The infamous recruitment letter sent by Hall of Fame Coach and living legend, Dean Smith, to Michael Jordan is something most MJ fans would love to get their hands on.
NBC Chicago reports, in a recent public auction, Goldin Auctions, recently obtained the letter and decided to list it in a future auction calling it “the most important recruiting letter ever written by a head coach in the history of college basketball.” Despite people thinking they are MJ’s biggest fans theres one fan that trumps everyone else, his mother, and she’s claiming the letter is a replica.
“When I heard it, I’m thinking, ‘No, that cannot be. What they have is replica,’” Deloris Jordan said. “The letters of Coach Smith and Coach Gunthrie’s letters I have in a vault. I accumulated all that stuff as he was getting prepared to go to college.”
“I wouldn’t take that risk of leaving it. It’s so valuable and you can’t replace it,” she said. “I have so many things I have been able to really hold onto and these things I would not have given to anybody. What they have is a copy.”
“It’s up to the public—who do you believe?” she said. “Do you believe the auction house or do you believe me? I know what I have and again to the people who do want to buy online, go ahead and buy. But I couldn’t sit by and say that these are authentic when I know they’re not.”
Despite what Mrs. Jordan claims, the auctioneer’s released the following statement:
“The official UNC letterhead is in the university’s colors of blue and white, and the letter is printed in matching UNC blue ink. As a letter, it has three folds from when it was originally mailed to Jordan and his family in 1980,” the auction site reads.
“I have no doubt that Mrs. Jordan has numerous recruiting letters in her possession that she saved from her son Michael, and likely many from University of North Carolina,” Goldin Auctions said in an email statement. “However, based upon the above facts as well as the third party Authentication, we find it unlikely she has ‘the originals’ of these two particular letters.”
