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THIS SEASON MARKS THE 15TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEBUT OF THE FAB 5. AS A TRIBUTE TO EVERYTHING THEY MEANT TO THE GAME AND TO BASKETBALL CULTURE, WE ASKED JALEN ROSE TO PEN HIS MEMORIES OF A GROUP OF TEENAGERS THAT TRULY CHANGED THE GAME.
BY JALEN ROSE ::
HOW DID THE FAB 5 START? YOU'D HAVE TO GO WAY BACK; BACK TO WHEN WE WERE KIDS. Me and Chris are both from the D and I've been knowing him since we were 12 years old back on the "Superfriends" AAU squad. The fi rst time we met Juwan was at the Nike All-America Camp the summer after 9th grade, so the three of us were friends before anything ever happened with Michigan.
Me and Chris had always talked about playing together on the same college team because we couldn't go to the same high school – he was at Sacred Heart Country Day and I was at Southwestern in the city. Juwan was the fi rst to sign with Michigan. He signed early on and then after Steve Fisher, Juwan immediately became the chief Fab 5 recruiter. So one by one, we all made our commitments to Michigan – me, Chris, Ray and Jimmy - but we had to wait until after our senior season to be on the court together for the fi rst time. And even then, it was only four of the fi ve. It was the 1991 McDonald's All-American Game in Springfi eld, Mass., and me, Chris, Juwan and Jimmy were all in the game. We decided from the fi rst second we were there that we'd create a sign of solidarity. Me and Chris made sure that we had adjoining rooms and then we went to work on all the other players in order to move around room assignments so that four of us could be right next to each other. It was then that we started talking about how we were gonna do this thing and how we were gonna sacrifi ce personal agendas to win a national championship. We knew we were about to be a part of something big – we were an incoming class of four McDonald's All-Americans, fi ve All-Americans total. Who had ever done that before? We were young, but we knew that was something that could change the game. It ended up being bigger than we ever thought. You have to remember, this was the early '90s. Not only were fi ve freshman starting, but all fi ve freshman were also black. How many college programs in the entire country back then had fi ve starting black kids, let alone fi ve freshmen? We were making a statement on so many levels. Social, cultural, hip-hop – we repped the street, fl avor, fashion and the love of the game. We were coming after teams like the UNLV Runnin' Rebels squad of the previous few years and John Thompson's classic G'Town teams that were right in the thick of the Prop 48 debates – he had to walk off the court a few times with his teams because the environment was so bad. So it was important to us, maybe above all, for the Fab 5 to be strong black men. We were extremely aware of what was going on. Yes, we were brash and talking trash and we created a distinct style and played with fl air, but we also all went to class. We never got credit for that. We should have. We didn't get to meet Ray until we got to campus, but we traveled together as the Fab 5 from Day 1. If you saw one of us, you saw all fi ve. We'd go to class together, eat together and hang out together. Always. For us, being on campus was like being an NBA player on the road – it was that good. We were like the cool kids at school, we were approachable and we were theirs. We were cool with everybody
79 DIME MAGAZINE 91
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SPORTS ILLUSTRATED