John Rogers Goes One-on-One with Michael Jordan

Sports Illustrated last month had an article about John Rogers' one-on-one basketball adventure against Michael Jordan. The article, found here, starts like this:

What would it be worth to you to be able to utter the greatest barroom boast ever? What if the next time the fellas are sitting around playing Can You Top This?, you could blow away their tales of high school homers and once-sorta-dated-a-sorta-model with this bad boy: "I beat Michael Jordan one-on-one."

I first heard rumor of the feat from a friend in Chicago. The details were hazy: It (probably) occurred at MJ’s basketball camp (about) five years ago, when he lost to a camper for the first time -- an old(-ish) guy who threw up a (musta-been) crazy lefty hook to which Jordan (undoubtedly) yelled, Nooooo!

What’s more, my friend said, the whole thing was (purportedly) videotaped.

A call led to a call led to a name, John Rogers Jr. Now 49, Rogers is a Chicago rainmaker: Princeton grad; founder and CEO of Ariel Mutual Finds, the nation’s largest minority-run mutual fund; friendly with Oprah; even friendlier with Barack Obama (who has used Rogers’s conference room for mock debates). Most important, he could afford Jordan’s Senior Flight School, a three-day summer camp in Las Vegas for the 35-and-over-and-affluent crowd that ran 15 grand, or more than twice what it would cost to go to, you know, actual flight school.

Robert Klitzman Quotes in NY Times Ethics Column

Bob Klitzman is quoted in today's New York Times Ethics column. Here is the question and answer involving Bob:

My aging father needs a kidney transplant. A brother and I are willing donors, but I am a perfect blood match while he is only an acceptable match. The hospital says either will do for the next round of testing, but it prefers the perfect blood match. We could flip a coin, a fair way to choose between us, but our dad could get the second-best kidney. Whose needs take precedence? — NAME WITHHELD

Here is a better way to phrase the question: How should we make this decision? The answer is, not by a coin toss but by a more sophisticated method — rock-paper-scissors. Sorry. No. You and your brother, having already settled the ethical crux by agreeing to be donors, should now let the hospital answer the medical question: How to promote the best outcome for a transplant? Hence you, as the better blood match, should undergo this round of tests.

Those tests are only the next step. Before making a final decision, you need more information. Dr. Robert Klitzman, a bioethicist at Columbia University Medical Center, suggests a few things to discuss with the transplant team: “Why does [the] father need a kidney transplant? What is his diagnosis? Does he have a genetically related kidney disease? Do the brothers have wives and children with other serious medical problems?” As Klitzman rightly implies, there can be medical (and nonmedical) implications not just for you, your brother and your father but also for other people you love.

UPDATE: The letter writer was tested — the insurance company will pay for only one person at a time to go through the process — and ruled out as a donor. A third brother, also an ideal blood match, is considering being the next in the family to be tested.