Odds are at some point in your life you've not been the best athlete in the room. Whether it was some dude on your varsity team who could windmill dunk from a standstill position, or a buddy who could make Odell Beckham-esque catches in backyard games, we've all been that guy (or girl) who looked like a clown in comparison to a more physically coordinated superior.
It can be embarrassing.
But those people who made you look like you couldn't tie your shoes were nothing compared to the world class talent on the set of Space Jam (which is probably the most obvious line in the world to anybody who knows what Space Jam is). Vice sat down and talked to Wayne Knight, (who you likely know as Newman from Seinfeld, or dork who gets eaten in Jurassic Park) and asked him what he thought about Michael Jordan as an actor. Knight artfully dodged that question, and instead gave his thoughts on what it's like to be a normal guy in the vicinity of MJ during his '90s peak:
"...I knew that as a physical specimen, I thought that he was the most incredible human being I'd ever seen. He had, like, muscles inside of muscles. In his calf, he had kind of like a "sproing" muscle. Where he would leap and then—sproing!—and he could go flying. And he was working out at the same time, 'cause they built him a gym, and he had all these guys coming in and going one-on-one with him and playing full-court basketball with him. And then you've got him and Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing and Muggsy Bogues and all these people hanging out, and it's just the weirdest... Here I am, this short, fat character actor who's not really the most athletically inclined person that you would imagine.
People ask me, "Did you play any basketball with him?" I wouldn't even touch a basketball next to those guys. Are you kidding me? If they passed it to me, I would walk away. I didn't want to be seen touching it."
And there you have it. If a guy like Wayne Knight has been humbled in the company of athletic greatness then, honestly, it can happen to anybody.
Just a part of life...
