The Fab Five

Last Sunday, I watched the documentary on the Fab Five that aired on ESPN. When I heard about it (while listening to a Bill Simmons podcast with Jalen Rose), I immediately went to my smart phone, accessed the calender feature, and entered the date and time onto my calender. There was absolutely no way I was going to miss this. Yes. I used my digital planner to keep track of a TV show- only because we don't have Tivo.

In the interest of journalistic integrity (although I am neither a journalist nor a person of integrity), I should here admit my rather large bias in assessing the Fab Five documentary. I am a white kid who used to be a die-hard U-M fan, and was in my fresh formative sports years when the Fab Five hit the scene. I understand that I forfeit my objectivity, and I accept that lot. So when I weigh in the documentary itself, as well as the racial discussion it has sparked- I realize the lens that I see through will have some fingerprints on it....and what's this, an eyelash?

Let me just say, I absolutely loved this documentary. It was everything I thought it would be- and more. This was like having nostalgia pumped directly into my blood stream. See I was in 6th grade when the Fab Five started playing collegiate basketball for the University of Michigan. Before then, I was mostly a bookworm who would play in the occasional backyard football game but was by and large not very interested (or knowledgeable) about sports.

I don't want to say that I started shooting hoops because C-Webb was throwing down vicious dunks. And I didn't start watching ESPN all the time because Jalen threw a sweet alley-oop to Jimmy King. But they were definitely a very present entity during that time, and because of the association, they have become permanently etched in my mind as this very mythic entity that destroyed crops and burned villages.

Of course, several articles that I have read, including this one and this one, make reference to the influence of the Fab Five as being overstated- that the early 1980's Georgetown teams were bringing hip/hop blackness to college b-ball a decade before the Wolverines. By and large, I cannot truly comment on that, because I was like 4 years old when Patrick Ewing started rocking the gray t-shirt under his jersey. And even now, I can't watch basketball from the 1980s- those shorts are just too damn depressing.

Looking at their accolades on paper, I suppose I have to admit that it was pretty impressive what was accomplished there at G-town (basketball wise- I really have no idea what kind of cultural impact they had). Three title games in four years- and an actual championship game win. A win. Man, I would kill to have a vacated championship game win from the Fab Five years.

But Patty Ewing never did what the Fab Five did. Georgetown did not start five freshmen the year Michael Jordan drove a dagger through their hearts. The Hoyas did not repeat their title game run as sophomores- Georgetown did not return to the NCAA's final game until Ewing's junior season- when they won it all over Phi Slamma Jamma.

I'm not trying to rag on the Hoyas place in hoops history- far from it. It was as impressive of a four-year run as anyone, especially in the rugged Big East. I'm just saying that there has been some who question the credentials of the Fab Five, calling them "style over substance". True, they did not win any Big Ten championships (in those two seasons there were some extremely tough upperclassmen-led teams) or National titles. But can we just get past all of that "who has the bigger loaf of da french bread" for a second and reflect on what they did accomplish?

Besides, from my corner, the Fab Five had a huge impact on the culture. Granted, my own little corner of the world was a slightly rural and Caucasian town in the middle of Michigan- but still, I'd bet my 1992 not-there-anymore Final Four ring that there were tons of other little towns all over the United States, just like mine, where groups of mini-Fab Fives were springing up all over the place. I remember baggy shorts, bald heads, and black Nike socks becoming the popular thing for the middle school basketball player. Whether those things existed before doesn't matter necessarily, because it was the Fab Five that took them to the place of being 8th grade popular.

But all of those things are merely fashion. They Fab Five took the fashion- and made it smashin'. (In the context of my poorly conceived rhyme, smashin' is equivalent to doing something well). At a time in life when most freshmen are trying to escape swirlies, being stuffed into lockers, or being hung from flag poles, these guys were going all the way to the NCAA title game and taking a half-time lead over the defending champs. (Wait a minute, that doesn't happen to college freshmen? Yeah, I doubt it.) Having a freshman make an impact on the tournament scene was nothing new- in fact, the Georgetown Hoyas themselves got to the championship game in 1982 largely on the exploits of super frosh Patrick Ewing and lost that game because of the 18 foot jump shot from another super freshman...some random guy forgotten by history now, his name isn't important, so let's move on. Freshmen, while young and soft and squishy, can be contributing members of good basketball teams.

But having an entire starting line-up of freshmen- that was (and is) unprecedented. And sure, they played like a young AND-1 team- Jason Whitlock says that the Fab Five were "immature, arrogant", and basically undisciplined, and thus lost to teams like Duke and Indiana that were "structured, disciplined, well-coached". What Mr. Whitlock forgets to mention is that these teams prominently featured upperclassmen and experienced coaches. It's pretty easy to pick on Steve Fisher and his band of merry-men, but the fact is that they were growing-ups playing against grown-ups...and they held their own, all the way to the (almost) top.

