Coach K: Jalen Rose remarks 'insulting' to Duke - WGN

"Never try to teach a pig to sing; It wastes your time and annoys the pig." - Robert Heinlein

I was glad to hear Coach K join the chorus in defense of Grant Hill and the Duke program. I couldn't agree with him more. This on top of Grant Hill's well written defense.

I'm not even sure what kind of a bizarre-o world we live in anymore when there is even a question of someone as classy and successful as Hill. And what do you know, karma comes around immediately and bites ol' Jalen right on the ass with his concealment of a DUI arrest from his employers at ESPN -- the same ESPN that combined with producer Jalen Rose to produce this docu-trash.

Jalen Rose perpetuates this NAACP-type mind-set of covert, institutional racism, a form of "dog-whistle racism" that only they and their ilk can see. This allows them to frame it and re-frame as the situation serves them. Then they can craft self-serving documentaries (by Jalen Rose, for Jalen Rose, about Jalen Rose) that re-write and over-glamorize a legacy that simply doesn't exist.

This serves the same segment of the population that blindly follows the race baiters and poverty pimps like Al Sharpton -- who BTW is still waiting for his "forty acres and a mule" -- and discard the path of success demonstrated by Hill and others. A lot of good Sharpton's (and others) "preachings" have done to improve the lot of African-American in this country over the last, what is it, thirty or forty years? Instead, jackasses of his ilk would prefer to denigrate and tear down a successful, classy A.A, like Grant Hill.

Hill simply doesn't fit the model of the argument regarding race in this country as Sharpton / Rose portrays it in this country, so he has to be torn down. In the same way N.O.W., tries to tear down Palin. It's not the National Organization of Women anymore, it's the National Organization of Women who endorse the Liberal Agenda. (NOW -> s/b NOWELA). It is no longer the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, it's the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People who fit the Liberal Model and the Denigration of those who Don't (NAACP -> s/b NAACP, ah the heck with it). It is such an insane mind-set or mental model that it makes my head explode just thinking about it. (HYPERBOLE ALERT!!)

Funny, but I never think you are able to build somebody up by tearing somebody else down in the process. These two organizations routinely employ this process in their actions.

In fairness, Jalen Rose has attempted to clarify his remarks and put them into context, but for all intents and purposes, the damage is already done. His clarification will never receive the same attention as his initial remarks. To torture a pair of metaphors, Rose wants to close the barn door after the poop hits the fan.

And then of course, the karma train ran over Jalen, as the DUI details surfaced. A little bit of "Oh what a tangled web we weave...."? Perhaps.

The former Michigan guard said the comments regarding Duke's preference to recruiting "Uncle Tom's" were said from his perspective as a high school athlete heading into college and do not reflect his current opinions as a 38-year-old man.

"I know a lot of people are trying to circumvent a great documentary that was two hours of quality content and paraphrase a statement that I made and look at the headline but not read the story," Rose said in the voicemail, according to USA Today. "That's basically when I talked about my recruiting as a high school student as it related to Duke. I just want to make sure I verify how I felt about that. I was clearly talking about a framework from 1991 to 1993, not about 2011."

I just feel like we've reached a point in the so-called debate where the Heinlein quote shown above rings true.

In the end, Coach K and Hill are right and Jalen Rose is dead wrong. Rose and the Fab Five left little or nothing positive behind at Michigan. Even the baggy shorts thing was a rip-off from the Flying Illini. If we're counting mixing hip-hop and a bad-boy image with basketball, you could say they left a negative legacy. I'll leave aside the allegations of illegal payments. None of which you'll see or hear about as part of the legacy of the so-called "Uncle Tom's" at Duke.

Kudos to Coach K and Grant Hill. Thanks to Jalen Rose for highlighting the stupidity of the argument that underpins the last of the race-baiters and poverty pimps. Hopefully, incidents like this will signal the death knell of their clueless arguments.

From wgntv.com:
Coach K: Jalen Rose remarks 'insulting' to Duke - WGN

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski reacted Tuesday to comments made by Jalen Rose in ESPN's "The Fab Five" documentary referring to black Duke players in the early 1990s as "Uncle Toms."

"Sometimes people say things to get attention so they can sell their documentary," Krzyzewski told "The Waddle & Silvy Show" on WMVP-AM 1000. "Obviously, that was a poor choice of words and very insulting to everyone here at Duke but especially, not just our African-American players, but any African-American students. When you judge within a race, you start judging, like you put categories as to who you are. I think that's just the wrong thing to do."

Duke was 3-0 against the Fab Five and beat Michigan in the 1992 NCAA title game.

"We were very successful against them and, to be quite frank with you, we recruited Chris Webber," Krzyzewski said. "I didn't recruit Jalen Rose because we had Grant Hill and I'm happy with that. We didn't look at the other -- Juwan Howard, we knew wasn't going to come to Duke. The other two kids (Ray Jackson and Jimmy King) we didn't think were of the caliber that could play as well as Thomas Hill and Brian Davis and Billy McCaffery. They're good kids. They were good kids.

"They had a heck of a run, but they didn't leave anything, they didn't establish anything there," said Krzyzewski, referring to the Fab Five's failure to win a national title or lay a foundation for future success. "The guys that I had established something that (former Duke and Chicago Bulls guard) Jay Williams continued to do 10 years later -- the standards of what it meant to be a Duke basketball player."

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Grant Hill's Response:

HillTop » Blog Archive » Grant’s Unedited Response to the Fab Five’s Documentary

Grant’s Unedited Response to the Fab Five’s Documentary
Due to space constraints, the editorial posted in the New York Times was shortened. Read Grant’s full, unedited response to the Fab Five’s comments in their recent documentary here.

