Webber Is All Set to Have Big Night

The other kids made Chris cry. Picked on him. Called him names. Beat him up. He was an awkward, overgrown mama’s boy from a Christian elementary school where all the children wore starched white shirts and pea-green pants. And in that part of Detroit, that was enough to make Chris Webber an insult magnet for most of the boys in the ‘hood.

They hardly noticed how fast Chris was growing or improving. They weren’t even impressed when as an eighth-grader in one game he got 64 points and 15 dunks. All they knew was that Doris Webber, a teacher, was enrolling her son in some namby-pamby private academy with a name that made it sound like a nursery school, Country Day, out there in the suburbs with the rich folks, instead of at regular old Southwestern High with everybody else.

Mama was out shopping for gold-buttoned blazers and neckties. Dad was going off to work at General Motors to brag on his son. But Chris, Chris was in agony. Country Day? Country Day? They can’t do this to me, he thought. Can’t put me in some preppie school.

He begged his parents to reconsider.

You’re going, they said.

He threatened to run away from home.

You’re going, they said.

So, he hatched one more scheme. Country Day required aptitude tests. Prospective students took a four-hour exam. Here, Chris realized, here’s my chance. When the testing began, he picked up his pencil and played tick-tack-toe. Then he put down his head and took a nap. Waking up, he saw that two hours had been killed. Still two more to go. Chris was bored but no longer sleepy. So he checked out the first test question and answered it. Then the second.

A few days later, his mother got a call.

“Mrs. Webber, your son did fine on the test, but he only finished half.”

Chris threw up his arms in surrender. OK, OK, he said, I’ll go.

Weekdays were weird. Another world. Weeknights were hard. There would be pickup games at the playground, and Chris would get picked now because he had gotten so tall. But guys were still on his case. They kept acting as if he had gone off to Harvard or Oxford or some place. He kept reminding them that Country Day was 15 minutes away.

“My mother didn’t care about basketball,” Chris remembers. “I was going to be a teacher or a doctor or a lawyer, and that’s all there was to it.”

Next thing she knew, though, her son was Michigan’s “Mr. Basketball.” He stood 6 feet 9. He weighed 240 pounds. He was the state’s third-leading scorer of all time. Country Day had two state championships. Senior year, Chris averaged 28 points, 13 rebounds, four blocks and four steals. He was MVP in the McDonald’s all-star game, in the Dapper Dan game. The University of Michigan wanted him. And Duke. And, well, everybody, everywhere.

His friends kept whispering: “UNLV.” A basketball player could be cool in Las Vegas, wear his trunks baggy, have fun on the court, not come under the coach’s thumb all the time. At least that’s the image Chris and his friends had. He recalled the way Larry Johnson would smile and celebrate after making a basket, rather than be too serious and mechanical. Chris didn’t care to be anybody’s robot.

He visited Duke. He liked it. It was the Country Day of colleges. Christian Laettner was supposed to help show the Detroit kid around, but the All-American always seemed to be off somewhere with his girlfriend. Grant Hill and some of the others gave him a tour instead. And they came across a series of tents, like a campground. Chris thought it must be some Boy Scout jamboree. He was told these were Duke students, camping overnight to buy basketball tickets. Now that, Chris thought, is cool.

His baby brother thought so, too. David Webber lobbied for Duke. And that also was fine with another brother, Jason. But Chris felt they were hiding their true feelings. His parents, too. Everybody knew Steve Fisher was signing up recruit after recruit for Michigan. He got Webber’s buddy from Southwestern, Jalen Rose. He got a couple of hotshots from Texas, Ray Jackson and Jimmy King. Got the best guy in Chicago, Juwan Howard. Even got Southwestern’s coach, Perry Watson. Put him on the staff.

Fisher was putting together the freshest freshmen anywhere--Stevie’s wonders.

This time his parents never said: “You’re going.”

But Chris sensed how things were.

“My little brother David finally said, ‘I don’t want you to go away. I want you to watch me grow up.’ I just couldn’t go to Duke,” Chris said. “Besides, my poor parents, they would be bankrupt. They would be at every game, no matter how far away I was.”

Michigan got him.

May becomes December. And who comes to Ann Arbor for the fifth game of Chris Webber’s collegiate career? Duke, that’s who. Defending national champion Duke. No. 1-ranked Duke. You-almost-had-me Duke.

And who comes along? Christian Laettner.

From Country Day to national TV. What a quantum leap. Only something is wrong. Webber keeps waiting for some attention. But the only thing anybody asks him is about Laettner. What’s it going to be like facing Laettner? How worried is he about Laettner?

“It’s like: ‘How are you going to control this monster?’ ” Webber said. “I got people saying: ‘He’s gonna score 30. You’re gonna score zero. He’s gonna foul you out.’ I had so much resentment.”

First chance, Webber skies over Laettner and jams, bam!

Then he turns to the All-American and woofs, right there into his face: “How’d you like that? You just got dunked on, on national TV!”

Well, Duke got the last woof, 88-85. But it took an overtime. And Webber put up 26 points. And pulled down 17 rebounds. And Laettner and the Duke guys went away impressed. They said to watch out for this Webber, watch out for this Michigan team. That they might meet again.

Tonight, they do.

For the national championship.

“Christian Laettner’s a great player,” Webber said Sunday. “But understand, when you ask me what I’ll do to check him, I want to make you ask him what he’ll do to check me .

“Some of that stuff I said, though, remember: That was the immature kid in me talking. I respect Laettner. I got to give him his props. Laettner, well, I don’t want to say ‘cocky’ because that has a negative connotation. Let’s just say he’s a level above confident. Not many players would want the ball in the last second against Kentucky the way he did. He has a lot of heart.

“Sort of reminds me of myself.”

Postscript: Jason Webber is a high school freshman. At Country Day. His parents made him go.

He is unhappy. Everybody there treats Jason nice because his brother is so popular. But everybody also expects him to be the same basketball player. “And when they see I’m not, they’re disappointed,” Jason says. “They overrate me, then they tell me I’m weak.”

He used to yell for Chris. Now he yells at Chris. He yells: “Why do you have to be so famous?” He yells at his parents for preferring to watch Chris’ games to his. Jason still loves his big brother. He wants him to win the national championship tonight.

And yet. . . .

“Is Chris your favorite college player?” Jason is asked.

“No,” he replies. “My favorite is Christian Laettner.”