Whitlock and Illini have beef with Fab 5 doc
Just read a short article on ESPN about Illini players complaining that they started the baggy shorts, not the Fab 5.
http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/news/story?id=6218609&utm_source=twit…
More interesting though, is Jason Whitlock's article about the movie.
He claims it's more Jalen Rose's fantasy than documentary, defends Coach K's "Uncle Toms" and calls the Fab 5 sellouts.
Worth a read if you have a few minutes to spare.
http://msn.foxsports.com/collegebasketball/story/ESPN-The-Fab-Five-docu…
because that's exactly what happened. A choice was given.
Baggy Shorts or Prolonged Relevance
They should have taken the blue pill.......
I had read about the Illinois thing a few years ago. But even Bardo and Gill say in the article the Fab Five took it to another level and were actually influential. I vaguely remember the "Flyin' Illini" nickname, but nobody cares about them now.
In 1992, when high school teams across the country ordered new, longer shorts, they did it to "look like Michigan." No one did it to look like Illinois. It doesn't matter if they were first or not. No one paid attention until we did it.
Amen brotha - i was just gonna say the same thing
I actually think there's some merit in Whitlock's article. Maybe I have a different perspective cus I am black, but I usually find his columns insightful, even if I don't agree with him. I do think he was a little harsh on Jalen, since Jalen was just giving his perspective, and Whitlock basically just called him wrong. I think Whitlock's point is that the documentary kinda turns black athletes that should be heralded (the 'uncle toms') into villains; and celebrates a less-accomplished team (although he overstates their mediocrity), just because they embraced a style and culture that got them noticed. It's a microcosm of the problem in hip hop today.
I think Whitlock is also questioning Rose's telling his own story--the director of the film is very young and beholden to Rose as the producer, so we are not getting a very balanced picture, here.
March 15th, 2011 at 10:46 PM ^
I think Whitlock et. al. interpreting Jalen's comments about "Uncle Tom's" is a gross misunderstanding. Jalen said it himself: he had no disrespect for Grant Hill or the players of that ilk, he was more jealous of the circumstance they grew up in. I don't think he came accross as saying players with the fortunate upbringing ala Grant Hill should be portrayed as villains, more that he felt that way when he was younger...
either way, Duke sucks and I still think Whitlock is a fucktard.
March 15th, 2011 at 11:28 PM ^
I do think he was a little harsh on Jalen, since Jalen was just giving his perspective...I agree. Jalen certainly seemed to be explaining how he and his teammates felt at that time rather than some reality as he still sees it. It is relevant because it explains the mentality of the Fab 5 based on where they were coming from, and IMO it eventually play into the "shock the world" mentality as well as the fear of being exploited. Particularly important is the stark contrast of childhood experiences of Jalen and Grant Hill, both sons of former pro athletes, and how it made Jalen feel at that time. Context is everything, and I feel that Whitlock ingores a little of that.
and Jalen Rose where they gave Illinois credit or something to that affect. They never claimed they invented it. They just popularized it.
Big difference between the 2.
I just looked it up in an interview:
Question: Kendall Gill says on the Big Ten Network all the time that they were the ones that started it, not the Fab 5.
Jimmy King: "They were. We made it popular, but they were the ones."
Went on to say UNLV and Illinois were the first.
So they can all suck it.
Someone should write Illinois and Whitlock thanking them for the free publicity. Lets see how long the Fab Five story can stay in the spotlight, will help recruiting more than anything.
How can you even take Whitlock serious when he says Chris Webber posted that blog post? If he did ANY research at all, he would've found out that it was a writer on the blog, that's why it says "By Dice". He loses all credibility right there.
Not to mention, style over substance? BRB Two Final Fours with 5 freshman starters. Bad enough that he writes it, but looking at the comments is unbelievable as people actually agree? Some guy says that the Fab Five was 'never even really that good'. LULZ That's just funny as shit.
The ignorance is killing me. Wish stupid people would just go away for once... unless they're funny, which he is not.
March 16th, 2011 at 12:06 AM ^
we won't be talking about style prevailing over substance.
You get to the final, you got substance.
It's obvious that Whitlock has had enough "beef" for at least ten people.
March 15th, 2011 at 11:53 PM ^
March 15th, 2011 at 11:56 PM ^
Lose some weight
March 16th, 2011 at 12:17 AM ^
baggy shorts : Illinois :: winged helmets : Princeton
In other words yes you can get pedantic and anal about where they technically started but nobody gives a fuck.
One thing the movie did (mostly) leave out was the perspectives of the upperclassmen who had to swallow their pride and come off the bench. Chris Balas wrote a nice story about them:
http://michigan.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1200856
said it well - Whitlock is an idiot. The documentary may have its faults but probably fewer glaring faults then Whitlock's idiotic article. Whitlock claims that the Fab Five was style over substance even though they made it to the NCAA championship game BOTH years they were in existence as underclassmen - barely losing in the second year on a fluke play. Yeah, style over substance. What an idiot. He also claims Fisher didn't coach. Again, anybody who watched the Fab Five play or is familiar with Fisher's career knows this is an idiotic statement. Fisher was able to get five freshman and sophomores to play unselfishly as a team and coached them to two straight national title games. The 1989 Michigan team didn't coach itself to a national championship either. Fisher may not be perfect but he is, at the very least, a very good coach. Whitlock goes on to rant and rave about Michigan as a "white school" and Fisher as a "white coach." What a racist clown. And idiot.
His idiocy annoys me.
comments regarding Duke were more self-depricating than anything else. I watched that documentary twice intently. Jalen and Jimmy's comments during that movie were cut against Jalen's admission that Duke's players actually had game, film on Grant Hill dunking all over M on several occassions, C-Webb acting like a spolied kid after the National Championship game loss, and many of the Fab Five acting like entitled asses for a good portion of their trip to Europe. If anything, that entire portion of the movie left the viewer with less of an affection for the Fab Five and more of an appreciation for Duke. And Jalen wrote and produced a lot ot if.
Not all of the movie was about celebrating the Fab Five, much of it came across to me as a story of lessons learned too late and a reflection of what those lessons were. A person cannot tell a story of a historical event without placing it in the correct context and telling the story of the time. The story of the Titanic cannot be told without presenting the attitude of many that the ship could not sink. Is it wrong for the producer of a movie about the Titanic to detail that attitude because it proved not to be the case?
The Fab Five have grown up, they are not who they were as was presented by their conduct and attitude while telling the story. Telling the audience what their perspective was is not condoning the perspective nor did that movie make you want to sympathize with their perspective at that time.
Whitlock was going to write the peice before he even watched the movie, that is if he even watched it at all. That article is a joke.
March 16th, 2011 at 10:17 AM ^
Even Tark the Shark jumped in to say that his Runnin' Rebels were the ones who really revolutionized the game.
March 16th, 2011 at 11:37 AM ^
I've seen a lot of documentaries and to this day, I have yet to see one in which the director and/or producer did not have at least somewhat of an agenda. There is two sides to every story and a documentary is almost always only one side of that story. With that said, I thought the Fab Five was actually more unbiased than a lot of documentaries. I figured that an ESPN/Jalen Rose produce documentary would've view the Fab Five even more favorably than it did..