For years the NBA Hall of Famer has claimed that his high - 01.16.12 - SI Vault
The most infamous roster decision in high school basketball history came down 33 years ago on the edge of tobacco country, between the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean, in an old town full of white wooden rocking chairs.
高中篮球历史上最臭名昭著的阵容决定发生在 33 年前，地点是烟草之乡的边缘，开普菲尔河和大西洋之间，一座满是白色木制摇椅的老城区。
The decision took physical form in two handwritten lists on a gymnasium door, simultaneously beautiful for the names they carried and crushing for the names they did not.
这一决定以实物形式体现在体育馆门上的两份手写清单上，同时，它们所带有的名字很漂亮，而那些没有的名字则令人心碎。
A parade of fragile teenage boys passed by, stopping to read the lists, studying them like inscriptions in stone.
一群脆弱的十几岁男孩走过，停下来阅读清单，像刻在石头上的铭文一样研究它们。
Imagine these boys in the time of their sorting, their personal value distilled to a binary question, yes or no, and they breathe deeply, unseen storms gathering behind their ribs, below their hearts, in the hollows of fear and exhilaration.
想象一下这些男孩在分类时，他们的个人价值被提炼成一个二元问题，是或否，他们深呼吸，看不见的风暴在他们的肋骨后面、在他们的心下面、在恐惧和兴奋的空洞中聚集。
The chief decision-maker loved those boys, which made his choice all the harder.
首席决策者很喜欢这些男孩，这让他的选择更加困难。
He gave them his time seven days a week, whether they needed shooting practice at six in the morning or a slice of his wife's sweet-potato pie.
他每周 7 天都给他们时间，无论他们是需要早上六点进行投篮练习，还是吃他妻子做的一块红薯馅饼。
His house was their house and his old green Ford Maverick was their car and his daughter was their baby sister, and he liked the arrangement.
他的房子是他们的房子，他的旧绿色福特小牛是他们的汽车，他的女儿是他们的小妹妹，他喜欢这样的安排。
He was tall and slender, like the longleaf pines that covered Cape Fear, and when he smiled in pictures, his dark eyes were narrow, hazy, as if he'd just awakened from a pleasant dream.
他身材高大，修长，就像覆盖恐惧角的长叶松，照片中他微笑的时候，漆黑的眼睛狭长而朦胧，仿佛刚刚从美梦中醒来。
His nickname, Pop, evoked some withered old patriarch, but Clifton Herring was only 26, one of the youngest varsity coaches in North Carolina, more older brother than father to his boys, still a better player than most of them.
他的绰号“波普”让人想起一些枯萎的老族长，但克利夫顿赫林只有 26 岁，是北卡罗来纳州最年轻的校队教练之一，对他的孩子们来说，更像是哥哥而不是父亲，但仍然是比他们中的大多数人更好的球员。
They'd never seen a shooter so pure.
他们从未见过如此纯粹的射手。
One day during practice he made 78 straight free throws.
有一天，在训练期间，他连续罚球 78 次。
To an outsider watching Pop Herring's basketball tryout in November 1978, it would not have been obvious that the gym at Laney High in Wilmington, N.C., held a player destined to become the greatest in the universe.
对于观看 1978 年 11 月 Pop Herring 篮球选拔赛的局外人来说，北卡罗来纳州威尔明顿莱尼高中的体育馆里住着一位注定会成为宇宙最伟大球员的球员，这一点并不明显。
He was still Mike Jordan then, not Michael Jordan, just another sophomore guard among 50 eager boys competing for 15 spots on the varsity and 15 more on the junior varsity.
那时他仍然是迈克·乔丹，而不是迈克尔·乔丹，只是 50 名渴望进入校队的 15 个名额和另外 15 个高三名额的男孩中的另一个大二后卫。
There was no doubt that Mike Jordan could handle the ball, but his shooting was merely good and his defense mediocre.
毫无疑问，迈克·乔丹可以控球，但他的投篮仅仅不错，而他的防守则平庸。
Mike Jordan was seven or eight inches shorter than Michael Jordan would be, only 5'10" at age 15, and at least one assistant coach had never heard of him before that day.
迈克·乔丹比迈克尔·乔丹矮了七八英寸，15 岁时只有 5 英尺 10 英寸，而且至少有一位助理教练在那天之前从未听说过他。
If Jordan distinguished himself at all during the tryout, it was through his supreme effort.
如果说乔丹在选拔赛中表现出色的话，那也是通过他的最大努力。
He was first in line for the conditioning drills, and he ran them as hard as anyone, and when they were over he wanted to run some more.
他排在第一位进行体能训练，他和其他人一样努力地进行训练，训练结束后他还想再跑一些。
The coaches met in Herring's windowless closet of an office to compare notes.
教练们在赫林一间没有窗户的办公室壁橱里会面，交换意见。
Most of the varsity spots were already locked down.
大多数大学名额已经被锁定。
Herring had gone to the playoffs the previous season with two phenomenal junior guards, Dave McGhee and James (Sputnik) Beatty, and now they were even better.
赫林在上个赛季与两名出色的青年后卫戴夫·麦吉和詹姆斯（人造卫星）·贝蒂一起进入了季后赛，现在他们甚至更好了。
Although it's hard to be certain now, because memorabilia hounds keep stealing the yearbooks from Jordan's time at Laney, there were about 10 seniors on the 1978--79 roster.
尽管现在很难确定，因为纪念品猎手不断窃取乔丹在莱尼时期的年鉴，但 1978-79 赛季的名单上大约有 10 名高年级球员。
They knew Herring's system.
