My People
In order to deliver the best online newspaper in the world on time this month, I was going to make this article short as possible. But I would be doing myself, my peers, the Fab Five, hoop fans, and anyone else who was alive during this era, a disservice, if I don’t give some detail on these guys’ impact and legacy
To put that in perspective, I wanted to be Chris Webber, not just play like him, I wanted to be him. I had the bald head, the black socks, jersey number four, and I figured we were about the same skin complexion, in case, you know, they need me to play him in a movie or something. Scary I know, but that’s the Beetle’s like effect that they had on kids like myself. We were seeing young black men having fun, being successful, and making they own rules along the way. And we wanted to do the same thing.
That leads me to the reason why I wrote this article, because surrounding the look, was an attitude, some ideas and innovation. There were also opinions about the players, and what people thought they represented. Some of those opinions were shared by the former Michigan players in the documentary. One particular statement stood out, regarding Duke University and their recruitment of black basketball players. Grant Hill was targeted when describing who those players were. Jalen Rose said “For me Duke was personal, I hated Duke, and hated everything I felt Duke stood for. Schools like Duke didn’t recruit players like me, I felt like they only recruited black players that were…..Uncle Toms.”