INDIANAPOLIS — Jeff Jordan’s teammates at Illinois tease him mercilessly, the way they tease everybody else.
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The sophomore Jeff Jordan, who rarely shoots, is averaging 8.3 minutes a game for the Illinios but could see more action.
Michael Conroy/Associated Press
Michael Jordan watching his son, a 6-foot-1 guard with a style unlike his own.
They ride him when Hanes underwear commercials come on television. They point to a closet bursting with Air Jordan clothing and sneakers, his father’s arms extended in a familiar pose. They say he more closely resembles the rapper Soulja Boy or the actor Alfonso Ribeiro than his famous father.
Jordan relishes these jokes. He always wanted to blend in, to be recognized simply as a basketball player, instead of as the son of perhaps the game’s greatest player.
This has not come easily for the oldest son of Michael Jordan. But now, in his sophomore season, Jeff Jordan has earned an athletic scholarship and a limited role on an N.C.A.A. tournament team, as well as the one thing he always wanted most — a sense of normalcy.
“It’s like watching him come into his own,” Juanita Jordan, his mother, said.
The 6-foot-1 Jordan averaged 8.3 minutes a game this season, but he could play more in the N.C.A.A. tournament while guard Chester Frazier recovers from hand surgery. The fifth-seeded Illini (24-9) play No. 12 Western Kentucky (24-8) on Thursday night in Portland, Ore., in the first round of the South Region.
Illinois Coach Bruce Weber first heard of Jeff Jordan through his brother, a high school coach who worked a camp attended by the young Jordan. There Jordan ate lunch alone, separate from the other campers, surrounded by security. He was 9.
Normal for Jordan included signing his first autograph in eighth grade, celebrating in the Chicago Bulls’ locker room after championship games and announcing his college choice on the “Today” show. During his first high school varsity basketball game, students chanted, “Overrated!”
Early in high school, he wanted to try anything but basketball, and he played receiver and cornerback on the football team at Loyola Academy near Chicago. Eventually, he dropped football and developed into a tornado of a guard, a harassing and athletic defender, the kind of role player the Bulls used to surround his father with.
It may seem strange that the son of Michael Jordan rarely shoots — he has taken 31 shots in 267 minutes this season — but Jeff Jordan plays a style opposite his father’s, even if he claims to have beaten him and Denver Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony in a three-way game of rotating one-on-one a few years back.
Jordan stands five inches shorter than his father, wears No. 13 in honor of his mother’s birthday instead of the family’s famous No. 23, has a full head of hair and leaves the tongue-wagging to his father.
Despite the differences, Jordan remains proud of his dad’s legacy, as evidenced by the Jumpman23 logo and Chicago skyline tattooed on his left biceps.
“He’s very quiet by nature, very unassuming,” Weber said. “You would never know. He doesn’t hold up a sign reading, I’m Michael Jordan’s son.”
Jordan is majoring in psychology, and he has always been a thinker, observant and inquisitive, the kind of person who dissects and analyzes the smallest details. At times, this led to overanalyzing, but mostly it helped him become comfortable with his basketball bloodlines.
Juanita Jordan raised all three of her children with an emphasis on individuality. She was married to Michael Jordan for 17 years, and in that time she learned how to handle the mobs, the microscope, the endless attention and agendas.
“My role was to teach him what it was going to be like living under that spotlight,” she said.
In high school, teammates called him Bones, and when Jordan filled his 6-foot frame with just 150 pounds, it appeared the height gene had skipped a generation. He gained an inch and 35 pounds, but passed on scholarship offers from places like Valparaiso and Davidson to walk on at Illinois.
His father pronounced the college choice a gamble, but said he would have made the same decision, more proof that Jeff Jordan was Michael Jordan’s son.
Coaches saw the father in his son’s athleticism, in the 48-inch vertical leap, the developing midrange jump shot and the speed.
“Sometimes, when he goes to the basket and dunks, and I’m not exaggerating this, you would think somebody shot him out of a cannon,” said Wayne McClain, an assistant coach. “It just doesn’t seem right for a guy that small to get up that high.”
But Jordan went to Illinois as an athlete who lacked his father’s polish, and coaches set about turning him into a point guard, the only position suited for his size.
Early in his freshman season, Jordan questioned his decision. Illinois preferred to redshirt him, but did not have the luxury, and he spent the first two weeks of practice wondering if he belonged.
The turning point came at the Big Ten tournament, when Jordan had 4 points and 2 assists in a quarterfinal against Purdue. In two seasons at Illinois, McClain said he might have heard Jordan complain twice.
Still, the shadow looms. His father’s mere presence at games has caused grown men to act like teenagers at a boy band concert, and the younger Jordan moved into an apartment instead of a dormitory for better privacy. Even when Weber awarded him the scholarship, critics wondered why the university gave money to a student who lacked financial need.
But that cut to the center of Jordan’s paradox. The least normal Illinois player, the guard whose coach, McClain, ranked Michael Jordan as his idol and one of the two most influential athletes of all time, longed for that scholarship because it made him feel more like part of the team, more like everybody else.
Of course, everybody else did not look into the Michigan State student section to find a cardboard cutout of his father wearing a Coach Tom Izzo T-shirt. (Jordan, laughing, gave the students points for creativity.)
“I always wanted to be that way, to be normal,” Jordan said. “I didn’t want to stick out in high school, so when all the national attention came, I wasn’t ready for it. But once the guys treat you normal, that’s the best treatment you can get.”
Weber ranked Jordan as the team’s most consistent reserve, and he has produced signature moments, like stealing the ball late against the Spartans and tying the game with a driving layup. The Illini see Jordan filling a greater role next season.
Frazier entered Illinois as a highly touted recruit, a player who seemed intent on becoming the next Michael Jordan. Instead, he developed into a dogged defender and skilled passer, and now Illinois coaches see his replacement in Michael Jordan’s son.
“He has to make a decision this summer,” Weber said. “Does he want to take it to another level?”
For now, Jordan remains in transition. Somewhere between his abnormal childhood and a typical college experience. Between bench warming and starting. Between the Hall of Fame shadow of his father and the growing praise for his younger brother Marcus, a high school senior and the family’s more celebrated college prospect.
Before Illinois met Michigan in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament here last week, the Illini gathered near their bench and bounced in unison. Lost in the sea of jerseys was the oldest son of Michael Jordan. And Jeff Jordan bobbed along, just like everybody else.
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