Fab Five, Michigan, one of the Top 7 Dirtiest Programs......

by Mitch Albom, and read in particular the passage where Chris Webber and Shonte Peoples are walking down the street, look in the M-Den and see Webber's jersey being sold and Webber complains, "look, they make $80 off of those jerseys and I don't have enough money for lunch," it all rings a bit hollow.

Putting aside the ethics or propriety of a university selling jerseys due to their scholarship athletes, the comment by itself, given what we now know, is shameless.

Wow, the Fab Five are having a reunion at The Motor City Casino. The irony, it burns.

Wait, is throwing a championship game to help your bookie/booster dirty?

I thought it was just street smarts.

Weber was dirty. So, were the next round of recruits.

The rest of the Fab Five is ok in my book.

>he (being CWebb) pled guilty to criminal contempt for lying about his dealings with booster Ed Martin, who gave Webber at least $280,000<

...no where,in the article or the statement above,does Jalen,Jimmy King,Howard or Ray J are they mention in the same light as CWebbb. What I find interesting...no mention of Coach Fisher.

Shonte Peoples. A quality individual.

The problems with the Michigan program certainly preceded Fisher and Webber, although they obviously came to a head during his tenure.

The following is from the much longer October 12, 1997 article in the Ann Arbor News that was written by former sports reporter John Beckett. He wrote the article in the aftermath of Fisher's firing.

"After the 1989-90 season, I had a talk with Fisher. After five seasons covering U-M basketball, I was moving on to other things. Before I did, I told Fisher that one of his players had told me that "golden handshakes" - boosters slipping players money after games - were sometimes happening in the Wolverine locker room.

I didn't have enough on-the-record sources to write about it, but this player was one I trusted, and I thought Fisher should be alerted.

Fisher's reaction was mildly angry disbelief. He would never believe U-M boosters or players would do such things, he told me.

An example of Steve Fisher's naivete? I don't think so. Steve Fisher was not that naive. Steve Fisher is an intelligent man. More likely, I think, was that if Fisher didn't know about such goings-on, he was perfectly content to continue not knowing."

What did Howard, Rose, King, and Jackson, or anyone else on the team do to be called "dirty?" Webber was dirty and made it "cool" to take Ed Martin's money.

Four players took money overall; that does NOT CONSTITUTE A DIRTY PROGRAM.

I sat next to Ed Martin at a UM game before he became a "celebrity." I had no idea who he was, but he knew more about Detroit basketball players than anyone I had ever met. I asked him "where are they now" questions about every player I had watched in the previous fifteen years and he knew where every single one of them was and what they were doing.

Ed Martin was not a UM booster; he was a Detroit basketball booster. He "helped out" a lot of other players who didn't go to UM, too, but they never came under scrutiny.

Also, why isn't Tom Izzo ever taken to task for his role here. He "encouraged" one of his players, I think it was Mateen Cleaves, to turn UM in, but isn't known as a "rat" like Bruce Pearl is.

Tom Izzo turned UM in to gain a competive advantage and it worked. He profitted for the next ten years while UM was in scandal limbo. He participated in negative recruiting and used UM's scandal to "build a wall" around the state, especially the Flint/Saginaw area.

Unlike in football, you CAN win national championships with kids from Michigan, and Izzo did, because of the advantage he helped create by turning UM in. But he is seen as a sportsman, a clean coach, etc.

Hopefully, this year means UM is back. Hopefully, we will very soon see that Izzo isn't all that great when he has to compete on a level playing field for instate recruits. Hopefully, in a few years, MSU loses enough edge that their fans start calling him "Izzold" and call for his head.

And hopefully, UM finally starts getting its share of big time recruits again.

"Top 7 dirtiest programs" is redundant. It should be "Top 7 dirty programs" or "Seven dirtiest programs."

But anyway, these rankings are dumb because the NCAA is totally random with its enforcement, and doesn't have subpoena power anyway. It's an open secret that Wooden's UCLA teams were bought off by boosters, but they were never investigated. Are we dirtier than them just because we happened to actually be put under the microscope?

How does one player make it the dirtiest team? He did this for UM and UMass and for Memphis State you talked about thugs... Hello? The U? Ring a bell? Also, he's not guilty yet, but he will be; Reggie Bush got a million dollar house. He just picked random teams.

A better article can be found on Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2213975/

It's 7 things the writer hates about this year's NCAA tournament. Last on the list is Jay Bilas, and Brian's post on his differing opinions on what constitutes a clean or dirty elbow is linked.

The box full of money that busted open at a FedEx office designation...Kenny *Skywaker* Walker's father. Along with the other shenanigans that were going on there which led to Eddie Sutton dismal and the hiring of Pretty Ricky Pitino.

the response by a few of the posters shows the "arrogance" that sparties love to bring up.tater's post, on the other hand, shows an allegiance to all things maize and blue including a distaste for the guy who had his starters in with a 50 point lead a few years back.that kind of behavior is why those of us who have been through the good and bad,anyone over 30,has a very bad taste in their mouth caused by izzo bile.

"the midget" may or may not had anything to do with michigan's demise but the word was,back in '97',that he did. this came from speculation by both michigan coaches and sportwriters as to whom would most benefit.

lay off tater!!