他们了解赫林的系统。
Some of them, like Mike Jordan himself, had learned to run and gun at the Boys Club under Earl (Papa Jack) Jackson, the man who had taught the game not only to Pop Herring but also to Meadowlark Lemon, the great Harlem Globetrotter.
他们中的一些人，比如迈克·乔丹本人，是在厄尔·杰克逊（杰克爸爸）手下的男孩俱乐部学会跑枪的，厄尔·杰克逊不仅向流行鲱鱼传授这项运动，还向伟大的哈莱姆环球旅行者梅多拉克·柠檬传授这项运动。
But the Laney Bucs did have one major weakness, and that was size.
但莱尼海盗队确实有一个主要弱点，那就是体型。
They didn't have a returning player taller than 6'3".
他们没有身高超过 6 英尺 3 英寸的回归球员。
The coaches emerged from Herring's closet with two handwritten lists, the varsity roster and the jayvee roster, which they posted on the door to the room that would later be renamed Michael J.
教练们从赫林的衣柜里拿出两份手写的名单，分别是校队名单和杰维名单，他们把这些名单贴在后来更名为迈克尔·J·赫林的房间的门上。
Jordan Gymnasium.
约旦体育馆。
In those days it was rare for sophomores to make varsity.
在那个年代，二年级学生进入校队的情况很少见。
Herring made one exception in 1978, one designed to remedy his team's height disadvantage.
赫林在 1978 年做出了一次例外，旨在弥补球队的身高劣势。
This is part of the reason Mike Jordan went home and cried in his room after reading the two lists.
这就是迈克·乔丹在读完这两份名单后回家并在自己的房间里哭泣的部分原因。
It wasn't just that his name was missing from the varsity roster.
这不仅仅是因为他的名字从大学名单中消失了。
It was also that as he scanned the list he saw the name of another sophomore, one of his close friends, the 6'7" Leroy Smith.
而且，当他浏览名单时，他看到了另一位大二学生的名字，他的密友之一，身高 6 英尺 7 英寸的勒罗伊·史密斯 (Leroy Smith)。
Over the next three decades Jordan would become a world-class collector of emotional wounds, a champion grudge-holder, a magician at converting real and imagined insults into the rocket fuel that made him fly.
在接下来的三十年里，乔丹将成为世界级的情感创伤收集者、冠军怨恨者、将真实和想象的侮辱转化为让他飞翔的火箭燃料的魔术师。
If he had truly been cut that year, as he would claim again and again, he wouldn't have had such an immediate chance for revenge.
如果他当年真的被砍了，就像他一再声称的那样，他就不会有这么立即复仇的机会。
But in fact his name was on the second list, the jayvee roster, with the names of many of his fellow sophomores.
但事实上，他的名字出现在第二份名单上，即 jayvee 名单上，还有他许多二年级同学的名字。
Jordan quickly became a jayvee superstar.
乔丹很快就成为了杰维超级巨星。
"He was so good, in fact, that the jayvee games became quite popular," David Halberstam wrote in his 1999 biography of Jordan, Playing for Keeps.
“事实上，他太出色了，以至于 jayvee 比赛变得相当流行，”大卫·哈尔伯斯坦 (David Halberstam) 在他 1999 年出版的乔丹传记《Playing for Keeps》中写道。
"The entire varsity began to come early so they could watch him play in the jayvee games.
“整个校队都开始提前到来，这样他们就可以观看他在杰维比赛中的比赛。
Leroy Smith noticed that while Jordan had been wildly competitive before he had been cut [sic], after the cut he seemed even more competitive than ever, as if determined that it would never happen again."
勒罗伊·史密斯注意到，虽然乔丹在被裁掉之前一直非常有竞争力，但在被裁掉之后，他似乎比以往任何时候都更有竞争力，就好像他下定决心永远不会再发生这样的事情。”
Smith didn't play much as a sophomore, but he meshed well with Jordan as a junior and senior on Herring's varsity and then accomplished enough at UNC-Charlotte to land professional gigs in England, France, Germany and Argentina.
史密斯作为大二学生并没有打太多球，但他在赫林校队的大三和大四时与乔丹配合得很好，然后在北卡罗来纳大学夏洛特分校取得了足够的成就，在英格兰、法国、德国和阿根廷获得了职业演出机会。
Jordan had other friends, but no name was burned into his memory like Leroy Smith's.
乔丹还有其他朋友，但没有一个名字像勒罗伊·史密斯那样被铭刻在他的记忆中。
When Jordan needed energy during a hard workout, he closed his eyes and saw Leroy Smith's name on the varsity list in place of his own.
当乔丹在艰苦的训练中需要能量时，他闭上眼睛，看到大学名单上的勒罗伊·史密斯的名字取代了他自己的名字。
When he checked into a hotel under a fake name, he checked in as Leroy Smith.
当他用假名入住一家酒店时，他以勒罗伊·史密斯的身份登记入住。
When he left basketball to play baseball, he defended his decision by saying, "It should be a game that everyone has an opportunity to play—no matter who, Michael Jordan or Leroy Smith, it doesn't matter." When Jordan's foremost corporate partner, Nike, launched a viral marketing campaign in 2009, it starred Eddie Murphy's brother, Charlie, in the role of Leroy Smith.
当他离开篮球队去打棒球时，他为自己的决定辩护说：“这应该是一项每个人都有机会参加的运动——无论是谁，迈克尔·乔丹还是勒罗伊·史密斯，都没关系。” 2009 年，乔丹最重要的企业合作伙伴耐克发起了一场病毒式营销活动，由艾迪·墨菲的弟弟查理扮演勒罗伊·史密斯。