To come back and do it again as sophomores is even more impressive, because at that point they had the target on their backs and a nation of haters just waiting for them to fall. By this time, I was starting my journey of actually watching basketball- a journey that would ultimately crescendo with me video-taping virtually the entire 2000-2001 season.

Anyways, the documentary really took me back to that place where I was so wide-eyed and innocent, and walked me down the lane of memories. For two hours on a Sunday night in March, I got to be a 6th grader again, gazing at the wonder set before me, watching the high flying theatrics from my own personal Justice League. I absolutely loved watching all of the in-game footage- especially the behind the scenes stuff (and the high school/middle school footage, like when C-Webb dunked the ball during the midget league game...or was that middle school?). But the real beauty of the documentary was that I was able to experience that with the wisdom and adultness that I've accumulated over the years.

So I got to see the story of how Juwan Howard's grandmother passed away on the day he announced he was going to Michigan. I saw the weight of failure multiplied by millions as it weight on a 19-year old Chris Webber's shoulders as he walked off the court following their 1993 loss to the Tar Heels (seriously, do the camera people have no souls?) and then have to answer reporters questions afterward about the incident (I know that reporters have no souls...oh wait. That's lawyers) with much more grace than I probably would have been able to muster at that moment.

I also got some insight into their rivalry with Duke- insight that has caused a firestorm of backlash, but also ignited some very thoughtful conversation about race, class, and education.

If you haven't heard yet, Jalen Rose (reflecting on his thoughts and feelings as a 17 old) may or may not have called Grant Hill an "Uncle Tom". As a middle class Caucasian, I am far too removed from the situation to really make an accurate assessment of the accuracy of the statement or the impact of the words. Jimmy King said he had thought Hill was a "bitch". As a middle class Caucasian...well, I'm pretty sure I understand the implication of calling someone a "bitch". Note: it's not very nice.

Hill was less than impressed, and threw around a lot of big words in an editorial to the New York Times. And so that has inspired a series of articles (I've mostly read the ones on ESPN.com) about Rose and his comments.

There are a lot of elements going on here, but my initial reaction when I read Hill's response (which is very well written) was that he overreacted. Those labels mean something entirely different to an African-American man than they do to me, but I also feel like I was able to grasp the meaning from the context of the comments. Because, you know, we don't exist in a life of one-liners and headlines- we exist in a big picture. And the comments that Rose made really had nothing to do with Grant Hill.

What I got out of Rose's comments was that he was very bitter as a young man that he had a professional athlete for a father and yet was in a situation where they had to scrape for a living while a guy like Grant Hill had a similar dynamic and yet a polar opposite situation. His remarks during the documentary were meant to reflect those feelings.

I feel that Hill overreacted. I mean, come on, Grant- you have a Duke education...surely you can discern a single quote taken out of an entire body of work. It was very obvious to me that Jalen was much, much more frustrated at the time with his situation, and that you were merely the personification of that disparity. And yes, I am admittedly pro-Fab Five...but come on, was that last line really necessary? It was, from my vantage point, a little immature. Lacking grace. Bereft of class. In essence, it's the kind of thing that I would do.

Regardless, it does bring to light a very interesting discussion about how race, class, and education all play off of each other. I can't say that all black players that play for Duke are "Uncle Toms"...because A) That's not my call to make, and B) Each situation is different. But the fact is that Duke does go after a certain class of person and player in their recruiting, and those standards and values line up with a very much WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, in case you didn't know) point of view. And that's within their right to do- as Jalen said on First Take, they have to recruit not only for their team, but for their program and their university.

The frustration that I think Jalen is trying to get across is that there is this self-perpetuating unfairness within the educational system that does not afford equal access and opportunity. Traditionally, the quality of inner-city education (cities which are predominantly made up of minorities) has lagged behind. This leads to people graduating high school with little-to-no ability to get a competitive education or a job that makes enough money to get out of the situation.

Compounding the situation, as I have come to find from reading some of these articles (watch the video with Chris Broussard), is that there is an "identity crisis" within the black community- that is, blacks that strive to succeed within the greater white society are seen as selling out, and negative qualities (being a pimp/thug/gangsta/etc.) are seen as being a true black man. So in addition to having an educational system in place that perpetuates itself, you have a culture that reinforces negative stereotypes as well. Factor in the stereotypes of mainstream America towards urban areas...and poof! There you have it- 21st century segregation.

It's a terrible situation that we can thank our forefathers for. However, if anything at all comes out of this documentary besides some great basketball clips and reminders that the early days of hip-hop were pretty painful on the ears, I hope that it opens eyes to the fact that while slavery has been officially abolished for quite some time, there are flaws built into the system to keep the playing field from being equal.

All in all, I think it was a great documentary. There are layers that I didn't even delve into in this blog- you might love or hate the Fab Five, but I am willing to bet that if you were a sports fan in the early 1990's, you are not ambivalent about them. This documentary will make you think, and hopefully help to keep what is one of my most cherished memories in tact for years and years to come.