Random Rant vol. 36: The fab 5

Back in the early 90's college basketball witnessed and was impacted greatly by a revolution of epic proportions...the revolution came by way of 5 black talented ball players that were part of the hip hop culture, The Fab 5 (Jalen Rose, Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson)...on Sunday, March 13, 2011 ESPN debuted the documentary about the five freshman Michigan Wolverine basketball players that "shocked the world" (to borrow a line from Juwan Howard who borrowed that famous quote from Muhammad Ali)...it was a great documentary (though Chris Webber didn't participate in the film) that took me back to when college basketball had more of an impact on the sports landscape than it does now...

I remember when I was 10 or 11 years old becoming a Michigan fan (due to the influence of my older cousin puttin' me on to the Fab 5)...everything about em was so dope, to the black socks (hard to believe now that was a so odd. I wear black socks often whether i'm playing basketball or not), to the Nike Huarache's & Nike Air Force Max (charles barkley's) and baggy shorts...back in '92 and '93 NO college hoops team had baggy shorts...everybody rocked shorts the John Stockton style (ie. nuthuggers)...to this day the reason I like the Nike Air Force Max so much is because the Fab 5 rocked em...

the impact the Fab 5 had on sports is incredible...they made people either hate or love em there was no in between...I definitely loved em and was hurt when they lost twice in the national championship to Duke and UNC (btw the ACC is still great. UNC '09 champs & Duke '10 champs [though I hate Duke])...when you look at the documentary you'll see the struggles and problems they had to go through, things I didn't know and I've seen about every documentary and story about the Fab 5...if you get a chance look it up, download it, stream it or something because its a good watch...

the thing that pissed me off though is how Michigan had to take the banners down because of the scandal that happened with Chris Webber...it had to do with a man in Detroit giving Chris some money when Chris was at Michigan while the university cashed in on merchandising revenue off of the Fab 5...Michigan didn't back the Fab 5 up they basically shunned them and do what every university/college caught up in a NCAA violation does, turn your back on players/coaches, vacate wins but still gets to keep the cash it earned from the backs of the players/coaches (a rant about NCAA rules especially when it comes to money is coming soon)....

holla,

(4o)ur