Perhaps Michael Jordan's most agonizing day in the spotlight came not on a basketball court but a sun-soaked country churchyard as he buried the remains of his father.
James Raymond Jordan was laid to rest Sunday in a small cemetery near the Rockfish African Methodist Episcopal Church, where his son once attended Sunday school.The 56-year-old Jordan was fatally shot July 23 in what authorities described as a random highway robbery.
About 200 friends and family members joined Michael Jordan, his mother Deloris and his four siblings at the service. Reporters were kept across the road from the 100-year-old church. About 100 others lined the street.
During the service, the Chicago Bulls basketball star spoke tearfully for about 15 minutes about his close relationship with his father, family friends said.
"They were real close ever since he was a little baby, and he just wanted to tell us about that, about how much he loved his daddy," Betty Herring, a family friend, told The News & Observer of Raleigh.
"I remember when he was a little boy, he'd always hug his dad real tight around the legs. And he wouldn't let go."
Also attending the service was University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith and Chicago Bulls guard B.J. Armstrong.
A program of the service included a message from the Jordans.
"Everyone who has been touched by the warmth and strength of this special man can understand the depth of our family's sense of loss," it said.
"Dad is no longer with us. But the lessons which he taught us will remain with us forever and they will give us the strength to move forward with a renewed sense of purpose in our lives."