Michael wasn't yet Air Jordan, but even as a senior at Laney High School in Wilmington, North Carolina, only two years after being cut from the team, he was good enough not only to win a scholarship to North Carolina but to be able to get a lot of tail -- even if his mother had to approve any girl he went out with. This is made clear by this remarkable handwritten letter Michael dated April 21, 1981, during his last few weeks at Laney, to a girl from another school in Mt. Olive who had asked him to be her prom date. Beginning "My Dearest Laquette," he perhaps stretches the truth a wee bit explaining why he hadn't called her: "While I lay in my suffering from a sore throat, I decide [sic] to write you since I didn't call the other night....I thought that it would be waste calling you knowing that I can't talk." He goes on: "I told my mother about you asking me to go to your prom and she said I could come. I also asked her if I could come to spend the day with you and your family this weekend and she said I could but no telling how she will feel by the time the weekend come." Chivalrously, he invites her to come to a "basketball banquet at our house." But the kicker is the last paragraph in which he says he's can't wait to get to college "mainly to see you whenever I want to" and "to stay with you at least once without anything happening." Make what you will of that cryptically titillating statement. Letter in black ink covers 2 sheets of lined looseleaf paper and signed, "Love Michael." He also signed "Michael Jordan, 12:00 p.m." on the upper right corner of page one -- a NRMT early Jordan signature. Letter is NRMT with several light fold marks. Reading it may be the best lesson on how to be like Mike.