Michael Jordan

As a sophomore at Laney High School in Wilmington, North Carolina, Michael Jordan was left off the varsity basketball roster. He spent the season on the junior varsity team and, by his own account, used the snub as fuel for the rest of his career. It became the founding story of a competitor who turned every slight, real or imagined, into motivation.

He was born at 1:40 p.m. on February 17, 1963, in Brooklyn, New York, according to his birth certificate, and his family moved to North Carolina when he was a small child. His Sun sits at the end of Aquarius in the ninth house. Aquarius is the sign of the unusual and the original, and the ninth governs far horizons, travel and reputation abroad. Astrologers would read an Aquarius Sun in the ninth as someone whose identity extends far beyond home, and Jordan became arguably the first truly global basketball star, the face of the sport from Chicago to Beijing.

The career moved quickly. As a freshman at the University of North Carolina he hit the winning shot in the 1982 national championship game. The Chicago Bulls drafted him third overall in 1984, and within a few seasons he was the most exciting player in the league. Then came the titles: three straight from 1991 to 1993, then three more from 1996 to 1998, with Finals MVP each time.

Cancer is rising, which tends to describe someone protective, loyal and acutely sensitive to how they are treated, a sensitivity that can harden into a long memory for slights. The documentary series The Last Dance in 2020 showed exactly that side of him, a man still recalling decades-old grievances with undimmed relish.

Mars, the planet of drive and competition, is retrograde in Leo in the second house, which is concerned with money and self-worth. Leo is proud and wants to be seen; in the second, that pride is tied to value. It fits a player whose competitive drive extended to business. His shoe deal with Nike, beginning with the Air Jordan in 1985, grew into one of the most valuable athlete brands in history, and he later became majority owner of the Charlotte Hornets.

His Moon is in Sagittarius in the sixth house, the house of daily work and training. Sagittarius Moons love freedom and competition and need to be in motion, and in the sixth they find comfort in practice. Teammates have described practices that were often more intense than games. The same restlessness showed up off the court, in the famous high-stakes golf and card games.

In 1993, after his father's murder, Jordan stepped away from basketball and spent a season playing minor-league baseball. He came back in 1995 with a two-word fax: "I'm back." The three titles that followed made the comeback the most successful second act in sports, and the high school sophomore who did not make the team had become the standard everyone else is measured against.