JALEN ROSE, DAVID JACOBY — JALEN & JACOBY…AND THE FAB FIVE OF YORE
# Player G Pts Reb Ast Blk Stl
24 King 130 1,542 538 354 45 187
21 Jackson 125 1,262 579 300 42 119
5 Rose 102 1,788 477 401 29 119
25 Howard 100 1,526 749 202 56 79
4 Webber 70 1,218 702 166 174 103
“Deep within the archives of the University of Michigan lie the remnants of a revolution.”
— -Opening line of ESPN Films, The Fab Five (2011)
Widely considered the greatest incoming college basketball recruiting class ever, these five University of Michigan players — Jimmy King, Ray Jackson, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard and Chris Webber — were wildly successful and made history on many levels, despite being presented and branded to the world as the embodiment of all that was wrong with college sports.
It was largely, if not strictly about appearance.
Baggy shorts and black socks.
Black basketball shoes.
Hip-hop music blasting.
Lots of trash talking.
Blaring.
Grating.
It was the early-1990s and while contemporary media derided them as thugs and villains, bustling enterprise rode them hard, as a multi-million dollar merchandising juggernaut.
And then of course, developed what became the white-hot rivalry between Michigan and Duke, and the poignant perceptions of their respective programs and the people in them.
Incendiary on the court and stoking racial and social justice issues off it.
Rose and Duke’s Grant Hill rose to the forefront.
And neither one was reticent about making his feelings known.
Rather, verbal warfare through the media ensued between the two, impacting lives far beyond.
“Schools like Duke didn’t recruit players like me. I felt that they only recruited black players that were Uncle Toms…I was jealous of Grant Hill. He came from a great black family. Congratulations. Your mom went to college and was roommates with Hillary Clinton. Your dad played in the NFL, & is a very well-spoken and successful man. I was upset and bitter that my mom had to bust her hump for 20-plus years. I was bitter that I had a professional athlete that was my father [Jimmy Walker, Boston native and first overall pick from Providence College in 1967 NBA Draft] that I didn’t know. I resented that, moreso than I resented him. I looked at it as they are who the world accepts and we are who the world hates.”
— -Jalen Rose
Naturally, Hill was sharply critical of Rose’s racial commentary.
“To hint that those who grew up in a household with a mother and father are somehow less black than those who did not is beyond ridiculous. All of us are extremely proud of the current Duke team, especially Nolan Smith. He was raised by his mother, plays in memory of his late father and carries himself with the pride and confidence that they instilled in him. I caution my fabulous five friends to avoid stereotyping me and others they do not know in much the same way so many people stereotyped them back then for their appearance and swagger. I wish for you the bond that made you friends, brothers and icons.
I am proud of my family. I am proud of my Duke championships and all my Duke teammates. And, I am proud I never lost a game against the Fab Five.”
— -Grant Hill
The heartfelt sentiments of each young man defined the college basketball landscape of the early-nineties, but their feelings transcended basketball; they are stitched and woven deeply into the cultural fabric of our times.
History was being made.
Jalen Rose left Michigan after his junior season and was the first-round draft pick (13th overall) of the Denver Nuggets in 1994.
In a solid 13-year NBA career he played for six teams and was named the league’s Most Improved Player in 2000.
As good as he was then, he’s even better now.
Rose is smart.
Book smart in the conventional sense, but street smart in the worldly way.
He knows a lot of things about a lot of things.
To the tune of a $50-$60 million net worth today.
$50-$60 million.
While he was still playing in the NBA, Rose dabbled in sports media.
In fact, his media career began five years before his basketball ride ended, and his television ambitions dated even further back.
A mass communications major at Michigan, he spent his offseasons working for NFL Network, Top Rank Boxing and any other outlet in the field, willing to take a chance on him.
For a while, he even held weekly live chats on Ustream for a few hundred viewers.
Rose was hungry.
He worked as a Sideline Reporter for TNT covering the 2006 NBA Playoffs.
Since 2007, he’s drawn a paycheck from ABC/ESPN, first as an analyst on SportsCenter, and later as one of the hosts of NBA Countdown.
He also has contributed to ESPN’s Grantland (2011–2015) which is an interesting story, in and of itself.
