Michael Jordan reconnected by video call with a former high school teacher who was in hospice care in Wilmington, N.C., the facility said. The teacher, identified as Ms. Etta, taught Jordan at Emsley A. Laney High School more than 40 years ago and was a patient at Lower Cape Fear LifeCare.
While at the hospice, Ms. Etta spoke about favorite students and memories, and Jordan’s name repeatedly surfaced. She told staff she wanted to hug him one last time. The practice attempted to contact Jordan but was not initially successful, the facility said.
According to the hospice, a LifeCare social worker named Wendy later received a call from an unknown number asking, “Is this Ms. Etta?” Jordan was on the other end of the line. Wendy drove to Ms. Etta and set up a video call so the two could reconnect.
“They laughed, reminisced, picked at each other, and shared a moment that brought tears to everyone in the room,” the facility wrote on its Instagram page. A photo shared by the hospice showed Jordan smiling while on the call, and the hospice said the moment would be a memory the family will carry forward.
Jordan grew up in North Carolina and graduated in 1981 from Laney, where he was famously left off the varsity basketball team as a sophomore. In 2019 he donated more than $1.1 million to the school, with roughly half of that amount designated for the athletic department, according to ABC’s Wilmington affiliate. Seven years later, the Chicago Bulls legend shared the video-call moment with his former teacher, the hospice said.
