雙語朗讀美文：上帝的寵兒
導語：喬丹的籃球之路
There were already signs that he had a good deal of talent. Harvest Smith, a classmate and close friend who in those days played basketball with him practically every day, thought he was the best player on their ninth-grade team — he was small, but he was every quick. “You’d see him get a shot off, and you’d wonder how he did it, because he wasn’t that bit,” Smith said, “but it was the quickness. The only question was how big he was going to be — and how far up he would take his skill level.”
邁克爾的天賦早已有所顯露。他的一位同班同學和親密夥伴維斯特·史密斯，當時基本每天都和他一起打籃球，並覺得他是九年級球隊中最出色的——他身材不高但非常靈活。史密斯說：“你看到他蓋帽兒，就想問問他是怎麼蓋的，因爲他沒那麼高大，可他身手敏捷。唯一的問題是他將會長多高，會把自己的技能提高到什麼程度。”
The summer after ninth grade, Jordan and Smith both went to Pop Herring’s basketball camp. Neither of them had yet come into his body, and almost all of the varsity players, two and sometimes three years older, seemed infinitely stronger at that moment when a year or two in physical development can make all the difference. In Smith’s mind there was no doubt which of the two of them was the better player—it was Michael by far. But on the day the varsity cuts were announced — it was the big day of the year, for they had all known for weeks when the list would be posted — he and Roy Smith had gone to the Laney gym. Smith’s name was on it, Michael’s was not.
It was the worst day of Jordan’s young life. The list was alphabetical, so he focused on where the Js should be, and it wasn’t there, and he kept reading and rereading the list, hoping somehow that he had missed it, or that the alphabetical listing had been done incorrectly. That day he went home by himself and went to his room and cried. Smith understood what was happening — Michael, he knew, never wanted you to see him when he was hurt.
讀完九年級的那個夏天，喬丹和史密斯一同參加了波譜·赫裏的籃球夏令營。他們倆從當時還未長大成人，而當時幾乎所有的校隊隊員都比他們大兩三歲，在這個年齡，大一兩歲在體魄上就大相徑庭，因而看上去都比他們強壯得多。在史密斯的頭腦中，他們二人誰更出色是毫無疑問的——邁克爾比他強得多。但是到了宣佈校運動隊隊員篩選名單時—— 這可是一年中的大日子，因爲他們幾星期前就知道名單何時會公佈—— 他和羅伊·史密斯都去了蘭尼體育館，而此時名單上有史密斯的名字，卻沒有邁克爾。
對於年輕的喬丹來說這一天簡直遭透了。因爲名單是按字母順序排的，他就注意看可能有“喬”字的地方，可是並沒有。他一遍又一遍地看着，真希望是自己看漏了，或者是字母順序排錯了。那天他獨自回了家進屋後便大哭起來。史密斯明白所發生的一切——當邁克爾傷心或沮喪的時候，他不願意見人。
“We knew Michael was good,” Fred Lynch, the Laney assistant coach, said later, “but we wanted him to play more and we thought the jayvee was better for him.” He easily became the best player on the jayvee that year. He simply dominated the play, and he did it not by size but with quickness. There were games in which he would score forty points. He was so good, in fact, that the jayvee games became quite popular. The entire varsity began to come early so they could watch him play in the jayvee games.
Smith noticed that while Jordan had been wildly competitive before he had been cut, after the cut he seemed even more competitive than ever, as if determined that it would never happen again. His coaches noticed it, too. “The first time I ever saw him, I had no idea who Michael Jordan was. I was helping to coach the Laney varsity,” said Ron Coley. “We went over to Goldsboro, which was our big rival, and I entered the gym when the jayvee game was just ending up. There were nine players on the court just coasting, but there was one kid playing his heart out. The way he was playing I thought his team was down one point with two minutes to play. So I looked up at the clock and his team was down twenty points and there was only one minute to play. It was Michael, and I quickly learned he was always like that.”
Between the time he was cut and the start of basketball in his junior year, Jordan grew about four inches. The speed had always been there, and now he was stronger, and he could dunk hands had gotten much bigger, Smith noticed. He was as driven as ever, the hardest-working player on the team in practice. If he thought that his teammates were not working hard enough, he would get on them himself, and on occasion he pushed the coaches to get on them. Suddenly Laney High had the beginning of a very good basketball team, and its rising star was Michael Jordan.
蘭尼的助理教練雷德·裏奇後來說：“我們知道邁克爾很出色，但我們想讓他多練練，所以覺得二隊更適合他。”那一年他輕鬆地成了二隊中最出色的隊員。憑藉着敏捷而並非身高，他在隊中就已舉足輕重。許多比賽他都能得到四十分。實際上他突出的表現使二隊的比賽倍受歡迎。爲了能看到有他參加的二隊比賽，整個校隊的隊員都開始提早到場。
史密斯發現在喬丹被篩選掉之前是不甘於人後的，而在落選之後他的好勝心似乎有過之而不及，好像決心不讓歷史再次重演。他的教練們也注意到了這一點。羅·康利說：“我一直幫忙在蘭尼的運動隊做教教練，當我第一次看到邁克爾·喬丹時，還不知道他是誰。我們去與勁敵哥爾茲保羅隊打比賽，當我進到體育館時，二隊的比賽就要結束了。場上的九名隊員都已無心戀戰，只剩下一個孩子還在竭盡全力。看他打球的樣子我想他們隊在剩下的兩分鐘裏一定只落後了一分，可當我擡頭看計時鐘時，他們隊在最後的一分鐘裏竟落後了二十分。這就是邁克爾，我很快就得知他一貫如此。”
從喬丹少年時開始打籃球到被篩選掉的這段時間，他長了四英寸。他的速度仍然是那麼快，只是現在他健壯了許多並且也能扣籃了。史密斯注意到，他的手也大了不少。他一直都充滿着緊迫感，他是隊中最勤於練球的隊員。倘若他發現隊友不夠努力，他就會親自去說服他們，或者鼓動教練去。一時間蘭尼中學出了一個非常優秀的籃球隊，邁克爾·喬丹成了冉冉升起的明星。
