Former Duke standout Grant Hill is criticizing former Michigan star Jalen Rose for saying the Blue Devils ''only recruited black players that were 'Uncle Toms.'''
Rose made the comments in a recent ESPN documentary about Michigan's Fab Five, a class of talented freshman in the early 1990s. Rose said he hated Duke back then and said the ACC program would never recruit someone like him.
In a column that appeared on The New York Times' website Wednesday, Hill cautions his ''fabulous five friends to avoid stereotyping me and others they do not know in much the same way so many people stereotyped them back then for their appearance and swagger.''
Hill, whose Duke team beat Michigan in the 1992 national title game, wrote that it's a ''sad'' and ''pathetic'' turn of events to see friends disparaging black athletes at Duke.
Hill currently plays for the Phoenix Suns.
Rose said Wednesday he was only describing how he felt back then, when he was younger.
''I have great respect and appreciation for the Duke program, its players and all they've achieved,'' Rose said in a statement. ''As I said in the documentary, those thoughts were how I felt as a teenager.''
