• 1:07:31Speaker 03

  He said, "But I had a poster of Michael Jordan.

• 1:07:36Speaker 03

  And I told myself this. If he could get cut from his high school team, and he is the greatest athlete in the world now,

• 1:07:45Speaker 03

  what can I do?" He became number one in his class. He went to college, became number one, went to Johns Hopkins, he was number one. And he got here. He followed his mentor from Johns Hopkins out here. And the same mentor that happened to be Phil Knight's cardiologist. And then here I am, his protege. I got his protege, it's mine. So what you find out is sometimes you can't, you can't make it up. But if you let the universe take over. So when I got in, I said, "Well, let the universe do it." Universe a little smarter than me.

• 1:08:29Speaker 03

  So here are the warning signs. And for all of us, heart disease is the number one killer. Not only in our community, but around the world. Heart disease. So all I want people to do is notice the signs. If you hard time breathing, if there is swelling, if there is fatigue, pay attention.

• 1:08:57Speaker 03

  Go see the doctor. Don't just pass by, don't pass up on it, just do it. Because oftentimes, this is what we think of, this is about me. No, it really isn't. This about maybe, you might have a child or a grandchild that may supposed to be the next leader of the world.

• 1:09:20Speaker 03

  You just can't put the dots together.

• 1:09:23Speaker 03

  So that's why you play it out. Now, back to Fred, what's the one thing I'd noticed in this thing called greatness? This search, this hunt for being great?

• 1:09:37Speaker 03

  First of all, they all have the patience of Job.

• 1:09:43Speaker 03

  They all have a belief system that they are supposed to be a knowing it.

• 1:09:52Speaker 03

  And when you sit down and talk with them, most of the time, they don't even know it. Big Mo. "Mo what?" He said, "He said, "I ain't really as tall as they say I am." I said, "Well, you're pretty tall, Mo." He said, "Yeah, they say I'm about 6'10", I'm probably only about 6'10".

• 1:10:14Speaker 03

  He was driven. I mean, he was driven. And back then, it's the relentlessness of those rebounds. You seen him. He get, he tap it to himself. He go, he tap it again. He tap. The relentlessness of those rebounds.

• 1:10:31Speaker 03

  And the fact that Big Fella was so appreciative of having that opportunity. I've been there at Prime. Most people think, oh, Prime, well, Prime one of the nicest guys you ever be, could be around. Yep. Now, what they think is, oh, he ain't nothing but a braggart. Oh, look at him. Well, kind of look at what he's done too. So. Some of it's just fact.

• 1:11:04Speaker 03

  You can't write it up. You can't make it up. It's just a fact. Yep. He's a guy that could shut down an entire side of a field. Well, how you do that?

• 1:11:18Speaker 03

  Humble? Now, to the outside world, he's not that. C.B. Barkley, to the outside world, he not that. You know what they all got in car, Fred? Mama.

• 1:11:34Speaker 03

  All of them have this dying need to look after Mama.

• 1:11:41Speaker 03

  I don't care if it's Big Fella. I don't care if it's Prime and Connie. I don't care if it's.

• 1:11:48Speaker 03

  True fact, C.B. Now, C.B. was C.B. C.B., he might have a gun in there. Hey, boy, what you doing? Y'all just, I'm a. We love him. Yeah, he the best. Yeah, we love him. He the best. Granny, Granny, now, C.B. up here waving his gun around. Well, you know, Howard, I need a gun myself. Oh, Granny, we ain't talking about that. We talking about Charles up here with this gun. You need, okay, Howard, you tell me, I talk to him. But that's the same Granny, I go down. We go out on that lake fishing together. We go up, I mean, he's okay. Life is relationships. It's just true. Mama J. Mama J was right here. That's my girl. It had to be a time, Mama J, you know, he need to do this.

• 1:12:32Speaker 03

  He ain't trying to do, I talk to him, Howard. Okay. You know, Granny, see, I was a Mama's boy. I'd do anything for her. Matter of fact, I didn't take all that money that was given because I think Mama would be disappointed if I did that. And when I got hurt, the boys in college.

