If you are an African-American male between the ages of 30-40 there are certain individuals in the world of sports, entertainment and music that had a huge effect on you during your early years.

Michael Jordan

Tupac and Biggie

The Movie Boyz n da Hood

Just to name a few, but if you ask the majority of us which team we identified with more than any other the answer you will get is:

THE FAB 5

Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, Ray Jackson, Juwan Howard and Chris Webber.

When the NCAA was shoving Duke and the pure breed Christian Laettner down our throat, here came these five inner city kids who looked and acted like us. Who wore baggy shorts and played like we did on the court.

It is hard to explain their impact, because it went way beyonf basketball, but their effect is still being felt today.

The Fab Five, the Michigan basketball sensation who spent their first two years of college in 1992 and 1993 attached at the hip reaching NCAA title games and changing parts of the basketball culture, have reunited once as a unit.

Rose, King and Jackson were honored at halftime of the Michigan/Gardner-Webb game today — brought together as part of the Legends Classic — it showed another step toward the group’s reconnection with the university. The trio were given navy blue Michigan jackets and honorary plaques.

Juwan Howard is still playing in the NBA amazingly and unfortunately because of an agent scandal that put Michigan on probation Chris Webber is not allowed to have any connection with the university for 10 years.

It is unfortunate they weren’t all in attendance because they do deserve to be honored not just by Michigan but college basketball as a whole.

I have always wondered if their careers would have taken a different path if Chris Webber came back the year after the “timeout”. I always believed they would have went undefeated and for some reason I think Webber’s career would have been better for it.

They never won a championship and never reached their full potential, but they were a force that is still being felt today.

This is tough to admit for an Ohio State Graduate, but I still own a Chris Webber Michigan Jersey.

It isn’t a throwback my mom purchased it for me in 1993. Of course I can’t fit it anymore, but it is more about a symbol of what was going on at that time.

The last time they were all on the court together was during the infamous timeout game over 17 years ago. 17 years, I remember it like it was yesterday, but seems like a lifetime.