Superlatives of every sort greeted the announcement that basketball's superstar Michael Jordan will retire. But the impressive numbers should not be allowed to obscure several important cautionary lessons. PNS contributor Earl Ofari Hutchinson is the author of "The Crisis in Black and Black."

The praise heaped on NBA superstar Michael Jordan with announcement of his retirement is well deserved. But it should not obscure the fact that his fortune and fame profited wealthy white owners and a few black superstars, disguised continuing and blatant racism within sport, and sowed the fields of delusions among many young blacks.

Jordan is more than just a once-in-a-lifetime gifted athlete. He has been a fabulous source of cash to team owners, TV executives, and corporations. He generated an estimated $100-$200 million, or 10 to 30 percent of the NBA's annual $2 billion in revenue.

He caused millions of viewers to tune into NBA games, which meant millions more in advertising revenue -- and paved the way for the four-year $2.64 billion contract involving the league, NBC and TNT in 1997 -- more than double the preceding years' figures. He bagged $3 billion more for the NBA off the merchandising of basketball gear, and topped that with $10 billion more for corporations using his name in the sale of books, movies, men's fashions, and toiletries. NIKE has especially reaped largesse from Jordan's name. In the last decade, the company raked in $2.6 billion in sales from Air Jordan basketball shoes and rewarded him with the post of CEO of its "Brand Jordan" division.

All this brought Jordan, and a handful of NBA superstars, wealth beyond their imagination. But it masked the fact that the average NBA player's pay was much closer to the league's minimum of $275, 000 -- in a league where team owners routinely boast that their players make millions yearly. It also hid the naked exploitation of many of the league's grunts -- who are cut and traded, often harassed and intimidated by owners, coaches, and managers, and eventually dumped with little savings and few career prospects.

As for racism, Jordan may have been the NBA's top attraction, but he was still an employee of the Chicago Bulls and made no management decisions. Blacks make up 79 percent of the players in the NBA, 70 percent in the NFL, and 20 percent in major league baseball, but their chances of owning, running, managing -- indeed, of working in any non-player capacity for pro teams once their playing days are over -- are dismal.

In 1998 there were no black owners of any football, basketball or baseball teams. There are a few black managers in baseball, a few black general managers in basketball, but the virtual absence of black head coaches in pro football is an abomination. Between 1996 and 1998, 21 NFL teams hired head coaches, none were black.

In all of football, there were no black team doctors -- there was one in baseball -- and all major sports employ only a handful of black team trainers. Almost all black athletes are represented by white agents.

But this is not how non-players make the big money. In 1996, pro owners bagged $14 billion in fees for product marketing, franchising, leasing and licensing -- yet stayed deaf to complaints that they've done nothing to create more opportunities for blacks to get a piece of that action. Finally, there is the matter of "fields of delusions." Thousands of young blacks fervently believe that they can follow Jordan's super fast track to the pinnacle of the sports world. This is a myth.

The chance of a black high school athlete making it in major pro sports is one in 18,000. Only about 2 percent of the estimated 10, 000 college football seniors are drafted by the NFL. The odds are 250 to 1 that the wannabe Jordans will ever don an NBA jersey.

NBA owners, TV and corporate executives, should have bowed down in gratitude to Jordan for delivering the goods.

But for the aspiring Air Jordans and the rest of us, the real goods -- such as education, professional and business opportunities, and the chance to confront the rampant racism in sport -- remain just as elusive as ever.