9201110182
DETROIT FREE PRESS
920320
Friday, March 20, 1992
METRO FINAL
1D
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1992, Detroit Free Press
A YEAR LATER, WEBBER DISCOVERS HIS YOUTH
ATLANTA -- The phone never stopped ringing. Not during breakfast. Not
during lunch. Not during a quiet evening at home, because there were no quiet
evenings at home. There was always noise, always doorbells, always mailmen
with stacks of recruiting letters that went immediately into a big cardboard
box and lay there, unopened. Visitors came with films and promises. Reporters.
TV crews. Coaches. Friends of coaches. At times, the kid couldn't even sleep
at home, there was no peace there, everyone wanting to know the answer to The
Question, so he would take off, stay at a friend's house, even on school
nights, wake up with another family, eat a bowl of cereal with another family.
This was his life.
Remember?
It was one year ago this weekend that Chris Webber finally broke the
suspense, announced he had chosen Michigan -- and you could almost hear the
sports world exhale. Call off the dogs, douse the fire, the most highly
recruited high school basketball player in America since the last most highly
recruited basketball player in America had made up his mind. Did you hear? It
was front-page news. WEBBER PICKS WOLVERINES! Remember?
How long ago it seems. Twelve months. Now, standing after practice, in a
blue coat and loose cotton sweat pants, on the eve of his first NCAA
tournament, Chris Webber, college freshman, looks back at the madness that was
his high school experience, and comes up with one word:
"Stupid."
You don't need college to reach that conclusion.
Just part of the picture
"I felt really old in high school," Webber admits. "By the time I was a
sophomore I felt like a senior. I felt like everyone was always looking at
me. Now, when I walk around campus, I feel young. Real young. I can even act
silly if I want to, and just blame it on the fact that I'm a freshman."
He smiles when he says this, as if discovering a treasure under his bed.
But, you realize, when was Webber allowed to be a kid? When has he been
anything but a prize? From as early as eighth grade, he was the target of
recruiters, back slappers, alumni pushers, phone jabbers, special offers, oily
promises, anything to get him, this tall, smooth, scoring machine, to commit
to a college. You thought life would end for every school Webber spurned.
It didn't, of course. This spring, they're all chasing some other kid. Some
other prize. Webber has now completed the regular part of his freshman
season, and he laughs at the times the Wolverines played against schools that
once tried to recruit him, coaches who wrote him the most gushing letters,
acted as if Webber were their son -- and now, suddenly, they barely spoke to
him. "When they do that it's like, OK, so that's how it is, huh?" Webber says.
"I'm glad I didn't go there."
Every year, some kid is put through this hypocrisy, the "nation's top
recruit." He feels the fate of the free world hangs in the balance of his
college selection. And when he finally gets there, it is more relief than
anything else. Most kids see college as a frightening new village where they
are suddenly nobody special; for recruits like Webber, that's the whole fun of
it. Finally, some anonymity!
Oh, he is hardly invisible at 6-feet-9, 240 pounds. But there are other
big athletes on the Michigan campus. Some, like Desmond Howard, are more
famous than Webber. Even on the court Webber has, shall we say, come back to
the pack.
"In high school I was always the No. 1 option," he says. "There were
players you weren't supposed to go to in the last five minutes, guys who
weren't that good, and then there was me. But here, everyone is good, they
could all be a No. 1 option.
"I don't feel as dominant as I used to. But that's why I came here. I'm
just part of the picture. . . ."
True, it's like Paul McCartney was part of the Beatles' picture. But it's
still part of the picture.
Phone has stopped ringing
Today, Webber's phone rings only when friends want to hang out, or his
parents call from home. His campus mailbox is stuffed only with student
activities flyers, and offers to join CD clubs. When he goes home on weekends,
the house is fairly peaceful. He used to keep a yellow pad by the phone with
names of coaches he would talk to, and coaches he wouldn't talk to, in case
his brothers or sister answered the phone. "That's gone now," he says,
laughing. "And my mother hasn't screened a call in a year."
Meanwhile, Webber The Wolverine has been a force, albeit an erratic one.
He has made young mistakes. But his biggest games come against the biggest
opponents -- season-high scoring, 28 points, against Duke; season-high
rebounding, 18, against Indiana -- and that could bode well for this
tournament. He is, after all, used to the Big Time, even if he is happy to
avoid it.
The only time he feels especially noticed these days is when he is late
for class, and he slips in the back, and all eyes turn because he's so tall
and well-known, and pretty soon the professor's eyes follow the students' eyes
and uh-oh -- there he is, caught in the act. "I thought about crawling in on
the floor," he says, "but I guess that wouldn't work either."
Of course, he could try getting to class on time. But then he wouldn't be a
kid. And because he's finally getting that opportunity, to be a kid, maybe,
for now, it's not so terrible.
BASKETBALL; U-M; COLLEGE; TEAM; FRESHMAN