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Smith Alumni, With the Assist,
on Jordan’s ‘Last Dance’
Photos provided by Netflix
In the early days of the pandemic, with so many of us stuck at home with nowhere to go, no basketball on
TV, no baseball, no hockey, no sports at all, Michael Jordan gave us something priceless. He gave us “The
Last Dance,” a 10-part ESPN docuseries, and with it, that sense of zeal, that competitiveness, those story
lines that only sports can bring. And two Smith alumni helped make it happen.
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Both Curtis Polk ’81 and Estee Portnoy, MBA ’96, are listed
as executive producers on the hugely popular series, which tells the
story of the 1997-98 NBA season and the sixth championship of the
Chicago Bulls and its superstar shooting guard.
But in Jordan’s world, their influence has been more far-reaching.
For decades, Polk and Portnoy have been part of his close-knit inner
circle, advising him on business decisions and media outreach.
Polk remembers his first flight with “Air Jordan.” He was working
as an accountant in Washington, D.C., when a friend told him about a
job at sports management firm ProServ, and in 1989 he took over its
financial advising and tax planning division. Soon, he was introduced
to Jordan.
“We hit it off. We complement each other,” Polk said. “I look at
things a little on the downside. He’s the ultimate optimist.”
In 1992, Polk co-founded a new agency with Jordan’s longtime
agent, David Falk, and has worked exclusively with Jordan since
2001, now as vice chairman of sports and entertainment
for the Charlotte Hornets, where Jordan is the majority owner.
A priority, Polk said, has been in making sure Jordan didn’t
become overexposed.
“Less is more,” he said. “You want to stretch out his popularity
and fame.”
Portnoy was someone Polk thought would help in that. The
two had met through Kids Enjoy Exercise Now, a charity Portnoy
launched with her husband. She was working in marketing for a
software company when Polk suggested a business manager job to
her over a 1996 dinner.
Unsure whether to take the leap—and uneasy about knowing
almost nothing about the NBA—she was won over after meeting
Jordan, who didn’t ask her a single basketball question.
“Not being a fan is probably the most helpful part,” she said. “I
don’t usually back down and neither does he. He doesn’t need to be
surrounded by a lot of ‘yes’ people.”
rhsmith-editor@umd.edu
It took two years for Portnoy to sense which sort of
media and endorsement requests she could confidently
decline without Jordan’s say-so. The demands on his
time were astronomical. Jordan would sometimes
remind her, “'I don’t pay you to be liked by anyone but
me.' I had to learn to toughen up."
For decades, there were whispers about a documentary
about Jordan and the 1990s Chicago Bulls. There were
plenty of proposals, but none got off the ground.
One hurdle, Polk said, was that you couldn’t tell
the whole story in a standard-length documentary.
That changed by 2016 when Netflix’s “Making
of a Murderer” and ESPN’s “O.J.: Made in America”
succeeded as episodic documentaries.
Polk and Portnoy were vetting companies for an expansive
approach. Producer Mike Tollin’s proposal of six episodes eventually
stretched to 10, with unaired footage, present-day interviews
and detours on subjects such as the childhoods of Jordan and his
teammates, the Detroit Pistons rivalry and the 1992 Olympic
“Dream Team.”
The goal was to give fans a window into the challenges facing
the Bulls, from the on-court elbows of a much more physical league
to contract standoffs and the unrelenting media microscope of a
cultural phenomenon in the days before social media.
“They were under such adversity,” Polk said. “They were able
to get through all that and function. Most sports teams could never
[do that].”
To the millions of viewers who watch the documentary, Portnoy
said she hopes that Jordan’s passion and hard work
shine through.
“Nothing was ever given to Michael,” she said. “He would
intensely outwork everyone.” /LF/
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