Chairman of Jordan Brand Larry Miller Reveals He Killed a Man and Kept it a Secret for Decades

"If I could go back and undo it, I would absolutely do that," Larry Miller said of his decades-long secret

Larry Miller. Photo: Adam Pantozzi/getty

Larry Miller, chairman of the Jordan Brand, is ready to tell the world about his past.

Ahead of his forthcoming autobiography Jump: My Secret Journey From the Streets to the Boardroom, which was co-written by his daughter Laila Lacy, the Nike executive disclosed in an interview with Sports Illustrated a secret that he has been keeping to himself for decades.

As a 16-year-old in 1965, Miller shot an 18-year-old man. He served prison time for the crime, and expressed deep regret in his interview with Sports Illustrated, saying that 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."

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 is opening up about his past now, more than 50 years later, with hopes of helping at-risk youth and incarcerated people.

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"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."

Before the article was published Wednesday, Miller told friends and colleagues including Nike founder Phil Knight, NBA commissioner Adam Silver and Michael Jordan, who Miller said he was especially nervous to tell.

"I was definitely nervous about sharing with him, just because I have so much respect and love for MJ," he said of telling the NBA legend.

But Miller has been "blown away by how positive the response has been," he said, adding that opening up has been a "freeing exercise."

Miller goes into more detail in his book, and while he admitted it was "a really difficult decision" to tell his story, he told Sports Illustrated: "I feel the freedom now to be me."