After a standout career at Oak Hill Academy in high school, Jerry Stackhouse was widely considered the best high school prospect to come out of North Carolina in a long while. Standing 6’6″ and possessing unreal athleticism, comparisons to the GOAT, Michael Jordan, eventually arose.
Stack, though, had to measure himself up against the man himself. After electing to go to North Carolina to play for the Tar Heels, he got to play a one-on-one game against the school’s most famous alumna.
Stack went at MJ
As Jordan arrived at the gym, all eyes were on him and Stackhouse. With Jerry being hailed as the second coming of Michael, the current Tar Heels were eager to see one of their own take it to the player who helped raise North Carolina’s basketball program to new heights.
A lot of the hype that I had coming into North Carolina, being 6’6″, bald head, from North Carolina, from the east coast of North Carolina, I had a lot of things that I did in my state that hadn’t been done since, you know, since MJ,” Stack recalled. “So it was natural to have those comparisons.”
Jerry was as nervous as any teenager would be when Mike showed up to play one-on-one. However, he wasn’t fazed.
“I’m a competitor. I’m the youngest of eight boys, man. Michael Jordan’s just another brother to me,” Jerry shared. “I mean, I looked forward to the opportunity, and man, I was nervous as hell. You know what I’m saying? But I got out there, and then all of a sudden, once I got comfortable, like anything else, you know, I kind of got into my bag a little bit.”
As the game commenced, Stackhouse remembered how Jordan didn’t give him a lane to the basket and used his smarts to dare him to shoot a jumpshot, a weapon in his arsenal that, at that time, he hadn’t fully developed.
“It was an experience I’ll never forget. I mean, over the years and different things, different situations, people tried to paint a story of me against Michael Jordan, and that’s definitely not the case, man,” he stressed. “I wouldn’t be sitting where I’m at today without him.”
Everybody wanted to be like Mike, including Jerry
Stackhouse divulged an incident wherein Jordan inadvertently saved his behind from a whooping from his mother. In a religious household, where being prim and proper was the norm, wearing jewelry was strictly prohibited. However, there was one instance when Stack tried to defy the norm and incurred his mother’s wrath.
He saved my a— more than one time. Probably in the eighth or ninth grade, you know what I’m saying? I got an earring, you know what I’m saying? Went there, and I come home, try to sit at the breakfast table, sitting with the earring, and I finally turned my head, and my mom’s like, ‘Boy, what you got in your ear?!’” Stack narrated.
“I caught it for a day or so, and then I showed her a picture where Michael Jordan had an earring on there and it was all cool,” he continued, laughing at the memory. “So it’s like, even with Mom, whatever MJ did — okay, good. That was it.”
Things came full circle between Jerry and Mike when they became teammates on the Washington Wizards during the 2002-03 season. In the final year of his legendary career, Jordan remained unwilling to give up his role as the alpha on the Wizards, which led to some tension with Stackhouse. However, Stack wasn’t surprised; he had already witnessed MJ’s fierce competitiveness long before making it to the NBA.
