On Jordan's plaque: He was the 2000 Ivy League Player of the Year and 1997 Ivy League Rookie of the Year as well as three-time first-team All-Ivy and three-time first-team All-Big 5. Penn went 27-1 in Ivy play his junior and senior years. He graduated third on Penn's all-time scoring list, with 1,604 points, and also was second in career assists, third in career steals, sixth in career 3-point FG, made and eighth in career free throws made. He led Penn in scoring and steals three times and was the first player to lead the team in assists all four seasons he played, dating back to 1978-79 when the stat was first officially kept.

By Josh Verlin
 
To hear Mike Jordan tell it, his four years wearing a Penn men's basketball uniform were just "pretty decent."
 
That's the competitor talking, the kid who grew up in a single-parent home in Germantown, the one who helped raise his six siblings, who found himself a fish out of water at Abington Friends but used the basketball court to fit in, who's seen success just about everywhere he's been involved in the game.
 
But Jordan undersells his Quakers' resume, by just a little bit. His four-year backcourt mate and longtime close friend, Matt Langel, provided a more realistic take on Jordan's legacy in University City.
 
"He's one of the most decorated players in the history of the school," said Langel, now the head coach at Colgate. "MVP of the team all four of our years, as voted by our teammates, multi-year captain, undefeated season, player of the year in the Ivy League in addition to being an all-Big 5 selection. 
 
"At an institution that has the history and tradition that Penn does in the sport of men's basketball, where he ranks not just in the statistical categories but in the wins and to have gone on to have as decorated a professional career as he did, the guy's a winner and a champion and a leader at every stage."
 
In four years at Penn, Jordan established himself as one of the best to ever wear the Red & Blue. The program's sixth-leading scorer, his name is all over the record book, in the top 10 in Penn history in assists, starts, minutes, steals and more. His Quakers teams won two Ivy League championships, starting a run of seven times in nine years that Fran Dunphy's program made it to the NCAA Tournament.
 
It's for all those reasons that Jordan is being inducted into the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame as part of its Class XII.
 
"I'm honored and humbled by this," he said. "There are a lot of great players and great athletes who have been inducted in the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame. To be mentioned among those people, it's incredible, and I'm very very thankful for that. It's a great honor, and I'm happy to be among those great athletes who were probably a lot better than me."
 
Jordan had a standout career at Abington Friends under longtime head coach Steve Chadwin, winning four Friends' Schools League championships and garnering heavy interest from numerous regional Division I programs. Saint Joseph's seemed a potential landing spot until the Hawks took another commitment and then Dunphy was able to steal Jordan away from Drexel, Duquesne, and Manhattan.
 
Jordan arrived at Penn in an era when Dunphy's group and archrival Princeton were taking turns holding the Ivy League title; the Quakers won it in '93, '94 and '95 but the Tigers won it in '96 and again his freshman and sophomore season, finishing a perfect 28-0 in Ancient Eight play. Playing on teams that went a combined 29-26 (18-10), Jordan averaged 13.7 ppg, 4.1 rpg and 3.8 apg during his first two years, shooting 46.6% overall and 39% from 3-point range.
 
It looked like the Ivy streak might continue in Princeton's favor during the 1998-99 season, Jordan's junior year, when Penn suffered one of its worst losses in program history, giving up a 33-9 halftime lead at home to Princeton, a loss known as Black Tuesday.
 
Instead, the Quakers rallied off that loss.
 
"It was probably the best thing to happen to that team," Jordan said of the loss, "because we didn't lose another game until the NCAA Tournament. We won the league at Princeton, at Jadwin Gymnasium, and we cut down the nets there after beating them pretty good [73-48]. If they would have won, it would have forced a playoff for the championship. 
 
"We went out there and handled our business, the Penn faithful were right there with us, they stormed the court…there's still some guys that have video of their celebration. It was a great moment."
 
Jordan averaged 15.3 ppg, 4.6 apg and 3.8 rpg that junior season, surpassing the 1,000-point mark for his career and earning All-Big 5 honors for the second time. The Quakers earned a No. 11 seed in the NCAA tournament, falling to No. 6 Florida 75-61 in the opening round.
 
The next year, Penn went a perfect 14-0 in league play, 21-7 overall once again, though they were given a No. 13 seed by the selection committee and couldn't get past No. 4 Illinois in the first round, losing 68-58. Jordan put up career-best numbers, averaging 16.0 ppg, 4.3 rpg and 4.9 apg, making 51 percent of his field goals overall including 37 percent of his 3-pointers. He was the Ivy League and Big 5 Player of the Year, one of the best guards around.
 
Jordan then embarked upon an 11-year professional career, seeing time in nine different countries, winning a pair of German league championships along the way. A year after he retired in 2011, he joined Colgate's coaching staff, one year into Langel's tenure.
 
Langel's call to Jordan was a good one. The two built up a Colgate program that had long been an afterthought in the Patriot League but is now arguably its strongest program, winning three of the last four league titles. Jordan was there for two of them; his only season he wasn't, 2020-21, he was at Drexel where he helped the Dragons make their first March Madness appearance in 25 years.
 
"I never thought about coaching, but I love basketball, and when it came time to retire after being a player, I didn't know what I was going to do, honestly," he said. "I wanted to stay around the game once I retired, and Matt Langel gave me that opportunity to stay involved with the game I love. Any time you can do what you love and love what you do, you've won at life."
 
"I think that his competitive spirit is really like no other that I've been around," Langel said. "It's an intrinsic characteristic, it comes out all the time.I think that's why so many teams that he's been a part of have won championships, because of his competitive will."
 
Along the way, Jordan met his wife, Katie, with whom he's raised three daughters: Eva (11), Bella (10), and Jayla (3).
 
Jordan's career has recently seen him achieve a new level of professional success. After spending 10 years on the college sidelines as an assistant coach, he's making the move up a seat for the first time as he was named the new head coach at Lafayette College in Easton (Pa.) on March 30.
 
It's a full-circle moment for the kid from Germantown who found himself a fish out of water at Abington Friends, who became The Man at Penn, then became a man during a successful, life-changing professional career both on and off the court. Now he'll be a key mentor for a group of young men every year, helping guide them along that same journey.
 
No longer is it all about wins and losses, although knowing Jordan he'll want those to come as well.
 
"I love it, man," he said. "It all depends on what your definition of success is. For me, I'm a successful coach. Just being able to try and give these kids the experience that I had, that's success to me. To be able to do for these kids what the John Hardnetts had done for guys like me, that's success to me.
 
"It won't matter if I don't win another game as a coach; I consider myself a successful coach because I'm able to help young kids get the experience that I had when I was in their shoes."