Larry Miller, chairman of the Jordan Brand, has revealed that when he was a teenager he killed a man and served prison time for the crime.
The revelation comes ahead of the release of his autobiography “Jump: My Secret Journey From the Streets to the Boardroom,” which was co-written by his daughter Laila Lacy.
Miller was 16 at the time when he fatally shot the 18-year-old male. Speaking to Sports Illustrated, Miller said the shooting “was for no reason at all.”
“I mean, there was no valid reason for this to happen. And that’s the thing that I really struggle with and that’s—you know, it’s the thing that I think about every day,” he said. “It’s like, I did this, and to someone who—it was no reason to do it. And that’s the part that really bothers me.”
Here’s more from PEOPLE:
The shooting occurred on Sept. 30, 1965, when Miller and other members of West Philadelphia’s Cedar Avenue gang went out looking for retribution after one of their own had been killed in a fight by the 53rd and Pine gang. Miller shot the first person he and his fellow gang members came across, an 18-year-old later identified as Edward White.
“We were all drunk,” Miller told Sports Illustrated of that night. “I was in a haze. Once it kind of set in, I was like, ‘Oh, shit, what have I done?’ It took years for me to understand the real impact of what I had done.”
Miller hopes his tale will help at-risk youth.
“If I could go back and undo it, I would absolutely do that,” he told Sports Illustrated. “I can’t. So all I can do is try to do what I can to help other people and try to maybe prevent this from happening to someone else.”
Miller said he was nervous to share his secret with NBA icon Michael Jordan.
“I was definitely nervous about sharing with him, just because I have so much respect and love for MJ,” he said. But Miller has been “blown away by how positive the response has been,” he said.
“I feel the freedom now to be me,” he told Sports Illustrated.