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To: Cactus Jack who wrote (42488)	9/24/2001 3:08:45 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Report: Jordan to Play for Wizards Monday September 24 By JOSEPH WHITE, AP Sports Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - For weeks, the question hasn't been whether Michael Jordan will return, but rather what it will be like when he does. The official, anticlimactic ``I'm back'' was due via fax this week, possibly as early as Monday. Jordan all but confirmed two weeks ago that he will play for the Washington Wizards this season, and Monday's Washington Post, citing a league source with knowledge of the situation, reported that he has erased any final twinge of uncertainty about ending his three-year retirement. But answering that question only begs a few more. Can Jordan keep his job as the Wizards' president of basketball operations? The Post story, citing its source, said he must give up that position. Even so, who will be in charge when he's on the court - Jordan or his hand-picked coach, Doug Collins? How will Jordan's teammates handle sharing the court with him? Will any of them dare not pass the ball to someone who has the influence to trade or cut them? How much will Jordan play? He's 38 and last played an NBA game in June 1998. Over the last few months, he's had two cracked ribs, back spasms, knee tendinitis and hamstring problems - and that's just from pickup games against invited players. Will his body hold up for an 82-game schedule, or will he follow the lead of the NHL's comeback kid, Mario Lemieux, and sit out selected games? How will Jordan handle losing? He couldn't stand it as a front office executive, having thrown tirades in front of the television while watching his woeful Wizards go 19-63 last season. Conventional wisdom says a healthy Jordan on the court just might get the Wizards to .500. He never missed the playoffs in 13 seasons as a player with the Chicago Bulls, while the Wizards haven't won a playoff game in 13 years. Jordan has been very cagey about his comeback plans - he even asked for pledges of secrecy from the players in his pickup games - but the general outline of his return is clear. A year or so ago, Jordan started working out because he found himself with a middle-age belly. His weight reached 242 pounds - 30 pounds above his playing weight in Chicago. His initial basketball workouts were a last-resort weight-loss plan after he found the treadmill boring. As the months passed, the workouts intensified. Jordan's focus changed and, despite his denials, he began thinking he could indeed play again. He hired Collins, who coached Jordan in Chicago in the 1980s. Inspired in part by Lemieux, Jordan started holding intense pickup camps at a Chicago gym with NBA-caliber talent. The injuries slowed him down but didn't deter him. Last spring, Jordan said: ``If I had to answer today, I'm 99.9 percent sure I won't play again.'' At another point, he said he would have to grade himself a 9 on a scale of 1-to-10 in order to play again, then teasingly raised himself from 6 to 7 to 8 as the weeks went by. There's no doubt he'll pronounce himself at 9 or 10 when the Wizards open training camp in Wilmington, N.C., on Oct. 2. Preparations elsewhere have been under way for Jordan's return for weeks. The paperwork to sell his stake in the Wizards, as required by the NBA if he plays, is prepared and awaiting his signature. The Wizards' staff is ready to put him on the cover of the media guide. The NBA got overeager and briefly listed Jordan as a player on the Wizards' Web site last week. Finally, there's a question only Jordan can answer: Why? Why come back and risk his legacy? Why not find another means to vent his extremely competitive nature? ``It's definitely the challenge,'' Jordan said in April. ``I'm not coming back for money, I'm not coming back for the glory. I think I left the game with that, but the challenge is what I truly love.'' On Sept. 10, Jordan was more eloquent as he spoke following a pickup game in Chicago. ``I'm doing it for the love of the game,'' he said. ``Nothing else. For the love of the game.'' The next day, the Jordan saga was displaced from the front pages by the terrorist attacks, prompting him to shelve plans for a news conference to announce his comeback. His next chance to answer the ``why'' question comes Oct. 1, the team's pre-camp media day.

To: Cactus Jack who wrote (42488)	9/24/2001 5:15:19 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

Fighting terrorist threat requires will, intelligence Crain's Chicago Business September 24, 2001 By Daniel W. Weil Two hundred years ago, faced with international terrorism on the high seas by the pirates of the Barbary Coast — interestingly, based in Tripoli, the Libyan capital — America responded with the famous phrase, "Millions for defense but not a penny for tribute." Once again, this nation is confronted by pirates, this time in the nature of terrorists. These terrorists are cultural and religious fanatics who, like the pirates of old, seek to remove America's presence and influence from their part of the world. And like their predecessors, they confined their attacks to American interests abroad. Until now. With the bombing of the World Trade Center and Pentagon in a brilliantly planned and executed suicide attack, the terrorists have finally told America in deed what they have been preaching for the longest time in words: You are vulnerable. Two months ago, on a Sunday television program, an Afghan fundamentalist stated, with striking candor, that the next wave of terrorist attacks would come inside our country and that it would be easy to destroy a thousand or even a hundred thousand Americans. Only two weeks ago, Osama bin Laden — long identified as a key financial and political leader of terrorist groups — publicly announced that America was in for a "big surprise." Was no one in our government listening? At some time, sooner rather than later, hearings must be held to find out how such an extensive network of terrorists could carry out such a complex and coordinated plan over a long period of time without our government having a clue as to what was going on. At the moment, apparently to satisfy public demand for some sort of action, the president is focusing on Mr. bin Laden and Afghanistan. But even if Mr. bin Laden is killed and Afghanistan stops supporting terrorist camps, the threat remains just as severe. Terrorism, based on nationalistic and religious grounds, is a major threat to freedom and democracy around the world. The vicious civil war being waged in Algeria by Muslim fundamentalists against a moderate Islamic government, and the threat they pose to Egypt's government, symbolize the extent of their influence. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan declared that the Soviet Union was an evil empire. Two decades later, we are faced with an equally dangerous evil movement. In the case of the Soviet Union, building up military capability was a key element in its ultimate demise. Fighting terrorists is not as definable, but there is one important step this nation must take, and that is giving massive new resources and authority to our intelligence agencies. In the 1970s, following the Senate hearings chaired by Sen. Frank Church, and then in the 1980s with the Iran-Contra hearings, our intelligence capabilities were essentially destroyed. Experienced counterintelligence agents were either forced into retirement or reassigned to meaningless tasks. We now are paying the heavy price for these policies. We do not need to restrict many of our own liberties by imposing overly intrusive security measures within the United States if intelligence agencies are given the latitude they once had to protect our interests abroad. Like Pearl Harbor, the attacks we just suffered should serve as a needed wake-up call to the threat America now faces — the enemy now being fanatics instead of fascists. Daniel W. Weil is a Chicago attorney. ©2001 by Crains Communications Inc.