Early in September, Marcus Jordan stopped by his basketball coach's office at Central Florida to ask if he could leave campus for a weekend function. There was one glitch. Jordan had to leave on a Friday and miss some classes.

UCF coach Kirk Speraw said Jordan nervously approached him. "Marcus said, 'I talked to my teachers and they said it was OK,' " Speraw said. " 'You see my dad was wondering if maybe I could go to the Basketball Hall of Fame.' "

Jordan wanted to attend the induction of his famous father, Michael Jordan, into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame. The coach's decision to let him go was a no-brainer, but he said Jordan's deferential manner took him aback. "It wasn't an expectation," Speraw said. "He didn't want any special treatment."

Jordan, 18, credits his parents for instilling humility in him, brother Jeff, 21, a junior on the Illinois basketball team, and sister Jasmine, 16.

"I'm privileged, but I'm not spoiled," Jordan said in October.

"There's no sense of entitlement with the kids," his mother, Juanita, said in a phone interview. "I wouldn't have it."

Some writers and bloggers depicted Jordan as spoiled when a controversy erupted because he's wearing Air Jordan shoes — the brand his father made famous for Nike— instead of school-issued Adidas. A Toledo Blade column said he "insisted on wearing his daddy's Nike Air Jordan brand shoes. … Nike will probably ride to the school's rescue, but in the meantime, somebody slap that kid." The website Deadspin wrote, "Marcus started his college career with a bang by humiliating his program."

He wore the Air Jordans with the school's blessing, Speraw said, adding that administrators had worked out an exception with Adidas. But after this school year, the business deal will end, Adidas spokeswoman Andrea Corso confirmed Wednesday. The parties had agreed earlier this year to a five-year extension worth $500,000 a year.

UCF declined to make Jordan, a backup point guard struggling because of injuries, available for comment. In an interview before the shoe controversy, he talked about growing up Jordan. He and his brother, natives of the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, were not steered into the sport, he said. Actually their desire to play worried their mom a bit. "My biggest concern is they would constantly be compared to (their father), which is unfair," his mother said.

Sure enough, it happened. Jordan said he had to put up with reminders from his peers and sometimes adults that he would never measure up to his father, who declined through his publicist to be interviewed.

"You get a lot of criticism," Jordan said. "I learned that I'm Marcus Jordan. I'm going to play my basketball. I'm not going to be Michael Jordan Jr."

Being two years younger than his brother, Jordan watched Jeff experience the hype first. Since middle school, they have drawn crowds based on their name alone.

"He went through everything before I went through everything," Jordan said. "I could sit back and look at what was going on with him and know what was going to happen to me. He doesn't even know it, but he taught me a lot."

Jeff, a little-used reserve at Illinois for two seasons, left his team last summer, saying he wanted to focus on academics. He rejoined the team in October. Jeff has not been made available for interviews, but when asked about the player's reason for leaving, coach Bruce Weber said, "It's very hard being Jeffrey Jordan. The expectations …"

Their mother doesn't believe Jeff felt too much pressure but instead looked at life beyond basketball. Jeff did an internship with Nike last summer and is considering adding a business minor to his psychology major, she said.

Their father made a passing reference to the expectations heaped on his sons in his Hall of Fame speech when he said, "I wouldn't want to be you guys."

Marcus Jordan said he understood the message: "He meant to say there's a lot of pressure with being Michael Jordan's son or Michael Jordan's daughter. He was trying to relay exactly how hard it is being who we are and dealing with all those pressures."

The assumption is that the father has been the biggest influence in basketball and life, but their mother has had as big a role, Marcus said. With his father, an executive with the Charlotte Bobcats, often on the road, his mother has been a constant presence, Jordan said. "She's my No. 1 fan," he said. "She's at all the games. She's always been there for me in basketball and off the court."

That's not saying he has an absentee father. When his parents divorced in 2006, "it was important to their dad, even though this was happening, that we would still be a family," his mother said.

While they tell him to work hard in basketball, they continually remind him of a bigger picture, Jordan said.

"They both actually instill in me that just because of who I am, that doesn't mean I'm going to get everything I want, and that I still have to work hard for everything I want."

Enlarge By Chris Livingston for USA TODAY Marcus Jordan, the teenage son of NBA legend Michael Jordan, has been hampered by injuries in his first season at Central Florida.