Mary Sue Coleman still against re-raising fab-five banners, Jalen not happy

[SportsFromA2]

Mary Sue Coleman has no immediate intentions of re-raising Michigan basketball's removed banners.

And Jalen Rose isn't exactly thrilled about it.

The former Michigan basketball star took to Twitter on Thursday in response to the University of Michigan president's comments in a recent Michigan Daily article about the four banners exiled from the Crisler Center, two of which are the 1992 and 1993 Final Four banners.

"I saw that U of Michigan has no plans to put back up our hoops banners," Rose tweeted. "Should I do like most of its former BBallers & never return?"

Michigan removed four banners from the Crisler Center rafters in 2002 in the wake of the Ed Martin scandal. Two of them are directly tied to the famed "Fab Five" recruiting class, which included Rose and Chris Webber.

An investigation revealed Webber, Maurice Taylor, Robert Traylor and Louis Bullock received a total of $616,000 from Martin.

Technically, Michigan can return the two Fab Five's 1992 and 1993 Final Four banners to its rafters in 2013, when the school's disassociation period with Webber ends.

During a fireside chat with students Wednesday, Coleman said "I don't think they'll ever go back up."

Rose followed up his initial tweet with the following:

"Or should I ask for the $250k I donated for my Endowed Scholarship back & move it to another school? Stay tuned."

Neither Rose, nor fellow Fab Fivers Jimmy King, Ray Jackson or Juwan Howard were present in January when Michigan held a dedication ceremony for its new William Davidson Player Development Center.

A call placed by AnnArbor.com to Rose's representation seeking further comment was not immediately returned.

http://www.annarbor.com/sports/um-ba..._um_basketball

Next year, the Michigan basketball program can re-raise the four banners they had to take down as a part of its punishment for NCAA violations back in the 1990s.

But that probably won't happen. At least not if Mary Sue Coleman is the president at U-M.

Coleman told the Michigan Daily that if it were up to her, the four banners, commemorating two trips to the Final Fours (1992, '93), an NIT title ('97) and a Big Ten tournament championship ('98), would remain locked away.

“What happened was not good, and I don't think they'll ever go back up. I don't,” Coleman said in her fireside chat with students Tuesday.

“Some day, I won't be president anymore, and maybe someone else will have a different view. But I think you have to reflect on the larger meaning and that we want to hold ourselves to a higher standard.”

If you'll remember, it was Coleman who ordered to have the banners removed from the rafters in Crisler Arena. That was a part of the self-imposed sanctions by the school, which committed several NCAA violations that included money going from booster Ed Martin to Chris Webber, Maurice Taylor, Robert Traylor and Louis Bullock.

Jalen Rose, a Fab Five teammate of Webber, tweeted his displeasure today.

"I saw that U of Michigan has no plans to put back up our hoops banners. Should I do like most of its former BBallers & never return?" Rose wrote. "Or should I ask for the $250k I donated for my Endowed Scholarship back & move it to another school? Stay Tuned."

http://www.freep.com/article/2012041...02/1048/sports

[SportsFromA2]

Jamie chimes in:

Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman reportedly doesn’t want to re-raise the banners taken down from the NCAA violations back in the ‘90s. Jalen Rose seems to have a problem with that. What should U-M do next year?

The Fab Five era is one of the most fiercely debated eras of any sport at any school. Some people claim they were overrated. Some say they never got the credit they deserved for playing great team basketball. Some say they never won anything because they failed to win a Big Ten title or a National Championship.

Others will say that they accomplished as much or more than any recruiting class by advancing to back-to-back title games. And then the big question: Did the Fab Five do more harm or good for Michigan?

They brought untold attention and money to the school. But they also brought scandal and helped push the basketball program into a state of dormancy for more than a decade.

You can debate those points with your friends and fellow fans for years. But there’s one thing that you can’t debate:

It happened.

Forget about the sanctions and the forfeits and the NCAA punishment – those five players did play at Michigan, they did get to back-to-back title games and they did take all Michigan fans on quite a ride for two years. It seems that school president Mary Sue Coleman and athletic director Dave Brandon are intent on expunging that from the history of the university for the rest of time.

