James Jordan

After all of the cynical speculation in and out of the media about the circumstances surrounding the death of Michael Jordan's father, it is a lesson to all of us to find that he was a victim of random violence, just as any of us could be a victim of violence almost anywhere, anytime in the United States. Before James Jordan's body was found, the media were hinting at all kinds of sinister reasons for his disappearance - that it was because of his son's gambling debts, that it was because of some bad business deals the father made, that the father was kidnapped for ransom.

James Jordan has the kind of smile that lights up a room and wins friends among La Salle students, faculty and staff. It is a smile that disarms strangers who may be a bit intimidated by the size of the 6-foot-8 center for the Explorers' basketball team. Yet there is no way for friends or strangers to understand just how much this constant smile masks the pain and heartbreak he has had to endure. Jordan saw his father's two grocery stores burn to the ground during a civil war in the West African nation of Liberia.

Fearing the worst, police fanned out over southeastern North Carolina yesterday searching for the father of Chicago Bulls star Michael Jordan, who has been missing for three weeks. They have reason to worry. James Jordan's luxury car was found on a rural road near Fayetteville Aug. 5 and it had been stripped. And while there was no sign of blood in the car, police have not ruled out the possibility of foul play. Members of Michael Jordan's security staff flew to Fayetteville from Chicago on Wednesday.

Jordan finally talked yesterday. Not Michael, but his father, James, who said it was his idea that the two of them take a gambling trip to Atlantic City last week during the NBA playoffs. The idea, James Jordan said, was to escape, however briefly, from his son's fishbowl existence. The Bulls were down, 1-0, in the Eastern Conference finals. Jordan had shot poorly in the second half. Now he was being besieged at his New York hotel room before Game 2, his father said. All manner of subterfuge was being used to request tickets.

The saleswoman behind the counter at the pawnshop on North Elm Street chuckled. Ever since the defense team for the two teenagers accused of killing James Jordan proposed in a legal brief that the deceased father of Michael Jordan had faked his death and still was alive somewhere, Angela Carter has come up with her own "theory. " "Heck," Carter said when asked if James Jordan had stopped in the House of Quality recently to price a used accordion. "He is probably out running around somewhere with Elvis.

A jury in Lumberton, N.C., chose life in prison instead of the death penalty for the man who killed Michael Jordan's father and then paraded around town in the dead man's car. A judge sentenced Daniel Green yesterday to life in prison for murder during the commission of a robbery and 10 years for conspiracy to commit robbery. The sentences must be served consecutively. Green, 21, was convicted Feb. 29 in the slaying of James Jordan, who was shot as he napped in his car along a highway in 1993.

A gentle jokester. A fine father. A friend. Those who had gotten to know James Jordan, the father of Chicago Bulls superstar Michael Jordan, seem to remember the smile. His constant presence at the arena. The obviously warm relationship he shared with his famous son. His death has left all who knew him shaken. They remember James and Michael as inseparable. "It's like Michael and his dad were one," Bulls backup center Will Perdue said. "Whenever there was a tight game or important game or any time of the year, it seemed like, when you turned around, there his father was. " James Jordan was known primarily as a loyal father and a fan, a regular at Chicago Stadium who kept his eyes firmly fixed on his son and teammates.

Petrick Sanders, a 6-foot-6 forward who helped lead Frankford to the Public League semifinals, yesterday announced that he would continue his basketball career at Drexel rather than St. Joseph's. Sanders was one of two players to sign with Division I schools in Philadelphia yesterday. James Jordan, a 6-9, 235-pound forward from Liberia who is relatively new to the game of basketball, signed a letter of intent to attend La Salle next season. A third-team Inquirer all-Area selection and the Markward Club's player of the year in the Public League, Sanders averaged 14.2 points, 7.2 rebounds and 2 blocks per game for Frankford.

As James Jordan's family gathered to grieve at his Union County, N.C., home yesterday, investigators began piecing together how the father of Michael Jordan ended up dead in a South Carolina creek. Federal and state authorities investigating the shooting death pleaded with the public for any information that might help explain Jordan's death. The FBI said the case is being investigated as a kidnapping. Authorities said they had no suspects, no motives and no ransom demands. "There aren't any witnesses coming forth," said Thomas Lusby, FBI assistant special agent in charge in North Carolina.

Had James Raymond Jordan been almost anyone else his death would have scarcely made the newspapers. Men, women and children disappear almost routinely in America, and in many cases, nobody lifts an eyebrow in concern. What made Jordan's death noteworthy was not the stark callousness of the attack on him, nor was it the fact that he was driving an expensive car that was stripped and abandoned by a band of human locusts. What made his death front page news around the world was his celebrity.

