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Tag: State book

Melissa Isaacson on STATE: “We’re Gonna Remember This the Rest of Our Lives”

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Longtime journalist Melissa Isaacson, who spent years reporting at the Chicago Tribune and ESPN, among other outlets, appears On the NBA Beat for a discussion devoted to her third book, “State: A Team, a Triumph, a Transformation.” It’s an intensely personal tale documenting her and her teammates’ four years as bona fide high school basketball pioneers. Join Missy, who currently serves on the faculty at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, as she details her team’s inspiring journey.

*Due to dynamic advertising, time stamps may vary:

9:14-10:17: “I think that we’ve had our days of incremental progress. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with demanding change. … In the same ways that getting a uniform was a huge step and playing in the boys’ gym was a huge step, and we were patient and we did take each victory as the big thing that it was, I don’t know that patience is something that we should have (today). Not to get all political, but we’ve been waiting for the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) to pass for some time now, and patience hasn’t done us any good.”

15:42-16:10: “I walked out into this bitterly, bitterly cold, cold, cold night back to the car with my friend Connie, and she said, ‘Miss, you’ve gotta tell our story.’ And it just hit me that I did. And it wasn’t mine to tell. It was our story to tell, but I was gonna be the one to have to tell it. And it was gonna be quite an undertaking, a responsibility, but I knew at that point that I had to tell the story.” Continue reading

Melissa Isaacson: Bulls’ Title Run Was a “Magical, Magical Time”

Michael Jordan hanging in the air (Momez/Creative Commons)

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Melissa Isaacson, former sports reporter for the Chicago Tribune, relives covering the historically dominant Bulls teams of the early 1990s, as she breaks down The Last Dance, the popular docuseries in which she appears. She also discusses her latest book, State: A Team, a Triumph, a Transformation.

Time stamps may vary due to dynamic advertising:

4:25 – 5:40: “Over the years, he [Michael Jordan] really has been sort of portrayed as this egomaniac, and he’s kind of helped along with that narrative. His Hall of Fame speech was taken in a way that I was sort of really shocked by. I actually really liked his Hall of Fame speech. It sounded to a lot of people like he was being selfish. … Hopefully the audience will see through the docuseries, those who maybe had one opinion of him, that the competitive side of him is crazy. No question. It’s on a level that…is not even close [to most people] – it’s not a stereotype – but that is exactly what makes him who he is, what makes him as great as he is. So there’s gonna be some eccentric qualities, but I would never ever call him an egomaniac, and I wouldn’t call him a mean person regardless of some of the scraps we’ve seen him get into with his teammates.”

9:43 – 10:44: “They [Bulls players] were all just really sensitive to me being pregnant. I have a lot of stories and a lot of memories of…guys interacting with me, Michael patting my stomach before he ran on the court every game when he came back [from his first retirement]. He’d look for me and pat my stomach for luck, I guess. Ordinarily you might be a little put off or uncomfortable, but, again, this is Michael Jordan. … It was just a magical, magical time. I felt blessed. I still feel blessed. A lot of people have asked, ‘Were you aware of how great it was?’ Oftentimes, it takes many years to look back and fully appreciate things. I fully appreciated it, I did, because it was clear that he was the best player in the world.” Continue reading

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