Who could possibly help Clifton Herring?

Sports Illustrated recently had a fascinating story by Thomas Lake on Clifton Herring, the man who has gone down in history as The Idiot Coach Who Cut Michael Jordan.

Except, according to the article, that's not exactly how it went down.

The decision to leave Jordan on jayvee as a sophomore was not an oversight. Herring and his assistants knew Jordan would ride the bench on varsity, so they put him on jayvee, and it worked out perfectly. When he got to varsity, he was ready to lead the team. Pop gave Mike his time but made him earn everything else. They would play Around the World after practice, and Pop was nearly unbeatable. Jordan hated to lose, of course, so he kept improving until the day he finally won.

As it turns out, Herring was a pretty darn good coach, but the story tells how the last few decades haven't been kind to him due to mental illness substance abuse.

It also tells something I've known for a long time -- that Michael Jordan can be a real jerk. From the night Jordan's number was retired (sorry about the long excerpt):

"There wasn't one coach that I didn't listen and try to learn from," Jordan said. "They all knew more about the game than I knew, and probably still know about the game, more about the game now, than even I know at this point. But I respect them for taking the time to teach me the game of basketball. Goes all the way back to Clifton Herring, who was the first guy to ever cut me."
That was Pop's big introduction, to nearly 20,000 fans at the United Center and two million more watching on TNT. The first guy to ever cut me. The new arena had been designed to amplify the roar of the crowd. Now there was a rumble, a swelling chorus of voices. The fans were booing Pop Herring for an imaginary crime.
Jordan continued.
"But I think what people never knew, and I never had the opportunity to express, and my mother knew, and my brothers and sister knew, the next year, he picked me up every day at six o'clock and took me to the gym to help me work on my abilities. Thank you, Coach Herring."
The fans reconsidered. They began to cheer. Jordan could have stopped there, but he kept going. He raised his voice and his right hand, seeming to point toward the coach. "He knew he made a mistake! He just tried to correct it."

In one of life's sad ironies, Herring was arrested right around the time the article appeared in the magazine. In his update for the print edition, Lake wrote:

Herring, 59, was kind to many people before he became sick almost 30 years ago. Were you one of them? Did you ever consider helping him? Now would be the time.

Yeah, Michael ... it would be.

Or are you still mad?