Be Like Mike.

It's a phrase I lived by every day that I meticulously cleaned the sneakers with your namesake, watched you conquer the Monstars over and over and chose to wear 23 every year I was lucky enough to play the game you changed forever.

I had to catch up, reading about a stringy kid from Wilmington, North Carolina deemed too short for varsity that grew into the greatest basketball player to ever walk this planet. Then I watched the grainy video of a freshman calmly hitting the biggest shot college basketball has ever witnessed, nothing but net.

I would watch Michael Jordan: Come Fly With Me when I came home from school, inches away from the screen, memorizing how exactly you defied the rules of gravity; running to the backyard to do my best impression, tongue out.

Then I watched how you took the mantle from Magic and Los Angeles, glided over Clyde and the Blazers, bested your buddy Sir Charles and Phoenix, and did what you do against the Sonics and Jazz (twice). Six out of six, no one can touch that.

Though I always knew the ending, it would never be any less captivating. I watched the good guy succeed, every time.

I read you put salt in your shoes to help you grow, so I did. Then I watched you say you would sleep with your basketball, so I did. I perfected the foul line jumper against Cleveland, then the one against Utah, shove included. Any small part of you I could have, I took and never gave back.

I worked, vowing to do a better version of you than any 23 impersonator on the other team that day.

My playing days ended, but my fascination with you did not. I became less enthralled with your athletic gifts, and more amazed by your dedication. I read about how your biggest flaw was you were too competitive.

I went back and I watched those movies again. I got goosebumps in the flu game, and not in the dunk contest win against 'Nique. I pumped my fist as you dunked over Ewing, only after being knocked down a dozen times. I got choked up when you won title number four on Father's Day, two years after James Jordan was murdered.

Your path became more human. You became man more than god, a chosen one to teach us the greatest asset is heart, even with a 40 inch vertical leap.

Now, I immediately click on the link when cell phone footage of you shooting jumpers in Charlotte surfaces, eager for one more addition to the vault in my mind, searching for a taste of the magic I felt watching those VHS tapes.

You turned your rivals into fans, fans into children, children into followers.

I stand today, a part of that army; Ready to take over the world by tongue-wagging, shoulder-shrugging, jumpman-posing my way to success.

I wake up every day to seeing your shot against Georgetown above my head, and put my sneakers on, salt already sprinkled in.

I still want to be like Mike.