Chris Webber: Teaching a Class at Wake Forest
Last week Chris Webber was on the Doug Gottlieb show on CBS Sports Radio. Although that interview got more press about Webber’s refusal to answer a question about Jalen Rose, the purpose of the interview was not about that at all.
Webber was on Gottlieb’s show to talk about his upcoming college course that he will be teaching. Yes, Chris Webber will be teaching a course about sports, culture, and business starting in 2016. He will be teaching this course not at Michigan, not at Georgia Tech (near the TNT Studios), but at Wake Forest University.
At face value this is puzzling. Webber did not get a college degree from Michigan. He does have lots of life experience in sports and cultural management. However some of that would not seem to translate well to the classroom. Webber and the other members of Michigan’s Fab Five recruiting class saw their banners stripped over controversy on whether they were paid while they were students at Michigan.
Right or wrong, Webber was given $300,000 or thereabouts by Ed Martin. Some of that occurred during Webber’s time at Michigan.
It was a federal case against Martin for money laundering that revealed his ties to the players of the Michigan program. His information eventually exposed inconsistencies in Webber’s grand jury testimony.
A perjury case against Webber went forward as Webber’s father admitted to taking gifts from Martin (Webber’s father ran a church). Martin’s death took the steam out of the 2003 perjury case and Webber was able to plead down to merely taking around $30,000 and accepting a charge of criminal contempt.
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So this Chris Webber will be teaching sports and culture to the students of Wake Forest. The relationship has some advantages for both. Webber will attract attention while Wake continues to add to Webber’s reclamation project.
Webber can offer some interesting viewpoints. He was a star player, and singularly talented at the power forward. He was a big part of the Sacramento Kings teams that just did not quite make it to the NBA Finals.
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He was involved in the mediaverse from the beginning whether as member of the Fab Five, the timeout against North Carolina, going 1st overall in the 1993 NBA Draft, All-Star, or now as member of the TNT NBA family. He has seen court rooms and locker rooms from a number of angles. He has not gone broke, so he has managed his money effectively unlike some professionals.
There is a lot to like, but what will he say when he is inevitably asked about the circus that went on after he left Michigan? He owes his students his wisdom, and that means he should come clean with them even if he never does with anyone else.