The girders, beams and wires that had held up little Moochie Hamilton's dreams of fame and glory on American Idol had all collapsed in a pile around her. Under purple hair, trembling in purple shoes, the 16-year-old from Trenton stood shocked in the too-clear light of day outside the Wachovia Center yesterday. Judges for the Fox program had told her - and thousands of others with diva aspirations - that she was not the singer they were looking for. "This is indescribable," Moochie said in a near-whisper.

The girders, beams and wires that had held up little Moochie Hamilton's dreams of fame and glory on American Idol had all collapsed in a pile around her. Under purple hair, trembling in purple shoes, the 16-year-old from Trenton stood shocked in the too-clear light of day outside the Wachovia Center on Monday. Judges for the Fox program had told her - and thousands of others with diva aspirations - that she was not the singer they were looking for. "This is indescribable," Moochie said in a near-whisper.

A 16-year-old Neshaminy High School student committed suicide in the woods behind a central Florida hotel, police confirmed yesterday. Now friends and family are wondering why Becky Marseglia, who seemed to be a happy, outgoing, involved youth, would take her own life. Marseglia had gone to Disney World with the Civil Air Patrol, an auxiliary to the Air Force that teaches leadership and survival skills. The group was about to return home Monday when a reprimand from one of her lieutenants sent her running to the bathroom crying.

The Philadelphia Police Department's internal disciplinary system is biased against African Americans and particularly against African American women, a black woman police officer said yesterday. Speaking before a public hearing of Mayor Street's Task Force on Police Discipline, Officer Rochelle Bilal, a 15-year veteran and head of the primarily African American group Cops and Citizens for Justice, said that the department's disciplinary process is dominated by a "good-old-boy" network that caused black officers to be treated more harshly than white officers, and female black officers to be treated more harshly still.

Sometimes, in our idolatry of great athletes, we forget their human side. We forget that while someone can smack a baseball a country mile, run faster than everybody else, or punch with power, he or she remains vulnerable and human all the while. We resent it if these men and women insist on having private lives. For this crime the great Joe DiMaggio was labeled a loner and Red Sox batter nonpareil Ted Williams a "brooder. " But beneath the physical attributes of every great athlete lies a heart that pumps.

James Jordan has the kind of smile that lights up a room and wins friends among La Salle students, faculty and staff. It is a smile that disarms strangers who may be a bit intimidated by the size of the 6-foot-8 center for the Explorers' basketball team. Yet there is no way for friends or strangers to understand just how much this constant smile masks the pain and heartbreak he has had to endure. Jordan saw his father's two grocery stores burn to the ground during a civil war in the West African nation of Liberia.

James W. Jordan Sr., 86, of Worcester Township, a retired engineer who had been recognized for his late-life golf achievements, died Saturday at Suburban General Hospital in East Norriton Township after a long illness. A native of Philadelphia, he was raised in Mount Ephraim, N.J., and graduated from high school in that area. He resided in Fairview Village and in North Wales before moving to the Meadowood retirement community in Worcester several years ago. Mr. Jordan retired in 1975 as vice president of printer paper sales for Alling & Cory, a Philadelphia firm for which he had worked 30 years.

In his first report, Philadelphia's police anti-corruption czar yesterday applauded the Police Department's efforts to root out misconduct. James B. Jordan, integrity and accountability officer for the department, filed the report in federal court here as part of an agreement reached last year with three civil-rights groups that had threatened to sue the city over police misconduct. Under the agreement, the groups did not file a class-action suit seeking to force change on the department.

A marketing campaign masquerading as a movie, Space Jam offers the huckster's dream-team pairing of Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny. Not surprisingly, the film proves that Jordan can't act and that white rabbits can't jump, but neither failing is likely to bother the kids. At least Space Jam has the class - amid the parade of product endorsements and the careful prominence given to Jordan's Nikes - to 'fess up to its own shameless commercialism. Daffy Duck, who may waddle along to his own loony tune but remains as crabbily vainglorious and pungently honest as ever, derisively displays the Warner Bros.

Petrick Sanders, a 6-foot-6 forward who helped lead Frankford to the Public League semifinals, yesterday announced that he would continue his basketball career at Drexel rather than St. Joseph's. Sanders was one of two players to sign with Division I schools in Philadelphia yesterday. James Jordan, a 6-9, 235-pound forward from Liberia who is relatively new to the game of basketball, signed a letter of intent to attend La Salle next season. A third-team Inquirer all-Area selection and the Markward Club's player of the year in the Public League, Sanders averaged 14.2 points, 7.2 rebounds and 2 blocks per game for Frankford.