Rose not happy with Mary Sue Coleman

The Fab Five era was the most storied period of time for the University of Michigan basketball program. You either loved them or hated them. but they were must see tv. Even though the era was sullied by the Ed Martin scandal, no one will ever forget them.

Due to the aforementioned scandal, the school forfeited wins from the that time period. They also removed the team’s Final Four banners from 1992 and 1993. Technically, Michigan can return the two Fab Five’s 1992 and 1993 Final Four banners to its rafters in 2013, when the school’s disassociation period with Chris Webber ends.   

Jalen Rose has been doing a lot of politicking, trying to get the school to put the banners back up when 2013 rolls around. There hasn’t been any talk about it until today when school president Mary Sue Coleman said the banners won’t be going up anytime soon.

During a fireside chat with students Wednesday, Coleman said “I don’t think they’ll ever go back up.”  


When that statement made it’s way back to Rose, he wasn’t too happy with it.

“I saw that U of Michigan has no plans to put back up our hoops banners,” Rose tweeted. “Should I do like most of its former BBallers & never return?”


“Or should I ask for the $250k I donated for my Endowed Scholarship back & move it to another school? Stay tuned.”


I can understand that it is the moral and ethical thing to do, but what those players did off the court had nothing to do what they did on the court. I still have memories of them going to the Final Four as freshman and sophomores. I remember the dazzling dunks and underrated team play. Love it or hate it, those memories will always be with me. Just like when Reggie Bush had to surrender his Heisman, I don’t agree with it. The house he was hooked up with had nothing to do with that memorable touchdown run against Fresno State. Even though there was no wrongdoing uncovered, do you think UNLV is giving back that championship from 1990? No.

I speak from both sides of the fence on this topic because I believe that in some way shape or form, everyone cheats. While Coleman is doing the honorable thing, the banners should go back up in the future.

Jalen Rose wants the banners back up in 2013

The Ed martin scandal kept a black cloud over the Michigan basketball program for over a decade. That cloud is now finally being lifted and Michigan basketball is relevant once again.

The violations from the Fab Five era and a handful of others resulted in probation and shame. The administration took down the Final Four banners, a Big Ten tournament banner and vacated wins from those years. The university also disassociated itself from players involved in the scandal, mainly Chris Webber, the late Robert Traylor, Maurice Taylor, and Louis Bullock among others until 2013.

Jalen Rose played on the Fab Five teams and is now an analyst for ESPN. Rose was a commentator for the Illinois-Michigan game tonight and had some things to say about the immediate future regarding the Michigan program. He wants to see those banners back up.

“Of course, I’m a Michigan fan. I’m an alumnus, I have an endowment at the University,” he said tonight before broadcasting the Michigan-Illinois game at Assembly Hall. “I bleed maize and blue. I want our banners back up in January 2013. Of course I do.”

Looking up at the large ring of honor at Assembly Hall and seeing dozens of banners for a program with less history than U-M got him going.


“Look around this arena, see how they appreciate their players, what they brought to the table,” he said. “Ninety percent of those guys, you don’t even know who they are. That’s an appreciation they show their players. Michigan has retired (five) jerseys in their lifetime, been to six Final Fours and I was playing in two of them.”


“I hope so, I think so, I have a lot of faith,” he said. “I really like Mary Sue Coleman, the president and obviously Dave Brandon, the AD.”


Rose can keep hoping because I think the current administration won’t want to bring up the past. I would like to see the banners restored, but I just don’t think that’ll happen. They’ll probably stay locked up in the basement of the library.

Coach K Blasts Rose, Michigan

Let me preface my comments with this…Mike Krzyzewski is a snobbish, self-serving, condescending, self-righteous, egomaniacal, little troll. His holier than thou Duke attitude smells of jealousy and smarminess because he feels that nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody, should be talking about any other university but Duke when it comes to college basketball. And it almost seems as if he feels that Duke is THE basketball university in the NCAA and that nobody should look at his recruiting under the microscope while Jalen Rose suggests that Krzyzewski discriminates against inner city kids. It’s funny to me that Krzyzewski, who’s from Chicago which is an inner city full of basketball talent, cannot find players from his own backyard that he can recruit successfully, even missing the boat on potential NBA MVP Derrick Rose, now of the Chicago Bulls, and Juwan Howard, both from Krzyzewski’s hometown. Krzyzewski even goes so far to claim that Duke recruited Chris Webber, well I don’t hear Chris Webber coming out and backing that claim, nor do I see Krzyzewski pulling out anything showing the proof of recruitment to Chris Webber that he so “frankly” claims. What I do hear is the troll, aka Coach K, babbling out of the side of his mouth with his whiny voice and talking down the basketball program at the University of Michigan and the Fab Five’s legacy. Regardless of their inability to finish an NCAA tournament on top to close out their college careers and with the timeout that never was in 1993…sorry Chris Webber, the Fab Five’s impact on the young and old college basketball fans of all races (not just African American), is a part of history that may never repeat itself. Talent like that can’t be harvested all at once in one school so we have to appreciate it when we can, no matter the result of it.

