Fabulous

March, 1993. A few of my friends and I sat in front of the TV and watched in amazement as five young men (roughly our age at the time) from the University of Michigan lit up the stands, the court, and their opponents. They were sophomores. They were loud. They were brash. They were in the championship game of the NCAA Tournament, playing against a well-oiled machine: the University of North Carolina Tar Heels. They were called the Fab Five. Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, Jalen Rose, Ray Jackson, and Jimmy King-all barely in their twenties- took the collegiate basketball world by storm. The baggy shorts-wearing, trash-talking, rim-shaking quintet won 56 games and reached the NCAA final in each of their two seasons together. Though they never did take the crown (Webber, Howard, and Rose went to the NBA in 1994), they changed the face and the pace of college ball. And for the next few years thereafter, when I was still able to play ball, I wore black socks exclusively.