07-09-2005, 10:23 AM
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#1 (permalink)
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-LIFETIME MEMBER-
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Toronto
Age: 21
Posts: 17,580
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Jalen Rose Earns College Degree
Quote:
The University of Michigan's Fab Five were trash-talking, chest-bumping, baggy-pants-wearing kids. Their swagger and their attitude undoubtedly changed college basketball.
But they were also part of a group whose names were dragged into a scandal that brought shame on U-M, which was sanctioned after some players were accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars while in high school and college.
Fab Fiver Jalen Rose wasn't implicated, but he admits that he's had his own slips and slides, including getting caught hanging around a Detroit crack house while a student at U-M.
But, he said, he's always been aware of athletes' position as role models. He talked to the Free Press about that just before he left U-M in 1994 to accept a $10.2-million NBA contract. And being a role model is why he wanted to talk now about his latest accomplishment.
Eleven years after he quit college for the NBA, Rose graduated this spring, earning a bachelor's of science degree in management studies online from the University of Maryland. A little more than 40% of male Division I college basketball players earn a degree -- and far fewer of the few who make it to the NBA earn their degrees.
"Everything that kids see has an influence, good or bad," Rose said last week while kids as tall as his knees asked him for autographs outside of St. Cecelia's basketball camp on Detroit's west side.
"It's a character issue, a caring issue. If they believe you practice what you preach, it gives your statements a little more value."
He said he'd planned to get his degree when he quit college, but admits that in the early years, "it was mostly just talk."
When he finally got serious about finishing, he took him another 5 1/2 years to work his way through that one last year of college.
"I think it's great. I take my hat off to him. I congratulate him," U-M Athletic Director Bill Martin said Wednesday. "It's even harder if he did it online, simply because of the discipline that it takes to sit down every day.
"It's a wonderful story about Jalen. ... Look what he's done as he matured as a young man," Martin said.
Philadelphia 76er forward and former Fab Fiver Chris Webber, who does not have his college degree, said of Rose and his accomplishment Friday, "It's very important. ...I'm proud of him."
Webber said he has not put the thought of getting his degree out of his mind.
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http://www.freep.com/sports/umich/rose9e_20050709.htm
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Jalen Rose Earns College Degree
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