Jeffery Jordan wants you to call him Jeff.

He’s a slight kid for a basketball player, unassuming and easily lost among the dozen or so athletes in the gym for a Monday afternoon workout. He’s 6-foot-1 – the way Dee Brown is 6-feet – and at 170 pounds weighs the least of any Illini basketball player. The primary feature he’s picked up from his famous father might just be his lean, slight build. That, and his bright inviting eyes.

Three TV stations, a radio guy and a handful of newspaper reporters have been loitering in the hallway of the Ubben Basketball Complex for 15 minutes or so, waiting for strength coach Jimmy Price to announce the end of a session of crunches and calisthenics. The reporters are technically on hand to talk to all six Illini newcomers, but most of their stories will focus on Jordan. First, though, they have to figure out which one he is.

An athletic department staffer points him out, and a camera or two head in his direction. He doesn’t squint in the spotlight the way fellow freshman Demitri McCamey does or visibly recoil like junior college transfer Rodney Alexander will in a few minutes when the whole media contingent will corner him in a hallway. Jordan just starts talking, instantly, with an ease that says he’s done this before.

“I came here on my unofficial visit, and I liked the campus. I felt I wanted to be at a bigger school,” he tells a TV reporter. “That mixed in with coming in here, playing with the guys, it just felt right.”

He’s just finished Day Two of Week Two of summer conditioning, and stands in the gym among his new teammates, lingering by the Gatorade jug as they wait for the rest of the players to arrive for an afternoon pick-up game.

Jordan says he wants to be just another college kid, although the giant photos of him in local newspapers this week might foreshadow the challenges he’ll face in keeping a low profile. He says workouts have been intense, but fun. He’s taking RHET 105 and RST 100 this summer, and laughs off the idea of a lumbering bodyguard following close behind on the way to class.

“I want to come in and be just like everybody else, so I won’t have anything too far out of the ordinary,” Jordan says. “Anybody can come up, approach me, whatever.”

Jordan admits, though, that there are some perks to being the heir to His Airness. He won’t be required to live in campus dorms as a freshman, and instead has an on-campus apartment near several other basketball players.

On the court, though, he knows he faces an uphill battle. Many recruiting analysts expected Jordan to sign at a smaller school, although Illini coach Bruce Weber’s history of producing NBA guards was a certain bonus for Illinois.

The Loyola Academy graduate says his goal for his freshman season is to push himself and push other players in practice, hopefully earning some playing time along the way. He does not dismiss the possibility of redshirting, and readily admits that he’ll have to fight hard for playing time. He says he’s used to having a lot to live up to.

“The worst thing about my dad being Michael Jordan is probably expectations, other people’s expectations,” Jordan says. “On the court and off the court.”