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and whatever party we went to, that instantly became the place to be. Girls would all be smiling and like, "What up Chris? What up Jalen?" and then turning to their friends like, "See? I told you they was cool." And we were all doing the same things that any other college guys in our position would. Once basketball season started, lots of people don't remember this, but we didn't all start from Day 1. It wasn't until we played Notre Dame partway through that fi rst season that we all started. I remember that we were struggling a bit and right before the game, Coach Fisher's dad passed away. We wanted to win so bad for him. He was real emotional and I remember him being like, "It's time to start the Fab 5." Now we all know how Notre Dame athletes are portrayed – let's just say that we were being looked at like the total opposite. This was a national TV game and it didn't take people long to choose sides. You know, people love us now, but any time you're a pioneer in anything and you knock down doors, you're gonna get bumps and bruises. I remember that guys like Al Maguire and Billy Packer did not like us one bit. I remember what they said about us: "They're undisciplined," "they're not smart," "they don't play the right way"– all of the clichés you can think of. You know exactly what I'm talking about; exactly what perceptions come with certain programs. Like if you play at Duke, you're automatically smart, disciplined and you come from a good family. But if you played for Michigan or UNLV, it was like, "Oh my God, who's going to jail next?" Those portrayals followed us everywhere, and to this day, it's obviously something that the school has tried to shake. It felt like we were always the villains. We defi nitely weren't loved. Coach Fisher would show us the hate mail that would come in. He'd pin it on the wall – stuff saying that were bad for the game, that Coach Fisher should be fi red, telling us point-blank to "go back to the 'hood." It's funny because the fi rst time I felt like we really had arrived, it wasn't even on the basketball court; it was through hip-hop. After my freshman year I was at the famous KMEL Summer Jam in Oakland, which was just huge at the time. I was there as a fan like everyone else; I was like, "Man, I want to go talk to Too $hort." And then I saw Hammer and his crew coming through. One of his guys spotted me and was like, "You know who that is? Let him through right now." By the end of the day I was sitting on-stage and was hanging out with 'Pac, Redman and Latifah. The next year, reporters would come through and I'd be wearing a Naughty by Nature t-shirt or a Hit Squad hoodie and they treated me like I was a hoodlum. Me, Chris and Juwan all had tattoos and people were like, "Wow." In 1991, that was something. I'll never forget the fi rst time we played Duke. It was during the season at Michigan and I got into a real heated verbal thing with Christian Laettner. It was just something in the heat of the moment, but I got crucifi ed for that. No one said anything about him but I just got crucifi ed.
That perception stayed with us and in many ways cost us. None of us were named Player of the Year when we should've been. It cost me on draft night, too. I was 6-8 point guard, a proven winner, a member of the Fab 5 and I go 13? Come on now. It's like Jay-Z said, "I felt like Randy Moss on draft night." I couldn't believe it. Being one of the Fab 5 was like the gift and the curse. But while everyone was playing their games, they were more than happy to make money off us. Our sophomore
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year we came back and there was a new arena being built that cost millions and millions of dollars. Everyone was calling it the "Fab 5 Building." Does that get built without us? I don't know. And I really like Mitch Albom, but I went back and looked at the game tapes – there were commercials running during our games for his "Fab 5" book. Everyone was making money off us. Everyone. But when we got to the League, there was nothing but love from every single player. You forget, NBA players are fans just like everybody else. We'd be seeing guys in summer leagues and they'd be like, "We love you, my wife loves you, we named our kid after you." Everyone wants to leave a mark – and we did just that. No offense to the kids at Ohio State this year, but I had one of their games on the other night and I heard their announcer refer to their freshmen as the "Fab 5." I was like, "OK, but they don't all start and I don't know anyone rushing home to watch Greg Oden. He may be Bill Russell down the line, and he may look like Bill Russell right now, but no one's re-arranging their schedules to be in front of a TV to watch him. Things would have been so different if we had come along 10 years later. You know when you're LeBron James coming out in the 2000s, you know how corporate America works. You want to own your own website name, you want to copyright this and copyright that. We were just living. Imagine if we had trademarked black socks? Or the term "Fab 5"? Man, I turned on the TV once and saw fi ve gay guys calling themselves the "Fab 5" and it blew my mind. We were just basketball players, you know? Instead of worrying about owning URLs, we were like, "What time is practice, Coach? What time is the game?" When I got to the NBA, somebody owned Jalenrose.com and I had to hire lawyers and all of this nonsense because the guy wanted $10,000 for the name. I was like, "$10,000? You can have that forever." Four years went by and he eventually gave it to me for $2,500. Now that we're all in a different phase of our careers, I realized that the true mark of greatness is longevity. It's been 13 years in the NBA for me and Juwan and 14 for Chris. We've all made a lot of money and we've all carried ourselves like upstanding men. Now we're in a phase where we're in the 31-34 year-old bracket and we really have to decide if we want to keep playing because they're just looking for an excuse to give a young guy your minutes. I saw Juwan wasn't playing, but then he came through with a few monster games. The Sixers just bought out Chris, but he's still 20 and 10 every night. I'm in Phoenix now, not playing. I love these guys, but it's still hard. You have to learn to suck it up, but it's not easy. Some days I think like Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and MC Ren and say to myself, "I started this gangsta shit and this is the thanks I get?" When I look back now, the great thing about us was that everything was on a public stage for everyone to see, the good and the bad. It humanized us. Knowing that we were normal dudes allowed people to live and die with us. There have been a lot of All-Americans over the years. There have been a lot of NCAA champions over the years. But you know what? They're all waiting in line outside the club, not us. And there will never be another "Us." To quote my man Tom Brady on a text message he sent me while Georgetown was killing Michigan on TV a few weeks back, "Where's the Fab 5 when u need them?" ::
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