Following Grant Hill’s Op-Ed column in The New York Times, Jalen Rose looked to clarify his “Uncle Toms” comments that were directed towards black Duke players.
The Fab Five executive producer left a lengthy voicemail for Michael McCarthy of the USA Today on Wednesday evening.
“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.
Advertisement“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”
Rose had over a week to clarify his comments. Why wait until after Hill calls you out? Either way, can both these guys move off this topic and focus on March Madness instead?