In closing, I would like to express my sheer delight in seeing Duke get their collective asses handed to them by Arizona, thank you Wildcats! Suck on that bit of history “Coach K”!

Krzyzewski had some comments regarding Rose’s comments about Duke when he was an impressionable youngster in high school. More about the “Uncle Tom” comments than anything. To me this is nothing more than piling on. Personally I’m tired of hearing of it. What do you think Kentucky players were privately thinking before they played Texas Western back in 1965. Do you think they still harbor those same feelings? I don’t think so. Rose admitted that he said it and that’s how he thought back in 1992, when he was 18. Just because he was young doesn’t make it right, but I understand.

Here’s what the mighty Coach K had to say about Rose and Michigan.

“We were very successful against them and, to be quite frank with you, we recruited Chris Webber,” he said. “I didn’t recruit Jalen Rose because we had Grant Hill and I’m happy with that. We didn’t look at the other, Juwan Howard [because] we knew he wasn’t going to come to Duke. The other two kids we didn’t think were the caliber that could play as well as Thomas Hill and Brian Davis and Billy McCaffery. They’re good kids. They were good kids.”



“They had a heck of a run but, they didn’t leave anything, they didn’t establish anything there,” Krzyzewski said. “The guys that I had established something that Jay Williams continued to do 10 years later — the standards of what it meant to be a Duke basketball player.”

What was said there pretty much validates what Rose was saying and how he felt. At this point it’s just piling on. Where was Krzyzewski when the documentary first came out? He waits until his squad gets eliminated then he comes out and says something. How macho is that?

Of course I don’t think anyone that reads this to agree with what I said here, but it’s done and over and it’s time to put this subject to rest.
     

Jalen Rose Arrested For DUI

Jalen Rose has been under attack ever since the ‘Fab Five’ documentary came out, but that’s another subject for another day. Now he has to fight a DUI charge from earlier this month.

Rose was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of drunken driving. Law enforcement sources say the 38-year-old former NBA star was driving along an icy roadway on March 11 when he lost control of his vehicle and crashed.

West Bloomfield Township Police Lt. Tim Diamond said Tuesday that Rose was arrested around 2 a.m. March 11. He’s accused of operating a vehicle while impaired.

Not the kind of publicity that Rose was looking for.
Mug shot courtesy of tmz.com

Rose Aims To Smooth Things Over With Hill

Jalen Rose said he wants to give Grant Hill a hug, talk things over and continue a good relationship with the former Duke star. Rose also said the media and the public sensationalized him calling Hill “an Uncle Tom” during the ESPN Fab Five documentary he produced.

In the detnews.com article, Rose said that people made too much of the controversial comment.

“Please stress I was discussing what I said or thought as a high school recruit,” Rose said. “People say that I am a racist. Well the last time I checked I am black and he (Hill) was black. If anything, it was a social economic issue. I was an urban youth and I said I was jealous of that. I was motivated by that.

“Now at the point I am in life, I want that for my family. The way his family raised him is the way I am trying to raise my kids. So for people to fast forward saying that what I believed as a kid is the same I believe as an adult is ignorant.”


This may sound biased, but you can’t say this is how a man feels twenty years down the road. True, Rose had some disparaging things to say back then. Key words “back then”. Stop jumping down this man’s throat for something he felt as a youth. I’m sure there are many of us in white and black America who may have thought ill of someone you thought was “trying to be black” or “acting white”. It still goes on today.

What he said wasn’t right but at least he had the guts to say it where others keep their feelings in the closet.

Would Duke have gone after Rose, a top-10 player, if he had the perfect background? Yes. Would Hill have been on Duke’s list if he came from Rose’s background? No, and therein lies Rose’s point. Class and race play a factor in whom Duke chooses to recruit.