Fab Five stars Jalen Rose and Chris Webber joined forces this week for a dual interview for the first time in roughly two decades, they said.
And Rose had a stern message for his beloved University of Michigan as an alumnus, saying the Fab Five would be treated differently at Michigan State “because that’s a basketball school.”
The two native Detroiters − stars of one of the most influential yet infamous eras of college basketball − spoke on TNT Sports’ “The Steam Room” with hosts Charles Barkley and Ernie Johnson for a wide-ranging, 40-minute conversation about how they joined forces in Ann Arbor to form the Fab Five (Rose, Webber, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson), their thoughts on Michigan basketball, the Detroit Pistons and more.
The most interesting part of the conversation came near the 21-minute mark, when Barkley talked about his time at Auburn. He said the basketball team was treated worse than the football team, using the dining hall food as an example.
“It used to piss me off so bad,” Barkley said.
“Us and the swimmers and the other sports ate, and we’d have like hamburgers and hot dogs and [expletive] like that. And they’re like, ‘You gotta be out the dining hall by 7,’ and we’re like, ‘Why?’ – ”Cause the football team is coming in.’ And they’re putting out like steak and lobster, and I’m like, ‘This is some [expletive].'”
“Oh yeah,” Webber said, as he and Rose cracked up while Barkley spoke.
Barkley asked Rose and Webber if Michigan was the same as Auburn in that way.
“The first year I felt that way,” Webber said, calling his time at Michigan great, with Heisman Trophy winner Desmond Howard and great football teams. He said they had mentor lunches or mentor dinners and that was the “only thing we wanted to go to, because when the mentors came, we ate great. But we made a lot of comments, especially Jalen, about what we were given to eat then.”
“Chuck, I’m you,” Rose said. “I complained the whole time. And Michigan is 100% a football school. And by the way, respectfully, and I’m a season-ticket holder and I’m an alum and Fab Five, shoutout to Dusty May I love him very much, and I think we’re gonna win [the NCAA tournament] this year, but to this day, Michigan still hasn’t acknowledged the Fab Five and our banners are not up. That’s definitely a football school and I know people are not gonna like this, EJ: If we went to Michigan State, they would treat us different because that’s a basketball school. So you’re exactly right, Chuck. And yes the football team when you’re having 115, 120,000 every Saturday, that’s a football school. That’s what it’s gonna be and we did sense that, we did feel that and we still sense and feel that right now, as we’re not being acknowledged by the university.”
Webber smiled and laughed as Rose said that final sentence.
Michigan, led by the Fab Five under coach Steve Fisher, went to back-to-back NCAA championship games in 1992-93. Then, Webber left for the NBA as the No. 1 overall pick in the 1993 draft, and Rose and Howard followed after their junior season ended with a loss in the 1994 Elite Eight to eventual champion Arkansas.
But scandal soon rocked the program.
Michigan had its wins vacated and Final Four banners stripped from Webber’s two seasons after the Ed Martin booster scandal. In court, Webber admitted to giving $38,200 to Martin in 1994 as partial repayment for previous loans. Webber was ordered to pay $100,025 in 2005 on a misdemeanor contempt charge for lying to a federal grand jury about money he’d received from Martin prior to his entry into the NBA. Webber was banned from the university from 2003-13.
This caused a split in the relationship, particularly between Rose and Webber, friends since grade school when they played on the “Superfriends” AAU team based in Detroit. In high school, Webber starred at Birmingham Detroit Country Day; Rose starred at Detroit Southwestern.
Webber refused to attend a Fab Five reunion or participate in ESPN’s acclaimed 2011 “30 for 30” documentary on the Fab Five.
[ Chris Webber’s Fab Five legacy complicated — time to end the timeout ]
Webber did not return to the campus in Ann Arbor until November 2018, five years after his NCAA-mandated 10-year disassociation with the program ended. He was coach Jim Harbaugh’s honorary football captain for a game against Penn State at Michigan Stadium and received loud cheers. The football-only appearance was a great step, he said a few days later.
When Howard became Michigan basketball coach in 2019, Rose announced his beef with Webber would be squashed.
Webber and Rose finally publicly made up in the spring of 2021, after Webber was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Later that year, Webber said Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel had previously apologized on behalf of the school.
“His exact words [were], he needs ‘to apologize to the 18-year-old Chris Webber because we didn’t protect him,'” Webber told ESPN days before his induction into the Hall of Fame.
Manuel, hired in 2016 but who worked for the school during Webber’s time in Ann Arbor, quickly denied it.
“I can assure you I made no apology to Chris and, for those who may be curious, I never asked him to apologize to the University of Michigan,” he told ESPN.
Manuel remains in his post as Michigan AD but his department is under investigation.
The Fab Five reunited at Crisler Center in January 2024, after a Michigan win over Ohio State – the first time since their 1990s playing days all five were together at the arena.
Howard was fired after the season following a 8-24 mark, the most losses in a season in program history.
May quickly turned Michigan around, winning the Big Ten Tournament championship in Year 1 and making a Sweet 16 run, then winning the regular-season title by four games (while setting a Big Ten record for wins in conference play) en route to a 31-3 record and 1-seed in the 2026 NCAA Tournament.
The Wolverines face 16-seed Howard in the first round on Thursday night in Buffalo, New York.
You can watch the full episode of “The Steam Room” below. Rose and Webber join at the 8:20 mark.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Jalen Rose: Fab Five would be treated different at Michigan State
Reporting by Marlowe Alter, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
