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They’ll induct our state’s most celebrated athlete into his sport’s most hallowed shrine today. No one ever deserved it more.

Maybe now Michael Jordan will accept his state’s sincere gesture, too.

The greatest basketball player to ever play the game will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., in a ceremony this evening, the crowning moment of a career in which Jordan went from Wilmington Laney High School to become the best-known athlete in the world.

Along the way, he took us all on the ride of a lifetime.

His face is that of sports itself, a basketball player who redefined the game and made it a global phenomenon, paving the way for all athletes to become the megastars they are today.

Jordan led North Carolina to an NCAA title as a freshman, hitting the winning shot with 17 seconds to play and becoming a two-time national player of the year before setting off for the NBA, where he changed pro sports forever. He won six NBA titles and five MVP awards, leading the league in scoring 10 times.

He won two Olympic gold medals, signed a shoe endorsement that helped Nike virtually corner a financial market and became one of the most recognizable people on the planet.

In that light, his induction today could be seen as a mere formality. Of course, he’s going into the Basketball Hall of Fame. The alternative would be ludicrous, just as it would were he not in the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.

Which he’s not.

That’s right. The greatest basketball player of our time grew up in Wilmington, went to Carolina, owns part of the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats and shares a Rushmore-like popularity in North Carolina alongside Richard Petty, Andy Griffith and Sir Walter Raleigh.

But he’s not in the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.

Take a tour of the Hall in the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh, and you’ll see the entire history of sports in this state, an impressive collection of memorabilia from our greatest sports stars. Petty and Earnhardt. Choo Choo and DT. Bighouse and Catfish and Bones and Meadowlark and Dean and K and Roy and V and all the people who made this state one of the richest in all of American sports. Except the guy who eclipsed them all.

“You hear it all the time when people take the tour,” said Nat Walker of Greensboro, the current president of the state sports hall. “They come to the end of it and ask 'Where’s Michael?’ ”

It does sort of jump out at you. And it indeed begs the question. Where is he?

The answer isn’t complicated, really. Jordan was elected years ago, but he refused induction, telling people that halls of fame are for old people. That’s the legend, and it added to the mystique all these years, right up until a few months back when Jordan was elected to be enshrined into the national basketball hall. The series of events that followed have led to this evening, when Jordan will be introduced by, of all people, David Thompson.

There could be no more magnanimous gesture. A UNC guy being welcomed by an N.C. State guy. Or as only North Carolinians see it, the UNC guy being welcomed by the N.C. State guy. It completes a circle in a way, an acknowledgment that Jordan wasn’t the first great player in the state. There was one before him who helped make it possible for Mike Jordan of Wilmington to become the greatest basketball player of our time.

This has never been about Jordan being too big for our state’s hall or our state. When he said halls of fame are for old people, he meant it. He’s now 46, and the exploits of his playing career will get further behind him a lot quicker after tonight. The man who fought retirement, fought the urge to take up professional baseball, fought the end of his playing career and enshrinement alongside old people will himself be enshrined this evening in a ceremony that will involve four other inductees.

The event will have a Tar Heel flavor to it with Thompson making the presentation and a host of North Carolinians there for the ceremony. That hasn’t always been the case, the hall having to adjust through the years to the changing game. Formed in 1959, it finally recognized North Carolina in 1970 with the induction of former UNC coach Ben Carnevale. Since then, there’s been a regular procession of players and coaches from the state inducted into the national hall.

And every one of them is also in the N.C. Sports Hall of Fame. All but one.

Tonight, with his friends and family and colleagues and peers on hand to welcome him, Michael Jordan will be enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Maybe then he’ll look around and realize it’s not so bad after all, and we can add him to our hall of fame here in North Carolina.

“Whenever he chooses to be inducted, we’ll be tickled to have him,” Walker said.

And only then will the circle of old sports stars be complete.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com