If you want to know how Michael Jordan became one of the greatest basketball players of all time, the answer can be found in his high school love letters. A handwritten note the former NBA champion wrote to his high school sweetheart is up for sale, and it reveals some pretty specific details about his plans for his future.
Jordan wrote the letter, dated May 20, 1981, to Laquetta Robinson, a woman he dated while he was a student at Laney High School in Willmington, North Carolina. He used the two pages to profess his love to her. The only problem is he told her that there is something he loves a lot more than her.
“Laquetta you are my whole life next to basketball,” Jordan wrote. “Please don’t get mad about that statement. You are my whole life. But you can’t have basketball.”
Jordan told his teenage love that he wants to make a living playing the game one day and hopes she’ll hang on for the ride.
“I can never show you how much my love goes for you, but each day I try to show you,” he wrote.
Jordan’s letter to Laquetta is up for auction with Lelands. The current bid is $11,025 with 18 days to go.
This isn’t the first relic from their relationship that has been sold at auction. A prom picture of Jordan and Robinson sold for $3,960 in 2024.
Jordan wrote the letter in his senior year of high school, right before he went on to become a star at the University of North Carolina and in the NBA with the Chicago Bulls. He told Robinson that he believed big things were on the horizon for his basketball career.
“Next year I will show you things you can’t believe. Some of these things will amaze you. Laquetta,” he wrote. “My love for you will never run out.”
The letter ends with Jordan suggesting someone in Robinson’s family was against their love, but that he hoped their love could overcome the obstacles.
“I am trying to get closer and closer to your family. I want them to know that I love you, but if Lynwood doesn’t want that, then it will be sort of hard for me to do this,” he wrote. “I hope you love for me and my love for you can overcome his reasons for us not getting together.”
At least he got the part about being a basketball star right.