Across all 10 episodes of “The Last Dance,” director Jason Hehir and his team seemingly turned over every stone when covering Michael Jordan and the culmination of the Bulls’ dynasty in the 1997-98 season.
But Hehir spoke with Mike Tirico on “Lunch Talk Live” and revealed there were stories left untold during the series.
Hehir told Tirico one of those stories: how Jordan initially met his longtime friend and assistant George Koehler.
“You saw George Koehler, (Jordan’s) personal assistant and best friend. Michael was the one who insisted he be titled that, and that tells you everything you need to know about his relationship with George.
“He met George when he first got to Chicago when he was a rookie. He got off the plane and he couldn’t find the car that was supposed to pick him up, and George couldn’t find his fare, who he was supposed to pick up.
“So George went up to Michael and said, ‘Hey, aren’t you Larry Jordan?’ And Michael said, ‘No, that’s my brother, I’m Michael Jordan.’ It turned out that George played ball with a guy named Larry Jordan and just got the names screwed up, but Michael wasn’t *Michael Jordan* at that point. He was a famous college player, but he certainly wasn’t a household name yet.”
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Props to Koehler for recognizing him, and even more props to Koehler for what he did next.
“He ended up giving Michael a ride to his hotel for $25,” Hehir said. “Michael tipped him and George gave him his card and said, ‘Hey, if you ever need anything in Chicago, need to know where to go, just give me a call.’
“So two days later Michael calls up George because he needs to find a place to get a haircut. And they’ve been best friends ever since.
“So it’s little stories like that... you know we had a lot of stuff about his childhood, about his high school career, about his decision to leave UNC and how much thought went into that with Dean Smith and his counciling. So there’s a lot of that early stuff that I would’ve loved to have done, but we had to get through so much story with other characters, as well.”
With all this great footage left unseen, hopefully this leaves the door open for more content down the road.
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