• 1:12:51Speaker 03

  Man, see, you would have been all right if you had taken that money. Yeah, you know, you turn that money down, you've been fine. Yeah, maybe.

• 1:13:02Speaker 03

  But that's looking at things in the moment. They say, you're young, how could you turn that money down?

• 1:13:10Speaker 03

  I don't know, because I thought it's something else I was supposed to be doing.

• 1:13:15Speaker 03

  Outside of money? Then the man also said that if, if you didn't make the pros, you could be a lifetime executive at his company. You gonna get any kind of car you want, they gonna give you money, gonna put it at the clothing store, they gonna give you that.

• 1:13:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, Mama would be disappointed. Mama walked into a bus stop. Long ways out to that bus stop.

• 1:13:42Speaker 03

  But the last thing. Because I asked, I said, Mama, I might can help you. She said, I don't need your help. How you think you can help me all of a sudden? This ain't about me. You just do what you supposed to do. Yes, ma'am. Okay? So that's what we concerned about. You do what you supposed to do. Yes, ma'am. So that was a time when, in the day's world, money kind of rules everything. Yeah. Money is the do all, be all, everything.

• 1:14:18Speaker 03

  If we looked at the English royalty. Now, I figure they ain't ever gonna need, need money now. Money be the last thing issue. Isn't it funny their children go to college, they go into the service? Because one day, they might have to lead an empire. So we don't look at things like that.

• 1:14:42Speaker 03

  The way I see things, one day, maybe you might have to lead an empire. Are you prepared? Are you ready? Could you say something to somebody and they listen?

• 1:14:56Speaker 03

  And the guys, I told Mr. Knight one day, he says, hey, I can't do what they do. He said, what, I can't do that? I said, I can't tell you they gonna look at me and do what I tell them to do, because they not. But I guarantee you, they will listen to what we talk about. And that is the key. What they choose to do, because once I do what they doing, you know what the deal is? Well, you ain't no better than us. You gonna tell us to do something, you doing the same thing. Forget you.

• 1:15:33Speaker 03

  That's problem that I would never have. Because if you trying to lead young people, young women, young men into their reality, then you have to be, have clarity. You have to believe. You have to help them often believe. See, because we think they're great, right?

• 1:15:56Speaker 03

  Y'all have been around the game. They get down just like everybody else. They often need somebody to say, yeah, you know, that ain't the way it supposed to be.

• 1:16:04Ryan Clark?

  Mr. H. This leads to Fred's last question. You know, that level of wisdom, the experiences that you've had, the things that you've been able to do. Like you said, at some point, they need to believe. And I know, you know, you always do it, Fred, but just set him up in the sense of being able to tell us what that was for him.

• 1:16:24Fred Taylor?

  We always ask our guests what their biggest pivot in life is. It's the moment you can go back to and say, because it happened to me or for me, I am who I am today.

• 1:16:32Speaker 03

  Hmm. That's funny. Because.

• 1:16:39Speaker 03

  Now, I was listening to this song by George Duke.

• 1:16:43Speaker 03

  The Simple Things. See, we often think it's some humongous moment.

• 1:16:51Speaker 03

  When Mandy, my daughter, just like both of you, she's a collector, you know, and she been loving shoes forever.

• 1:16:59Speaker 03

  She sold the shoes to give money to the Howard H. White Center for Amyloidosis. I was like, woo. You sell, yeah, dad, I want to help that.

• 1:17:15Speaker 03

  That moment, it goes way back.

• 1:17:21Speaker 03

  Even a dog could wag his tail when it passes you on the street. Something so innocuous that the average person would just pass over it. I can tell you, none of this happens without that. Like Larry Miller, he said, I ain't trying to walk across campus with H. I'm not trying to do that. Because he gonna stop and talk to everybody. I'm trying to get somewhere. He's stopping, carrying on conversation, gotta talk to everybody.