I am a fan, friend and long time competitor of the Fab Five. This should not be a surprise because I am a contemporary of every member of that iconic team. I have competed against Jalen and Chris since the age of 13. Jalen, Chris, and Juwan are my friends and have been for 25 years. At Michigan, they represented a cultural phenomenon that impacted the country in a permanent and positive way. The very idea of the Fab Five elicited pride and promise in much the same way the Georgetown teams did in the mid-80s when I was in high school and idolized them. Their journey from youthful icons to successful men today is a road map for so many young, black men (and women) who saw their journey through the powerful documentary, Fab Five.

It was a sad and somewhat pathetic turn of events, therefore, to see friends narrating this interesting documentary about their moment in time and calling me a bitch and worse, calling all black players at Duke “Uncle Toms” and, to some degree, disparaging my parents for their education, work ethic and commitment to each other and to me. I should have guessed there was something regrettable in the documentary when Jay Williams and I received a Twitter apology from Jalen before its airing. And, I am aware Jalen has gone to some length to explain his remarks about my family in numerous interviews, so I believe he has some admiration for them.

In his garbled but sweeping comment that “Duke only recruits black Uncle Toms,” Jalen seems to change the usual meaning of those very vitriolic words into his own meaning, i.e., blacks from two-parent, middle class families. He leaves us all guessing exactly what he believes today. And, I wonder if I would have suggested to former Detroit Pistons GM Rick Sund to keep Jimmy King on the team if I had known, back then in the mid-90s, that he would call me a bitch on a nationally televised show in 2011.

I am beyond fortunate to have two parents who are still working well into their 60s. They received great educations and use them every day. My parents taught me a personal ethic I try to live by and pass on to my children. They remain committed to each other after more than 40 years and to my wife, Tamia, our children, and me. They are my role models and always will be.

I come from a strong legacy of black Americans. My namesake, Henry Hill, my father’s father, was a day laborer in Baltimore. He could not read or write until he was taught to do so by my grandmother. His first present to my dad was a set of encyclopedias, which I now have to remind me of the importance of education. He wanted his only child, my father, to have a good education, so he made numerous sacrifices to see that he got an education, including attending Yale. This is part of our great tradition as black Americans. We aspire for the best or better for our children and work hard to make that happen for them. Jalen’s mother is part of our great, black tradition and made the same sacrifices for him.

It is unbeknownst to me what Jalen meant by his convoluted reference to black players at Duke considering how little he knows about any of them. My teammates—all of them, black and white—were a band of brothers who came together to play at the highest level for the best coach in basketball. I know most of the black players who preceded and followed me at Duke. They all contribute to our tradition of excellence on the court. It is insulting and ignorant to suggest that men such as Johnny Dawkins (coach at Stanford), Tommy Amaker (coach at Harvard), Billy King (GM at the Nets), Tony Lang (coach of the Mitsubishi Diamond Dolphins in Japan ), Thomas Hill (small business owner in Texas), Jeff Capel (former coach at Oklahoma), Kenny Blakeley (assistant coach at Harvard), Jay Williams (ESPN analyst), Shane Battier (Memphis Grizzlies) or Chris Duhon (Orlando Magic) now or ever sold out their race. To hint that those who grew up in a household with a mother and father are somehow less black than those who did not is beyond ridiculous. All of us are extremely proud of the current team, especially Nolan Smith. He was raised by his mother, plays in memory of his late father and carries himself with the pride and confidence that they instilled in him. He is the quintessential young Dukie.

The sacrifice, the effort, the education and the friendships I experienced in my four years are priceless and cherished. The many Duke graduates I have met around the world are also my “family,” and they are a special group of people. A good education is a privilege. At Duke, the expectations are high for all of us. Just as Jalen has founded a charter school in Michigan, we are expected to use our education to help others, to improve life for those who need our assistance and to use the excellent education we have received to better the world. The total experience at Duke taught us to think before we act, to pause before we speak and to realize that as adults we have a responsibility to do good, not just do well. A highlight of my time at Duke was getting to know the late, great John Hope Franklin, James B. Duke Professor of History and the leading scholar of the last century on the total history of African Americans in this country. His insights and perspectives contributed significantly to my overall development and helped me understand myself, my forefathers, and my place in the world.

Ad ingenium faciendum, toward the building of character, is a phrase I recently heard. To me, it is the essence of an educational experience. Struggling, succeeding, trying again and having fun within a nurturing but competitive environment built character in all of us, including every black graduate of Duke.

My mother always says, “You can live without Chaucer and you can live without calculus, but you cannot make it in the wide, wide world without common sense.” As we get older, we understand the importance of these words. Adulthood is nothing but a series of choices: you can say yes or no, but you cannot avoid saying one or the other. In the end, those who are successful are those who adjust and adapt to the decisions they have made and make the best of them. I only hope I can instill in my children the same work ethic, the same values, the same common sense approach to life and the same pursuit of excellence my parents, Coach K and Duke gave me.

I caution my fabulous five friends to avoid stereotyping me and others they do not know in much the same way so many people stereotyped you back then for your appearance and swagger. I wish for you the restoration of the bond that made you friends, brothers and icons. I hope you reach closure with your university so you will enjoy all the privileges of its greatness.

I try to live my life as a good husband and father. I am proud of my family. I am proud of my Duke championships and all my Duke teammates. And, I am proud I never lost a game against the Fab Five.

Grant Henry Hill
Phoenix Suns
Duke ‘94

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