Both are millionaires & don't need tears or cheers from anyone. Jalen was a stupid 18yearold kid, and stated such. Let's see now, Grant is a tall, handsome, rich, smart, married to a beautiful woman and was headed to the Hall of Fame before the injuries. Hell I don't know him and I hate him. So Jalen you're not alone pal. :grin:
So what if they recruited a certain type of player? Why does Grant Hill choosing to go to a more "affluent" school make him less "black" or, more harshly put, an uncle tom?
Rose doesn't even need to remove the term "Uncle Tom". All he had to do is clearly say he was in error for feeling that way and now knows better. But he did not. And still hasn't. Get it yet?
I already stated that he was wrong to call him an uncle tom, less black, etc. He seems to be right that Duke only recruits certain type of kids. That's their right.
Get what? I never said Rose was right for feeling that way then or now (the Uncle Tom/sellout part). Their point about Duke only recruiting certain types of players does seem to be correct. A stark difference from say, UNLV or Georgetown.
I wonder: what is the student demographic of duke? Did Duke recruit any kids that were 'troublemakers' Lets add some facts to the debate.
Yea, he was honest, that is fine, but doesn't mean he was right and the fact taht he won't admit that(he said that he was 17 at the time when he thought it, but still did not take back the notion). The fact is the inner city kids like him who were white or black acted a certain way and the other kids with a different culture acted anotehr way. The resources, education, stability were the difference in perspective, it wasn't about a black guy acting like a white guy, that sort of reasoning is the issue here and the excuse and illusion that a black guy has to act, talk, walk, and do certain things to be truly 'black' otherwise he is trying to be white.
Get that he wasn't wrong for using the term and for saying what he believed at the time. He was just "being real" and stating a fact. He IS wrong for not clearly refuting that his feelings back then were misplaced and that he knows better now. I didn't even comment on your other point, but it is interesting that Duke recruited his middle-class teammate, Chris "Uncle Tom" Webber.
There's too many assumptions going around about whether or not he still feels that way about "Uncle Toms". Regardless, I think that is a bit irrelevant in the context of this discussion and his documentary -- his purpose there was to convey the feelings and mindsets within those players and teams at the time. You guys don't think Jalen is well-aware of the blatantly crass nature of his comments? He could have easily said something like, "We hated each other." or "I didn't like them" and avoided controversy. But he simply chose to paint a more honest picture. It's like some people here can't handle the truth.
I should probably say his own mind. Again, I don't think his purpose for the documentary was to apologize for the feelings he had.
From ESPN.com (Rose's employer): http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=6224395 Rose said earlier this week about his comments: "That's what I thought when I was 17" but didn't back away from what he said. I'll ask you back a similar question: You don't think Jalen is well-aware of the blatantly crass nature of his comments? He could have easily...cleared things up by saying doesn't feel that way now. But he did not. And still hasn't. Clear?
Don't want to argue this. My impression (opinion) from watching interviews is he did clear this up, saying it was just stupid kid talk...the Uncle Tom part. He did try to explain what that meant to him at that time. but he did say, "Yeah, I had no filter then." What he didn't back down from is saying Duke recruits a certain player and not others. WHICH IS A FACT! But i don't really think he intended for this to be the issue of the Fab Five, it was a way to understand what motivated them...the culture of the Fab Five. This isn't about Duke. Duke...get over yourself. I'm willing to bet, if he said this about Notre Dame (which he did in recent Bayless ESPN interview, along with Indiana), we wouldn't be yelling as much, since everyone hates ND.
I'll give it one more try using your own words: Jalen Rose was well aware of how inflammatory his words were. Just because the main purpose of the show was to look backwards did not (and still doesn't) prevent him from separating himself from those feelings now. Where did apology come from? Nobody is asking for that? Don't create a straw man.
1. No matter what side of the Duke debate you're on, Grant Hill's response (as eloquent as it was) probably won't sway you one way or another. For a slightly more impartial account of the Fab Five (i.e. not from a former Duke OR Michigan player) I would read this article instead: http://msn.foxsports.com/collegebasketball/story/ESPN-The-Fab-Five-documentary-Jalen-Rose-Chris-Webber-Juwan-Howard-Jimmy-King-Ray-Jackson-031511 2. Some examples of kids that don't fit the 'Duke' profile are Chris Carrawell and Sean Dockery. Dockery came from an poor urban upbringing in Chicago and barely met the NCAA minimum for grades (17 ACT and 2.5 GPA), but Duke made the assessment that he would be able to survive in college and, sure enough, he graduated without difficulty. If there is a reputation that Duke (and you can lump in other schools like Stanford, Vanderbilt, Georgetown with them) does not recruit kids from the ghetto, it probably stems from the fact that those schools have more rigorous academic requirements compared to big state schools. Yeah we know every university has joke majors/tracks to help push student athletes along, but that doesn't change the fact that they have to meet higher pre-admission standards to get in. Usually. 3. Duke's student body make-up is about 20-40% legacy kids, 60-80% students of all races who work their asses off, just like you would expect from any other top notch institution in the country. Of the hard workers I'd say it's 50/50 white/other races, maybe 30/70 in the engineering dept (with most of the difference made up by Asians and Indians). Again not much difference from your good regional school (Rice would be the parallel in Houston). The one difference I think Duke has on other schools is that it has probably the best African-American Studies program in the nation, and expends a significant portion of its financial aid funds to recruit a significant proportion of blacks and Latinos into the university because of this. Naturally the end-result of this dichotomy of students is a really really diverse student body that oftentimes falls victim to diaspora: about 50% of the university is Greek- or selective-living oriented, and the legacy kids will have their exclusive events while the minorities have their own insular fraternities and traditions (step crew anyone?). Again if you went to college I don't believe this will sound out of normal to you. In full disclosure, I'm an '06 graduate. I transferred in from Tufts as a sophomore and spent three years there as one of the hard-ass workers in engineering. My perspective is obviously incomplete. But if you have more questions I can try to answer them.
