ESPN’s Jalen Rose says he was speaking as a high school basketball player, not a 38-year-old man, when he said Duke preferred to recruit “Uncle Tom” African-Americans.
The comments were the most recent salvo in a war of words between the Michigan Fab Five alumnus and former Duke players, including Grant Hill and Bobby Hurley, coming out of Rose’s ESPN Films documentary, The Fab Five.
First, says Rose, his comments about Duke preferring to recruit “Uncle Tom’ African-American athletes were said from his former perspective as a high school athlete; not as a 38-year old man. He’s irritated that one comment is overshadowing the rest of the documentary.
“I know a lot of people are trying to circumvent a great documentary that was two hours of quality content and paraphrase a statement that I made and look at the headline but not read the story. That’s basically when I talked about my recruiting as a high school student as it related to Duke. I just want to make sure I verify how I felt about that. I was clearly talking about a framework from 1991-1993, not about 2011.”
Now, as an adult, Rose says he has “great respect and appreciation for Duke, its players and all they’ve achieved. The comments I made during the Fab Five documentary were clearly reflecting my thoughts as a teenager. I’m proud of the documentary and its success, our accomplishments at the University of Michigan as well as the work I’m currently doing to support the city of Detroit in the community”
-“The BklynBandette.” Mr. Hollywood’s Co-Defendant.
The Word According To Heaven Hollywood 