The Road to Ann Arbor

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Young Webber navigates manipulation, unfamiliar pressures on road to Ann Arbor

When he was the most prized high-school basketball player in America and struggling with more than the usual burdens of an average teenager, Chris Webber received a very important phone call. There was only one landline at the Webber house in the early 90s, and it rang off the hook. People were desperate to speak with Chris Webber as he tried to decide where he wanted to attend college, a decision that had become a monumental, national news story with observers across the country.

He and his family were inundated with basketball coaches reaching out from universities big and small. For some, the communication was standard for talks of athletic recruitment, but there were some grown men who pleaded for young Webber to choose their school, and many overwhelmed him with guilt by the lengths to which they begged. Looking back, Webber shakes his head and laughs when he remembers some of these coaches “Saying, ‘Hey, come here, or I’ll lose my job or even my family. My wife, she’s not going to let me in the house!’” They had to be joking, mostly, but at the same time, he says, “I was a child. That pressure was just there.” He couldn’t do anything without being reminded of it, something he writes openly about for the first time, in his new memoir By God’s Grace. Newspaper reporters were staking out his house. If he was in the stands as a spectator at a basketball or football game, people chanted his name. A three-time high school state champion at Country Day in Detroit, if he went to the grocery store or movie theater, random strangers would shout at him the name of their favorite college. Recruiting letters piled up in his bedroom.

He (Isaiah) made it very clear, ‘If you want to talk or just ask me questions about basketball, call.’ His kindness held me accountable.”

But one call wasn’t from a coach or reporter asking if Webber had finally decided. On the other end of the line was not just one of the most famous basketball players in the NBA, but one of Webber’s childhood heroes. A fellow basketball star from Michigan and two-time champion with the Detroit Pistons. Holding the phone, Webber was shocked to hear Isaiah Thomas’s voice. He was calling out of the blue to speak to him personally. Thomas said he had called because he knew of all the pressure that came with the nature of the decision Webber faced, he understood what it was like to be the most recruited high school player in the country, and all the while he was also from Michigan. Thomas wanted to make sure he had someone to talk to who wasn’t a coach or tail-coating “friend.” He wanted to ease Webber’s mind. “This was a time when I was going through puberty, self-doubt, really working hard with angst as any teenager would have,” Webber says. “And Isaiah called. He didn’t know us at all. I loved him. In our household, he was the man. He told me, ‘If you ever need anything, I’m here,” Webber says. “He made it very clear, ‘If you want to talk or just ask me questions about basketball, call.’ His kindness held me accountable.”

Thomas soon asked if he could come to the house and visit. Webber says he kept that promise and as he spoke to his family on the sofa in their living room, it turned out he had a lot in common with Webber’s parents and background. “He spoke to me and let me know, in this moment where there are temptations and so many people saying what they can do for you, and telling you what to do, I want you to trust your gut. You can’t make a mistake by what school you pick if it’s the one you want to go to.’” Thomas would ultimately hook Webber up with scrimmages against the Pistons players, thoughtful advice, and guidance before each Final Four, and dedicated friendship for life. When Thomas called, Webber had secretly narrowed his choice to one of three schools: Duke, Michigan State, and Michigan. He loved Coach K at Duke, and Webber’s AAU basketball “Super Friends” like Juwan Howard and Jalen Rose were considering Michigan which had the upper hand of being only 3[CEROS OBJECT]0 minutes from his mom and dad’s front door. But there was no question that it felt like a lock with Michigan State, the campus where coach Tom Izzo had been recruiting Webber since was 12. Izzo spoke of the possibility of Webber playing point guard for the Spartans, a statement that young, middle school-aged Chris could hardly begin to believe at the time.

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CHRIS WEBBER

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But on a random recruiting visit to Minnesota, at a football game where the Gophers serendipitously played the Michigan State Spartans, a secret photo was snapped by the wife of an MSU athletics official of Webber in a Minnesota luxury box — an act that apparently violated a minor NCAA rule. It felt like a dastardly and irrefutable act. When the photo made news, coach Izzo called Webber, apologizing, even crying. “I’ve lost you,” he said, and it was true. This happened while Webber’s interest in Michigan was crystallizing, as Juwan Howard, one of his AAU friends and another star recruit, sealed the deal on his own future as a Wolverine. Howard made a compelling case for Webber on playing with a group of all-star high school players he already knew, including longtime friend Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson. The two visited together and Webber made his choice. The campus was beautiful and pumping with an indescribable electric collegiate energy. The arena put their names in the rafters. Webber also knew that picking Michigan would pair him, finally, on a team with Rose, his best friend, the kid he’d wanted to play high-school basketball with but never got to because his parents wanted him to attend Detroit Country Day. Now, they would enter a new chapter as roommates.

“Everything Juwan said about Michigan turned out to be true,” Webber says. “He recruited us like that. He said, ‘We’re going to be great on the court and have fun off it.’ My mother would cook for us after games. Give everyone containers of food. It was a family atmosphere.” And the rest is history. The Fab Five made it to two straight national title appearances. Webber was arguably one of the best college players of his time. And after he was drafted first overall, he got to play head-to-head against Isaiah Thomas in the guard’s last active year in the NBA.

The campus was beautiful and pumping with an indescribable electric collegiate energy. The arena put their names in the rafters.

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