Never mind Air Jordan, Yorkshire fans will be hoping it’s more a case of Air Jordan Thompson in tonight’s blockbuster Roses Vitality Blast fixture at Headingley.
For it is ahead of this meeting that coach Ottis Gibson has revealed some of the methods he has been using to motivate his players, and one of his other sporting loves has been at the heart of it.
Gibson is a big basketball fan.
In fact, one of the ‘to do’s’ on his bucket list to go and watch the Los Angeles Lakers play – in an absolute ideal world, at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Of course, you may well say that winning a Roses Blast match is also part of a career bucket list for any Yorkshire and Lancashire player.
Be it a Will Luxton or a Jos Buttler, they’re all desperate to do it.
“I research different things,” said Gibson, whose side won last time out in the North Group against Nottinghamshire on Tuesday.
“I looked at Michael Jordan and a lot of his quotes.
“A couple came out in the dugout (at Trent Bridge) about having a positive mindset and so on, and the amount of shots he took and how he’d miss more than he’d score but he kept going because he knew that people were relying on him.
“He’s probably the greatest sportsman of all-time as far as I’m concerned.
“What he’s done in the game, how he transcended the game, how he changed the game; he’s been retired for 30 years and he’s still being talked about.
“I’ve just watched the new movie about him, Air, which is fantastic.”
Gibson smiled: “I’m old now, so I have to find different ways to motivate the lads.
“Sometimes I go and look at different quotes from different people, whether it be Martin Luther King or whether it be Nelson Mandela, or whoever. People that motivated me.
“I go and look at quotes from them. I might say 10 things and only one makes a difference, but that’s all it takes.
“The players laugh. I start off and then they think, ‘Where is he going now?’ I pause for a minute and I look around at them and Matthew Revis, especially, is the first one that laughs.
“And then I say, ‘Michael Jordan said…’, or whatever.
“We have a WhatsApp group, and I’ll put some quote from Kobe Bryant on, or something like that, and I’ll just try and keep spirits high in the team.”
Spirits were certainly high on Tuesday at Trent Bridge following their eight-run success, and they will be even higher if Yorkshire can shoot some more hoops against the Lightning.
