Not now, obviously, but back in his Granville days before he had enough money to buy 50 houses. David Hart was assigned to live with His Airness, and while he doesn’t spill anything on partying or the ladies, he does have some great stories about what it means to be part of the Carolina basketball family. Including this one:
“The night we won the national championship, the NCAA awarded watches to the winners. They had 22 watches they awarded in the ceremony after the game but when you counted players, coaches, one trainer and four managers, there were 23 of us and as the youngest manager I was the odd man out. I truthfully did not think a thing about that, because I was a kid who grew up in North Carolina and loved Carolina basketball. I would’ve paid for the privilege to do what I was doing,” Hart said.
“On the bus back to Chapel Hill from the airport the next day, Coach Guthridge told me that Coach Smith wanted to meet with me in his office, so could I come by at a certain time. I figured he was doing that for everybody to kind of wrap up the season, so I went not expecting anything. I walked in and he said, ‘You were as much a part of the team as anyone else,’ and he handed me the box with his watch.
He’s got this story about running into a celeb in Washington.
“We stayed in the Watergate Hotel when we went to Washington, and as the door to the elevator was closing one time this man jumps on and looks at Michael and says, ‘You’re Jordan, aren’t you?’ It was Burt Reynolds. Here’s this incredibly famous actor who was a sports fan and he recognized Michael before Michael recognized him,” Hart said.