A month after the site’s debut, Rose sniffed around and found out where ESPN top brass would be gathering, following the ESPYs.
It was the rooftop of the W Hotel.
“Guess where I was?’ he asks rhetorically.
“Right there. I was just letting everyone have their few drinks. I was like, ‘I’m going to wait until midnight before I strike,’” he recalled.
At the opportune moment, he approached and pitched his own podcast.
Bill Simmons, the founding editor of Grantland, was game, but the head of audio and video thought Rose should do a few one-off episodes, before being gifted his own series.
Rose maintains that Jacoby was behind it.
“He was the person telling him, ‘Don’t do it!’” Rose said. “How about that!?”
Jacoby offered a sheepish denial, but the two began a dialogue.
The first time they got on the phone, Jacoby asked Rose with whom he wanted to do the show — maybe a former teammate or longtime friend.
“He literally said, ‘You don’t want to do it?’” Jacoby recounted.
Rose was doing his homework; he had been researching possible co-hosts and realized that Jacoby’s skill set and interests could mesh beautifully with what he had in mind.
“You definitely picked me to do the show with you because I was in charge,” Jacoby postulated.
“You knew I wouldn’t cancel myself.”
“That too,” Rose allowed. “Correct.”
“It was smart,” Jacoby admitted.
“Correct,” Rose replied.
The beginning of something big.
Simmons promoted the project — “None of this happens without the Podfather,” Rose conceded — and hardcore fans and confident execs hopped on the bandwagon.
After a co-hosting gig with Michelle Beadle — and then Laura Rutledge — and Mike Greenberg on the network’s short-lived, Get Up!, Rose has moved on.
Jalen & Jacoby have been “giving the people what they want,” from one platform or another — podcasts galore — since 2011 with their fun exchanges and incisive commentary, presently broadcast daily on ESPN2.
Surviving early turbulence in the form of social media fan unrest and criticism — and using it constructively to make improvements — has allowed J & J to thrive.
Remarked Jacoby selflessly on Reddit in response, “I couldn’t help but notice that the tenor of this subreddit has somewhat shifted from a celebration of our work to criticism of it.
I am not here to chastise you for that, I am here to thank you for that.
We can’t say we ‘give the people what they want’ in every show and not consider the thoughts and feelings of the people.”
The show highlights a chemistry between two pals and industry trendsetters as they playfully examine what they consider relevant in the worlds of sports, pop culture, technology and crustacea.
Their program has pushed the entire genre of sports talk forward, by speeding through some topics and then delving deeply into others, and by having athletes talk about sports outside their own, seamlessly integrating larger issues into the banter.
Off-beat topics carry the show and the aforementioned chemistry elevates it.
As David Jacoby remembered their first taping together, Rose shattered the calm with a few genuine “Hahahas,” as he’s heard this story before.
“I’ll never forget that very first moment,” Jacoby recalls.
“I remember looking across at this dude being like, ‘What is happening right now?’”
His temporary unease bubbled to the surface as Jacoby opened The Jalen Rose Report back in 2011, by explaining what the new Grantland Network podcast would cover, just before introducing his co-host.
Out of nowhere, Rose started to scream-sing — singing is perhaps one of the few things Rose hasn’t yet mastered — “Got to give the people, (drawn out) give the people (drawn out) what they waaanntt!!!”
Rose makes like a laughing hyena as Jacoby says, “I was honestly shocked. You’ve got to remember this was like the first sentence on the first date. I was like, ‘this is weird.’ I didn’t know he was going to start singing!”
Except the outburst — a staple for ten years, as the show morphed from weekly podcast to daily radio show to late-night TV program to highly-rated hour-long afternoon regular — didn’t really come out of nowhere.
Not Rose’s style.
Rose had decided his new vehicle needed a tagline, and after great deliberation — thinking and preparation define him — settled on a lyric with deep Motown roots, which the Detroit native deemed perfect.
He was right.
True to form, Rose had a plan all along.
And if Jalen & Jacoby continues to grow, while staying fresh — a delicate balance — it will be because of the man who found fame at Michigan thirty years ago and has since mastered the art of prepared authenticity.
Don’t sleep on Jacoby either.
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in February 2021.]
