It's Gotta Be Da Shorts

There’s a place in Bloomington that still smells faintly of leather and rubber soles, where the wall paneling hasn’t changed since the Reagan era, and where Michael Jordan once walked through the door. 

Read’s Sporting Goods isn’t the flashiest store. The fitting rooms are tucked down a dark wood-paneled hallway, flanked by batting helmets and first-base mitts. But if you look up—just before you duck into the fitting rooms—you’ll see it.

 

An original Nike “1988 NBA MVP Slam Dunk Champion” poster. Jordan frozen mid-flight—legs scissored, eyes locked on the rim, the ball drawn back like thunder in his palm. A moment suspended in air, like history holding its breath. It’s not a reprint. Not a knockoff. It’s the real thing. Creased at the corners. Slightly curled from decades of hot summers and midwestern humidity. Still glorious.

I was there on a Saturday afternoon with my daughter. She was trying on cleats. I was marveling at the poster, when one of the guys working the floor caught me staring.

 “You know he came here, right?” he said.

 

I turned.

 

“Jordan. After his rookie season. September ’85. Drove up in a Corvette. Parked right out front.”

 

He said it the way you talk about something sacred. Like a miracle. And in a way, it was.

 

Jordan had come to town for a charity game at Horton Fieldhouse, just up the road on the Illinois State University campus. The game was billed as “Full Court with Michael Jordan.” The opponents? A local team called the Twin City All-Stars. Jordan played for the WBNQ Cheapshots—named after the radio station that co-sponsored the event. Tickets were five bucks. Three if you were a student. The proceeds went to build a new arena and support the local Special Olympics.

But before any of that, he needed gear.

 

So he stopped at Read’s.

 

Jordan had lost his shorts the day before in Peoria. So he walked in, picked up a pair of gray ones—the kind coaches wore back then, high-cut and snug by today’s standards—and grabbed a set of Air Jordan wristbands. The originals. The ones with the wings logo, from before “Jumpman” was even a thing. He stuck around for a bit, chatted with the locals, threw a football around, signed a few autographs for the staff, and flashed that million-dollar smile. Then, as smooth as his jumper, he charged it all to WBNQ.

 

Then he left. Just like that.

 

That night, he scored 71 points.

 

Seventy-one. In a benefit game.

It’s the kind of story that lives in the grain of a place. Not in a museum. Not in a documentary. But in a wall poster above a fitting room and in the memory of a clerk who still tells the story like it happened this morning.

 When I told my daughter the story later in the car, she asked why he scored so many points in a game that didn’t even matter.

 

“It mattered to him,” I said.

 

And it did. You could see it in the photos—MJ screaming after a dunk, wearing that WBNQ jersey like it was Game 7. The crowd that night gave him more than applause; they gave him purpose. And he gave them a glimpse of what greatness looks like.

The best part? It was all for something bigger. That night raised money for a local cause—helping kids, helping families, helping the kind of town that shows up when it matters. 

Greatness came through that night, and it left more than just memories.

 

Now, all these years later, the poster still hangs above the entrance to the fitting rooms like a shrine. It’s not from that day—but close enough. A quiet reminder that once, for one perfect afternoon, a future icon walked into a small-town sporting goods store, bought a pair of short gym shorts, and lit up the court just down the road.

 

Sometimes greatness doesn’t need an arena.

 

Sometimes, it walks through the front door—and never really leaves.