Forgotten Michael Jordan teammate unrecognizable as restaurant chain CEO | CPT PPP Coverage

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RUSTY LaRue was expecting to play for Idaho Stampede of the lowly Continental Basketball Association during the 1997-98 basketball season.

Instead, the journeyman improbably won an NBA title playing alongside Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen during the Chicago Bulls’ famed Last Dance.

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A gifted student-athlete at Wake Forest, LaRue was invited to the Bulls training camp in the summer of 1997 but was waived before the team’s first preseason game.

The point guard was then selected by Idaho in the CBA expansion draft but an injury to Bulls guard Steve Kerr changed his life forever.

LaRue was called up by Bulls general manager Jerry Krause to fill in for Kerr and he ended up on Chicago’s active roster for 17 games, playing in 14 of them.

Although he spent the rest of the season on the injured list and did not make the playoff roster, he still won an NBA ring and got a front-row seat to Jordan’s Last Dance.

At a team dinner shortly after the season ended, Bulls coach Phil Jackson asked each player to give a toast. 

LaRue said his toast was to the team “for basically ruining the rest of my career, because it was all downhill from there.” 

The point guard remained at the rebuilding Bulls for two further seasons and briefly played for the Utah Jazz and Golden State Warriors before retiring in 2004.

In total, LaRue played just 98 NBA games but he had a championship ring to show for his efforts.

After retiring, LaRue got into coaching at the high school and collegiate level, including a role as an assistant at Wake Forest.

In 2018, he became the chief operating officer of Dairi-O, a restaurant chain with eight franchises in North Carolina.

“When I decided that I was finished coaching, I knew that I wanted to lean on my business education to go in a new direction,” said LaRue.

“After starting to investigate new opportunities like financial management, I eventually met the owner of Dairi-O Restaurants at a men’s breakfast. 

“Before long I was given the opportunity to become an owner and operator and now after three years, I am now….the chief operations officer of all eight locations throughout the Triad area.”