May 2011 - Jefferson County Public Schools

The “Fab Five” Controversy
By Bryan Allen
For the 1991-1992 college basketball
season, Michigan Wolverines and Coach James
Fisher had recruited maybe the best class in college
basketball history. With Chris Webber, Jalen Rose,
Juwan Howard, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson,
people knew that they were in for a treat.
that he made were very ignorant. A lot of people
were very upset with Jalen and the Fab Five’s harsh
comments.
Bringing a hip-hop flavor to the game of
basketball with their trash talking, baggy shorts,
black shoes, and black socks, they were often
criticized of being thugs, getting a lot of attention
from the media. Their story was made into a
documentary on ESPN. The Fab Five was the
highest rated ESPN film ever made, and included
two of the highest rated teams in their NCAA
championship games. Even losing in both
championship games in 1992 and 1993, this team
will always be remembered for having five
freshmen dominating college basketball. All five
players were drafted to the NBA, four of them first
round top ten picks.
In the documentary, the players expressed
their feelings about the Duke Blue Devils players
and program. The comment that was made by
Jalen Rose caused a lot of commotion, “I hated
Duke. I felt like they only recruited black players
that were Uncle Tom’s.” Former Duke Forward,
NBA star
Grant Hill and
Duke’s head
coach, Coach
K, feels that
the
comments
Jalen knew that people were going to keep
bringing this situation up, so he appeared on ESPN
show, 30 for 30, to clarify what he was saying.
“Well, certain schools recruit a typical kind of
player whether the world admits it or not. And
Duke is one of those schools. They recruit black
players from polished families, accomplished
families. And that’s fine. That’s okay. But when
you’re an inner city kid playing in a public school
league, you know that certain schools aren’t going
to recruit you. That’s one. And I’m okay with it.
That’s how I felt as an 18 year old kid.”
For a while now, this conflict has died
down. There are still many people that disagree
with Rose, but there are some people that
understand what he is saying. Keep tuning in to
ESPN and espn.com for updates on this story.
Sources:
Info: www.sportsgrid.com,
Pics: www.google.com