In the second part of my conversation with Sonny Vaccaro, we discuss the "hunch" that Vaccaro had about Michael Jordan after watching him play at the 1982 NCAA Championship Game in New Orleans. We also discuss the meeting in the Spring of 1984 in which Vaccaro met with Nike's Rob Strasser and Howard Slusher to discuss the brand's basketball strategy moving forward, a meeting that was portrayed in Air. He also details the first time he met Jordan at Tony Roma's in Santa Monica during training camp for the Olympics in the summer of 1984, and the occurrence at the end of that meeting that Vaccaro felt was pivotal to Nike's ability to sign Jordan. "It intrigued the hell out of him," explains Vaccaro.
