After an eight-year wait to be selected for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, former Michigan star Chris Webber will be inducted into the hall this weekend. The Wolverines’ Fab Five — comprised of Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Ray Jackson and Jimmy King — has waited even longer to reunite, but that’s slated to happen this Saturday (Sept. 11) as well, Webber told The Athletic.
Webber was banned from association with the University of Michigan from 2003 until 2013 following the Ed Martin scandal, and has made only one public appearance at U-M since then, when he served as an honorary captain for the Wolverines’ football game against Penn State in 2018.
He was planning on attending one of the team’s basketball practices this past season, but an athletic department-wide shutdown due to COVID-19 concerns canceled the trip to see Howard, now the program’s head coach, and Co.
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The Athletic also reported that there is mutual interest between Michigan and the group to have a formal reunion for the Fab Five at some point, though there is no date set.
On top of that, there remains tension between Webber and Rose, even though the former spoke with the latter on his ESPN show after being selected to the Hall of Fame. Rose has said that Webber should publicly apologize, something that has not happened to date.
“There has been that rift because Jalen has decided to talk and I’ve said we should handle everything behind the scenes,” Webber told ESPN.com this week. “It was just, it’s an honor system. It’s a code. And he knows what that is, because that’s what we built the Fab Five on, and he did not adhere to that code multiple times. … All it takes is a 30-second conversation.”
Webber also told ESPN.com this week that Michigan Athletic Director Warde Manuel apologized to him for the way the university treated him following the allegations — and subsequent guilty plea to a criminal contempt charge in 2003 — that he took a loan from Martin while playing for the Wolverines.
“I was told by the athletic director at the University of Michigan that he was sorry,” Webber told ESPN.com. “And he wasn’t even there at the time [I was playing]. He told me that he did his research and that he needs to apologize. His exact words [were] he needs ‘to apologize to the 18-year-old Chris Webber because we didn’t protect him.'”
Webber led Michigan to two-straight national title game appearances in 1992 and 1993, before departing early for the NBA Draft. He registered 15.5 points, 10 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per contest during his freshman season. As a sophomore, he posted 19.2 points, 10.1 rebounds and 2.5 blocks. In the latter year, he was named a first-team All-American.
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