They want to take a magnet to the computer chip and pretend that there’s a gap in Michigan’s hoops history from 1991-93.

And that’s simply impossible.

Banners represent many things to many people. It’s a cause for celebration as the team comes back to the arena to hoist a remembrance of a great season or a championship. But it’s also meant to hang in the rafters for years to come so fans can look up and remember the time when they watched their favorite team play, and win.

So Coleman’s insistence on keeping the banners down doesn’t just affect Chris Webber -- and honestly, who else is this about but Webber? -- It also affects every fan who ever watched a Michigan game or enters the Crisler Center in the coming years. The NCAA delivered a ten-year “disassociation” with Webber that ends in 2013. At that time, Michigan is free to put the banners back up. And there’s really no reason not to.

As always with these types of disagreements, there’s probably more behind-the-scenes stuff that we don’t know about. And perhaps Michigan is waiting for Webber to finally step up and take some culpability for his role in bringing down the program. If I were Jalen Rose or Juwan Howard, I would probably want that, too.

Webber has famously ducked the questions and he ducked the Fab Five documentary, pointing an angry finger at the late Ed Martin. Maybe the onus should be on Webber to step forward, make amends and allow the process to move on. But are we really going to hold the entire program hostage because one immature man can’t come to terms with his past actions.

Honestly, maybe most Michigan fans agree with Coleman. Maybe the Fab Five is a part of the history that the alumni would just as soon forget. If that’s the case, then enjoy the peace and quiet. But the rest of those players worked hard and played hard and wore the school colors every day on their way to back-to-back title games. Brandon said in the documentary that, “The reality is that it's a team sport. The team wins together and the team loses together and the team is accountable together.” That sounds like it came straight from the lips of his old football coach and it’s an admirable opinion. But in fairness, the whole team has been penalized for a decade now because of one player – Webber.

Now it’s time to dismiss that one player and honor the rest of the team. They did nothing wrong. They have never been found guilty of breaking NCAA rules. And Rose in particular has brought great honor to the school in the past few years with his scholarship endowment and his Jalen Rose Leadership Academy in Detroit.

Time tends to heal all wounds. And Coleman herself admits that some president after her will probably put the banners back up at Crisler. But why delay it? The wounds have healed. Enough time has passed. The Fab Five doesn’t have to be celebrated or honored. There was plenty of bad to go along with the good.

I’m not saying that Michigan has to rewrite history. It’s wrong to do that. But it’s even worse to try to erase it. And that’s exactly what’s happening here.

http://www.freep.com/article/2012041...46/1048/sports

I agree with Jamie

[theman2600]

I want them up but never see them going back up.

[pGekko]

Send your 250K elsewhere Rose.

[The Black Hand]

What part of playing with inelligible players doesn't he comprehend? He can't be dumb enough to think the banners would go back up.

[RickFromFowler]

Canadian Olympic team 4x100 team wants their gold medal back.. yea, we know Ben Johnson was so juiced his eyeballs were piss yellow.. but the other 3 guys didn't do anything wrong.. why should they be punished.

[motorcityjoe611]

The hypocrisy (and self-righteousness) amongst all involved, from the higher ups like Mary Sue to the fans to the players is so great it's freaking laughable.

[pGekko]

Everybody's self-righteous except Joe per usual. lol

[the King]

Samuelsen is an idiot, per usual.

Sure all the other players played hard, good for them they have the memories. Without Webber they don't make those final fours. If Jalen has a problem with the banners not going back up, he should take it up with Chris.

[pGekko]

Samuelsen is an idiot, per usual.

Sure all the other players played hard, good for them they have the memories. Without Webber they don't make those final fours. If Jalen has a problem with the banners not going back up, he should take it up with Chris.

Samuelsen is surprisingly stupid on many takes, considering his schooling.

[Lee Dog]

Samuelsen is an idiot, per usual.

Sure all the other players played hard, good for them they have the memories. Without Webber they don't make those final fours. If Jalen has a problem with the banners not going back up, he should take it up with Chris.

Agreed, the King.