• 1:17:53Speaker 03

  And that's it, isn't it? People. It's the people. Yeah. When I go down here to eat, I get, I sit at the counter where all the workers at. So I can carry on a conversation with them, make them feel good. One woman down at Anna, she came up, she said, you're different. I said, what are you talking about, I'm different? She said, you see us.

• 1:18:16Speaker 03

  Other people pass and they don't even speak to us. You see us. So.

• 1:18:23Speaker 03

  I'm not gonna ever say I'm special. I'm not gonna ever say I've done amazing things in life. Not gonna ever say, wow, this has been beautiful.

• 1:18:33Speaker 03

  I'm gonna simply say, I just hope someone says, that old H. White, pretty nice guy, isn't he?

• 1:18:43Speaker 03

  And when I've seen where that book has gone across the ocean and people that have come up and say, you know, it changed my life.

• 1:18:54Speaker 03

  Because you was rude to Mr. Lee.

• 1:18:59Speaker 03

  You got it. You have got it.

• 1:19:02Ryan Clark?

  Throwing at the zero on the star sign.

• 1:19:04Speaker 03

  You have got it. You have got it. Rude to Mr. Lee. Changed my entire outlook on the world.

• 1:19:13Fred Taylor?

  You have touched many and changed their outlooks too. Charles Barkley said, "The best thing Nike ever gave him wasn't the shoes or the money. It was Howard H. White."

• 1:19:22Speaker 03

  CB. You know, again, it's just, they're people.

• 1:19:29Speaker 03

  And people, see, the young folks won't know, people who like people, things fall into place. And the question is always this, if in fact, you could sit down with anyone in history, whether it's Christ, whether it's Dr. King, whether it's anybody in history, who would you choose?

• 1:19:54Speaker 03

  Next person I sit beside. See, I can read books about all them other people. The next person that sit beside may give me something that changes the course of my life.

• 1:20:06Ryan Clark?

  Wow. Well, I would say this, in this conversation, you have changed my outlook, my mindset on many things. When we got the opportunity, you know, one, I was like, well, listen, this is the godfather of Jordan brand, I'm near. I saw Chris Tucker in the movie, but the more we prepared for it, the more I understood that your life wasn't just about shoes and sneakers, it's been about impact. And I believe that this conversation will impact so many. So, thank you so much for your time and for this opportunity.

• 1:20:35Speaker 03

  Man, I cannot tell you how amazingly fortunate to be able to sit down with you all and just chop it up. I mean, you all's experiences, think of this, you all are great football players. I guarantee you, this, what you all have done with all of these different people, it ain't about a pass coming down there, it ain't about running the court, it ain't about, did I miss this block? It's not. All of a sudden, it's expanded. It's expanded to, we touch people's lives.

• 1:21:18Speaker 03

  This brand, this brand, in this day and now, where people, a lot of people think, oh, man, it's about selling this, about...

• 1:21:29Speaker 03

  Well, when we started it, my simple philosophy was one thing.

• 1:21:36Speaker 03

  Had nothing to do with selling another shoe. My daughter, man, she about two, three years old. MJ was in the hole, he sleep. We out there, boom, boom, boom, going back to his room, and man, "Shh, dad. Uncle MJ sleep, don't wake him up." Now, he's a little kid, what you know about MJ being, "Really?"

• 1:21:57Speaker 03

  "Don't wake him up." My mother, she go, "I wanna go see Michael Jordan." "Momma, you can't walk up to them state, I think I be alright." So, this was about the ability to touch people's lives. That doctor, I believe now. He carried it so far, the doctor had to do a little surgery, he said, "Let's get this straight.

• 1:22:23Speaker 03

  I'm Michael Jordan, he's got a pimp." "Let's get this straight now." And this in the hot, he said, "No, stop saying that." He said, "I'm just telling the truth."

• 1:22:31Ryan Clark?

  I'm MJ.

• 1:22:32Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 1:22:34Ryan Clark?

  Hey, thank you so much, man. The stories, those stories last forever, man, but you have lived the life, and thank you for sharing it with us. My man.

• 1:22:43Speaker 03

  Much appreciated.