Source: Duane Burleson / Getty
There was Chris Mullin getting hired at St. John’s University, Patrick Ewing at Georgetown, and now there’s Juwan Howard at Michigan. Former players getting hired at their alma maters is nothing new, but it brings back a sense of nostalgia to the campus and — most importantly— makes it easier to get top high school recruits to give schools outside of behemoths like Duke, and University of Kentucky a chance.
But Juwan Howard going back to Michigan does more than relive the glory days of the Fab Five and try to restore that feeling. It also mends some relationships that have been strained for quite a while.
On Thursday’s episode of ESPN’s Get Up, Jalen Rose said that the hiring of Howard at the former starting five’s alma mater squashed any beef between him and Chris Webber as they look forward to a more positive future in Ann Arbor.
“I just gotta acknowledge this on national television. Those days are over,” Rose said. “Not seeing eye to eye. There will not be any disrespect to the program. There will not be any side shows. There will not be any friction amongst the Fab Five. We’re about to all come together like Voltron and make sure we do what we gotta do to put us back on top of the map.”
The strained relationship between Webber, the University and Rose began when Webber was the first to declare for the draft after his sophomore year. 10 years later, he was charged in a gambling case for lying and admitted to receiving money from a booster since junior high school. After it was recommended that Michigan vacate all games he participated in and even ban him from coming to the university, the once glorious Fab Five collective suddenly wasn’t as close as they once were.
But with this new beginning for Juwan Howard, at least one of his teammates is ready to move on and support the university in this new era of basketball.
