1987 was a pretty good year for then San Marcos High School senior Steve Tidd. He took his future wife Jennifer to the prom and something else pretty big happened on campus.
“Michael Jordan came to our high school, look it up, it’s there,” Tidd told NBC 7.
It’s true. In 1987 Michael Jordan filmed a televised sports special called “War of the Stars” where he was slamming and jamming in the old San Marcos high gym. Steve and Jennifer actually had front row seats, sitting on the basketball gym floor just a few feet away from the Chicago Bulls All-Star guard.
“We were late, but it ended up being one of the best seats in the house, right on the floor!”
Tidd say’s Jordan’s athletic greatness was on full display.
“You could just see his moves and what he could do with his body, he could almost jump out of the building, it was amazing,” he remembered.
Adding to the amazement was the fact that Jordan was playing a game against Hollywood stars Martin and Charlie Sheen. Among the many funny things in the video, Charlie Sheen actually had a nice jumper and Jordan drove to the school in a bright red Volkswagen GTI. These classic moments can still be seen on YouTube and a few VHS copies of the show are floating around San Marcos.
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“I was laughing at Jordan driving the Volkswagen, I was like ‘What?’” Tidd said.
Another big “what,” was what in the world was Air Jordan even doing there?
Remember, in 1987, San Marcos High School was a small school, and North County urban sprawl was still years away, so San Marcos was kind of a remote place.
So how did the show happen to take place at San Marcos High School? Well, it turns out that when nearby La Costa Resort would host their annual celebrity golf tournaments in the 1980’s, stars would film all sorts of sports specials at San Marcos high. At the time, those were the closest sports facilities to La Costa and Jordan actually made multiple visits to the school.
Roger Dicarlo, a longtime girls basketball coach and teacher at San Marcos, said ”Jordan came back two or three more times, I know he interviewed George Gervin there, Elvin Hayes there, he came back later and did a H-O-R-S-E competition against the actor Elliot Gould.”
DiCarlo had heard stories about Jordan’s visits and dug up the old videos after watching the recent Jordan documentary on ESPN.
“It’s kind of cool to see that, how many people can say the best player in the world was in your facility three or four times,” he said.
