ESPN's Fab 5?

[jfmu]

Grant Hills response to the Fab Five:

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/grant-hills-response-to-jalen-rose/

[GGGG]

See, I thought Jalen's comments about Duke were specifically about what he thought *then,* not what he thinks *now.*

[Pakuni]

It's even more the reason to tell their story. You have so many things going on with them that were also going on in society. It was the perfect storm.

• young brash, black kids who spoke their mind vs the establishment (most white, old men/reporters)
• TALENTED ball players, all of them, all freshmen, just when the NCAA was about to turn a corner and lose a lot of stars to the pros; Webber started that trend
• the rise of hip-hop among all cultures (young whites now listening to it and being accepted nationally)
• money/power mixing hands w/the players
• they hypocrisy of the NCAA re: "amateaur" athletics (did you SEE the chart showing how much UM made pre-FabFive in merchandise?!)

All of this is true, but as PRN correctly noted, these were all done a few years earlier by UNLV.

Young brash black kids who spoke their minds? Check.
Hip hop connection? Check.
Money/power mixing hands? Triple check.
Hypocrisy of NCAA exposed? Triple check.

By the way, Chris Webber hardly started the trend of underclassmen leaving early for the pros.

[JerryWizig]

I enjoyed it tremendously.  As Another posted..thought Jalen Rose's quote at the end summed it up best:  Who won the NCAA 3 years ago?  5 Years ago?  Who started on that North Carolina team we lost to?  Can't remember any of that, but can remember the Fab 5.

Without looking it up I could name the champ three years ago (Kansas), the champ five years ago (Florida) and four of the five starters on that Carolina team (Lynch, Montross, Williams, Phelps), but that's because I'm a college basketball junkie and was obsessed with the NCAA tournament in the early 90s.

I think people remember the Fab Five more because of Chris Webber's timeout. I was watching the documentary with my girlfriend, who is at best a casual college hoops fan, and she remembered the Fab Five but didn't know that they lost to Duke in the national championship the year before. All she remembered was the 1993 championship game. I'm guessing most casual fans are the same way, that the biggest memory of the Fab Five isn't the baggy shorts (which actually made their debut three years earlier with Illinois) or the black socks, it's the timeout.

That being said, it's a remarkable documentary and in my opinion blew the UNLV documentary out of the water. Even though the Fab Five doc had Jalen Rose as an executive producer, I thought it was much more "balanced" than the UNLV one, which just seemed to slurp Tarkanian despite overwhelming evidence that the program wasn't doing things the right way. I would have liked to see more about Ed Martin and more about how devastated the program was after all that came to light, but it was really, really solid.

[ringout]

All of this is true, but as PRN correctly noted, these were all done a few years earlier by UNLV.

Young brash black kids who spoke their minds? Check.
Hip hop connection? Check.
Money/power mixing hands? Triple check.
Hypocrisy of NCAA exposed? Triple check.

By the way, Chris Webber hardly started the trend of underclassmen leaving early for the pros.

Agree Pakuni.  I have always thought the big deal with the Fab Five was their age.  5 freshman starting for a Final Four team.  That will never happen again.

[warthog-driver]

Webber went to Detroit Country Day for chrissakes.

Uh, I don't think his family was living in Birmingham or Gross Pointe...or that Dads was golfing at Lochmoor while Mum was running the Junior Club...

[Pakuni]

On a related note, Grant Hill destroys Rose over the "Uncle Tom" reference:

I am a fan, friend and longtime competitor of the Fab Five. I have competed against Jalen Rose and Chris Webber since the age of 13. At Michigan, the Fab Five represented a cultural phenomenon that impacted the country in a permanent and positive way. The very idea of the Fab Five elicited pride and promise in much the same way the Georgetown teams did in the mid-1980s when I was in high school and idolized them. Their journey from youthful icons to successful men today is a road map for so many young, black men (and women) who saw their journey through the powerful documentary, "The Fab Five."

It was a sad and somewhat pathetic turn of events, therefore, to see friends narrating this interesting documentary about their moment in time and calling me a bitch and worse, calling all black players at Duke "Uncle Toms" and, to some degree, disparaging my parents for their education, work ethic and commitment to each other and to me. I should have guessed there was something regrettable in the documentary when I received a Twitter apology from Jalen before its premiere. I am aware Jalen has gone to some length to explain his remarks about my family in numerous interviews, so I believe he has some admiration for them.

In his garbled but sweeping comment that Duke recruits only "black players that were 'Uncle Toms,' " Jalen seems to change the usual meaning of those very vitriolic words into his own meaning, i.e., blacks from two-parent, middle-class families. He leaves us all guessing exactly what he believes today.

I am beyond fortunate to have two parents who are still working well into their 60s. They received great educations and use them every day. My parents taught me a personal ethic I try to live by and pass on to my children.

I come from a strong legacy of black Americans. My namesake, Henry Hill, my father's father, was a day laborer in Baltimore. He could not read or write until he was taught to do so by my grandmother. His first present to my dad was a set of encyclopedias, which I now have. He wanted his only child, my father, to have a good education, so he made numerous sacrifices to see that he got an education, including attending Yale.

This is part of our great tradition as black Americans. We aspire for the best or better for our children and work hard to make that happen for them. Jalen's mother is part of our great black tradition and made the same sacrifices for him.

My teammates at Duke — all of them, black and white — were a band of brothers who came together to play at the highest level for the best coach in basketball. I know most of the black players who preceded and followed me at Duke. They all contribute to our tradition of excellence on the court.

