ESPN analyst and former Michigan Wolverine Jalen Rose has sparked some controversy after making inflammatory comments about Duke in a recent ESPN documentary called “The Fab Five.”
“For me, Duke was a person,” Rose said in the film, which he executive produced. “I hated Duke, and I hated everything Duke stood for. Schools like Duke don’t recruit players like me. I felt like they only recruited black players that were Uncle Toms.”
Former Duke player and national champion Grant Hill responded to Rose’s comments in a New York Times editorial on Wednesday.
“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 b—- 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,” Hill wrote.
Perhaps emotions got the best of the Rose, who obviously disliked Duke when he was a freshman at Michigan, but his choice of words nonetheless have set the Internet ablaze, spawning mass discussion on both the documentary and Duke’s recruiting process.
“He leaves us all guessing exactly what he believes today,” wrote Hill, who also chronicled the education he received at Duke, his rise to the NBA and the impact his family has on his everyday life.
At the end of the editorial, Hill craftily reminds Rose that “I never lost a game against the Fab Five.”
Despite the controversy, Rose isn’t backing away from what he said.
“I didn’t say anything in the doc that I didn’t say to a players FACE #fact,” Rose tweeted. “For those MOANING about how something or someone was portrayed in the doc note that it was FRAMED from 1991-1993 not 2011 #quit crying.”
