Jordan Denies Anti-Semitic Statement

In a book about the Chicago Bulls’ championship season, star guard Michael Jordan is quoted making an anti-Semitic statement, the Chicago Sun-Times reported in its Thursday editions.

“The Jordan Rules,” by Chicago Tribune reporter Sam Smith, who covered the team during its 1990-91 championship run, quotes Jordan as saying that if he won the lottery, he would “. . . go open up a country club and post a sign that said, ‘No Jews Allowed.’ ”

In a story in today’s Sun-Times, Jordan denied making the statement. “Why would I have to win the lottery to buy a golf course?” he said. “I do make a little bit of money.”

Smith said Thursday the statement followed rejection of friends’ overtures on Jordan’s behalf for membership in a Jewish country club in Chicago. Smith added that Jordan spoke among a group of Bulls musing during a time when the Illinois lottery was about $60 million. “Everybody was saying what they would do if they won,” Smith said.

Smith, who is Jewish, said the Sun-Times had taken the statement out of context and that he does not think Jordan is anti-Semitic. The incident was described “to show how even heroes in society were subjected to racism,” Smith said. “Michael’s response was merely a reaction to being hurt by blatant racism.”

“He was frustrated,” Smith said of Jordan, who is an avid golfer and had played the country club courses as a non-member. “He’s sort of colorblind and thinking, ‘I’m living life the right way. Why aren’t they?’ ”

The book was released Wednesday in Chicago.