If only Michigan and the NCAA – all of us, really – had a bit of the perspective they should.
Chris Webber was 13 years old, just a junior high prodigy, when Ed Martin first approached him.
Ed Martin wasn’t just a grown man; he was a savvy, smart, tough and charismatic presence who used all of those traits to become a career criminal. Martin ran a numbers racket out of the Detroit-area Ford plants.
It’s a somewhat harmless crime – the city now has three legal casinos, after all – but it also isn’t a job you get by answering the want ads. It’s highly lucrative and you only pull off moving from working the line to running the book (and then keeping it) by being intelligent, intimidating, crafty and cunning. Someone is always coming for you.
In short, Ed Martin was a big-time dude. And everyone paying attention knew it. What he wanted, he got, and what he most often wanted was a friendship with young basketball stars in Detroit.
Chris Webber was the biggest star.