It is insulting and ignorant to suggest that men like Johnny Dawkins (coach at Stanford), Tommy Amaker (coach at Harvard), Billy King (general manager of the Nets), Tony Lang (coach of the Mitsubishi Diamond Dolphins in Japan), Thomas Hill (small-business owner in Texas), Jeff Capel (former coach at Oklahoma and Virginia Commonwealth), Kenny Blakeney (assistant coach at Harvard), Jay Williams (ESPN analyst), Shane Battier (Memphis Grizzlies) and Chris Duhon (Orlando Magic) ever sold out their race.

To hint that those who grew up in a household with a mother and father are somehow less black than those who did not is beyond ridiculous. All of us are extremely proud of the current Duke team, especially Nolan Smith. He was raised by his mother, plays in memory of his late father and carries himself with the pride and confidence that they instilled in him.

The sacrifice, the effort, the education and the friendships I experienced in my four years are cherished. The many Duke graduates I have met around the world are also my "family," and they are a special group of people. A good education is a privilege.

Just as Jalen has founded a charter school in Michigan, we are expected to use our education to help others, to improve life for those who need our assistance and to use the excellent education we have received to better the world.

A highlight of my time at Duke was getting to know the great John Hope Franklin, John B. Duke Professor of History and the leading scholar of the last century on the total history of African-Americans in this country. His insights and perspectives contributed significantly to my overall development and helped me understand myself, my forefathers and my place in the world.

Ad ingenium faciendum, toward the building of character, is a phrase I recently heard. To me, it is the essence of an educational experience. Struggling, succeeding, trying again and having fun within a nurturing but competitive environment built character in all of us, including every black graduate of Duke.

My mother always says, "You can live without Chaucer and you can live without calculus, but you cannot make it in the wide, wide world without common sense." As we get older, we understand the importance of these words. Adulthood is nothing but a series of choices: you can say yes or no, but you cannot avoid saying one or the other. In the end, those who are successful are those who adjust and adapt to the decisions they have made and make the best of them.

I caution my fabulous five friends to avoid stereotyping me and others they do not know in much the same way so many people stereotyped them back then for their appearance and swagger. I wish for you the restoration of the bond that made you friends, brothers and icons.

I am proud of my family. I am proud of my Duke championships and all my Duke teammates. And, I am proud I never lost a game against the Fab Five.

Grant Henry Hill
Phoenix Suns
Duke '94

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/grant-hills-response-to-jalen-rose/

[El Duderino]

Grant Hills response to the Fab Five:

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/grant-hills-response-to-jalen-rose/

Wasn't Rose though talking about how he felt when he was an 18 year old kid, not how he feels now? That as an 18 year old inner city kid, he viewed Duke as a school for the "elite" kids, not a school where inner city kids like himself were recruited to?

Plus, i'm sure those feelings of Rose when he was a teenager were shared my most other young black kids growing up in inner cities across America as they watched college basketball. They felt that they could relate more to the Fab 5 guys than the Duke kids, including the black Duke kids.

I didn't get to watch the Fab 5 documentary, but i did see the clip where Rose used the Uncle Tom term and in that clip at least, he seemed to be talking in the past tense about his feelings towards Hill and Duke.

[GGGG]

Wasn't Rose though talking about how he felt when he was an 18 year old kid, not how he feels now? That as an 18 year old inner city kid, he viewed Duke as a school for the "elite" kids, not a school where inner city kids like himself were recruited to?

Plus, i'm sure those feelings of Rose when he was a teenager were shared my most other young black kids growing up in inner cities across America as they watched college basketball. They felt that they could relate more to the Fab 5 guys than the Duke kids, including the black Duke kids.

I didn't get to watch the Fab 5 documentary, but i did see the clip where Rose used the Uncle Tom term and in that clip at least, he seemed to be talking in the past tense about his feelings towards Hill and Duke.

That is exactly what I said.  He also talked about how he thought Laettner was a "kitten...until he took the floor against him."

[El Duderino]

We both agree on this Sultan, but in defense of Hill even if he took what Rose said out of context, using the Uncle Tom term seems to be about as bad a thing thing one black person can say about another black person and thus, they take it very very personally.

Granted though, i'm a white guy and just assuming this.

[Niv Berkowitz]

To me, anyone that thinks what Rose was saying in the doc is representative to what he thinks now either a) should re-watch it, or b) watch it for the first time. It's friggin clear that Rose was the most upfront about how he felt as a 19-20 year old kid vs a 38 year old adult with some life experience under his belt. 

Biggest mistake Rose made was the pre-airing apology tweet. Once people/Hill saw that, it gave them carte blance to look for a reason for Rose to apologize and therefore take it in whatever context they wanted. As a result, the Rose detractors missed the point he was making.

And like you said, Rose said that Duke took it to them and beat them. And, it was during the game that he/they realize, 'oh sh!t! Laetner can friggin' play!'.

[HouWarrior]

UNLV's oft suspended NCAA champ team preceded, and exceeded all this, except for the 5 frosh angle. HBO is running the documentary on that in the current show rotation.
How can we forget Billy Packer at the champ game vs. duke gushing how duke deserved the win for their scholars, and doing things right...only to look like he was sucking lemons in the postgame interviews, surrounded by the big winner UNLV players/thugs.....my favorite s%*k it Packer moment!

[Norm]

Everyone knows the "Fab Five," but my guess is 90% of people can't name Jimmy King or Ray Jackson, only Rose, Weber and Howard.

One of my best friends from high school was a walk-on at Michigan and he was the captain of the team when the Fab Five were freshmen. I met up with him after the UM-WI game in Madison that year and talked to him and a couple of the Fab Five for a little while. They were all nice enough guys. According to my buddy, the guy who acted up the most was Juwan Howard, who would threaten to transfer when the coaches came down on him. He must have changed his ways though, because he played for 3 years and then came back and got his degree.

Oh, I can also name all 5 of the starters off that Duke team that destroyed them in the championship game, so I guess that not everybody forgets who it was they lost to.