Jump
My Secret Journey from the Streets to the Boardroom
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- £11.99
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- £11.99
Publisher Description
IN THE MARGINS 2023 TOP TITLE FOR NONFICTION
One of the most successful Black businessmen in the country, who has led Nike’s Jordan Brand from a $200M sneaker company to a $4B global apparel juggernaut, tells the remarkable story of his rise from gangland violence to the pinnacles of international business.
Jump tells Larry Miller’s journey from the violent streets of West Philly in the 1960s to the highest echelons of American sports and industry. Miller wound up in jail more than once, especially as a teenager. But he immersed himself in the educational opportunities, eventually took advantage of a Pennsylvania state education-release program offered to incarcerated people, and was able to graduate with honors from Temple University.
When revealing his gangland past caused him to lose his first major job opportunity, Miller vowed to keep it a secret. He climbed the corporate ladder with a number of companies such as Kraft Foods, Campbell’s Soup, and Jantzen, until Nike hired him to run its domestic apparel operations. Around the time of Michael Jordan’s basketball retirement, Nike Chairman Phil Knight made Larry Miller president of the newly formed Jordan Brand. In 2007 Paul Allen convinced Miller to jump to the NBA to become president of the Portland Trailblazers, one of the first African-Americans to lead a professional sports team, before returning to Jordan Brand in 2012.
All along, Miller lived two lives: the secret of his violent past haunted him, invading his days with migraines and his sleep with nightmares of getting hauled back to jail. More than a rags-to-riches story, Jump is also a passionate appeal for criminal justice reform and expanded educational opportunities for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people across the United States. Drawing on his powerful personal story, as well as his vast and well-connected network, Miller plans to use Jump as a launching point to help expand such opportunities and to provide an aspirational journey for those who need hope.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A Black man imprisoned for murder and other crimes has a spectacular second act as a business executive in this nervy saga of redemption. Miller—former president of the Portland Trail Blazers NBA franchise and founder of Nike's Jordan brand—was a 16-year-old Philadelphia gang member in 1965 when he shot to death a randomly chosen, unarmed teenage boy in response to a previous gang killing. After a stint in juvenile prison, he spent his 20s selling drugs before being incarcerated for armed robbery. Miller recounts how, after getting out, he turned his life around, got an accounting degree, climbed the corporate ladder at Campbell Soup and Kraft, and did business with Michael Jordan—all the while fearing his secret criminal past might be exposed, an anxiety that gave him nightmares and migraines. Punchily coauthored by his daughter Lacy, Miller's gritty picaresque ("I was going to walk in the door, shoot Billy in the leg, and then put the gun to his head and tell him to convince me not to kill him") grows more sedate when he enters the boardroom and starts selling swimwear, but his street persona—brash, ruthless, determined to show no weakness—remains palpable beneath the corporate exterior. The result yields something striking and rare: an immensely gripping business memoir.
