Rare Footage Of Michael Jordan Dunking In High School Proves Why His Nickname Is ‘Air’

If there’s one thing that’s most synonymous with Michael Jordan—besides him being the GOAT after winning six NBA titles—it’s his legendary ‘Air Jordan’ logo, with him soaring through the air as if he’s the best leaper anyone has ever seen.

Sure, there were other high-fliers like Dr. J before MJ burst onto the scene, but Jordan made it look so damn elegant and simple that he earned himself the nickname “Air” pretty damn easily.

While cats like Blake Griffin, LeBron James and others may impress now with thunderous dunks where their fucking heads are above the rim, throwing it down with power that is straight-up mean, no one had it like Mike back when he did it.

Most of us all know the story of Jordan by now.

Before he was the icon that he is now, he was just another kid with big-time hoop dreams, hoping to make his varsity basketball team and, maybe, play his way towards a college scholarship. But, when he got his ass cut and was “just” on the JV squad, he used it as motivation to get to where he is now.

And, dammit, did he ever take advantage of it.

All the stories are great to hear, but, unless you were one of the lucky few to physically be in the gym where a high school Jordan played during the late-’70s, few were able to actually see what made the dude so different.

Of course, that is until right now.

Thanks to the rarest of videos that MaxPreps dug up, we can see what made Michael Jordan so fucking different than other kids—spoiler: It was his leaping ability.

I’ll go ahead and trade all these YouTube sensation dunkers that come out every single day for more of these grainy videos of a teenage MJ ready for lift-off, because he’s the fucking best there ever was, is and ever will be.

[H/T MaxPreps]

Nick Dimengo avatar
Nick's a Sr. Editor for BroBible, mainly relying on his Sports Encyclopedia-like mind to write about things. He's also the co-host of the BroBible podcast "We Run This," and can be seen sweating his ass off while frequently running 10+ miles around Seattle.