Today, Michael Jordan is widely regarded as the greatest basketball player of all time by most fans out there.
MJ might have never reached this level if it wasn’t for the help of Tim Grover, a well-known performance coach out there. While Grover may have that reputation now, when he first met Jordan, that wasn’t the case. Evidently, he had to go through a lot of trouble to become the coach of the Chicago Bulls legend.
“There was a small article in the newspaper [that] said how Michael was tired of taking the physical abuse from the Detroit Pistons, and he’s looking to get stronger,” Grover shared in an episode of the ‘GCA Podcast.’ “I was working at a local health club back then, with a master’s degree making $3.35/hour. So, I just said, ‘You know what, I’m not gonna be able to get to Michael. He’s one of the best players already in the NBA, if not the best.’
“He’s not gonna work with somebody that’s never worked with a professional athlete. But I said, ‘You know what, If I can show results to somebody else, then he may see it, and a door might get slightly cracked where I can work my way in there.'”
Grover used a smart tactic where he sent letters to 14 players on the Bulls, and one of the letters ended up reaching Michael Jordan.
“There’s 15 players on an NBA team, I wrote 14 letters,” he added. “I wrote a letter to everybody except Michael Jordan. … Obviously, one of those letters made it there, and it was sitting in somebody else’s locker room. Michael went into the locker and saw it and pulled it out and read it and gave it to the athletic trainer and team physician at that time. [Michael] said, ‘Hey, contact this individual. See what he’s about.’
“So, I get a call from the athletic trainer during that time and the team physical. They said, ‘Hey, somebody found one of your letters, and they’re interested in your services.’ So, for three months, we went back and forth. Just like, they wanted to make sure they knew what I was doing. They tested my knowledge on biology, biomechanics, physiology, everything, and three months afterward… they gave me an address, and they said, ‘Meet this person at this address.’ I rang the doorbell, no answer. Rang it again, no answer. Rang it a third time, and Michael Jordan opens up the door.”
Grover contained: “So he invited me into the house. I sat down with him and talked for about 45 minutes. I said, ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ And he’s like, ‘I need to get bigger. I need to get stronger. I need to get all these different things.’ And I sat there, and I just told him, ‘Well, that’s not the way to go about this.’
“He just kind of looked at me, and I explain my philosophy to him, and he goes, ‘That doesn’t sound right.’ I said, ‘It doesn’t get any righter.’ I said, ‘This is the way to do it.’ And he kind of just thought about it, he goes, ‘You know, I’ve talked to other individuals, but nobody’s explained it to me this way.’ I said, ‘Give me 30 days.’ We didn’t discuss salary, we didn’t discuss money. We didn’t discuss any of that stuff. 30 days turned into 15 years.”
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Tim Grover’s methods sounded unorthodox to Michael Jordan at first, but he trusted him and got fruitful results from them.
So much so that Jordan once revealed he didn’t pay Grover for training him. Instead, he paid him to not train any other player in the NBA.
Tim Grover Helped Michael Jordan In Overcoming The Detroit Pistons And Win Six NBA Championships
Hiring Tim Grover as his performance coach turned out to be one of the best decisions of Michael Jordan’s career.
After enduring years of Detroit Pistons’ physical abuse in the NBA playoffs, Grover helped MJ in defeating his rivals in 1991. Our talented writer, Titan Frey, broke down Mike’s workout routine, which helped ‘His Airness’ in winning six NBA titles, in a detailed article.
Getting past the Detroit Pistons was the turning point of Jordan’s career. He led the Bulls to a total of six NBA Championships during the 1990s after gaining some muscle.
Tim Grover’s role in Jordan’s career can never be underestimated, and if he had never reached out to him, we might have never seen the Bulls legend reach his true potential.
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