Jalen Rose is a fixture at the school that bears his name in Detroit

DETROIT (AP) — Jalen Rose walked through the doors of the high school that bears his name and into the cafeteria, which doubles as a shorter-than-regulation basketball court. He hugged a stream of students as they headed to class and chatted up faculty and staff in the hallways.

The former NBA guard and member of Michigan’s Fab Five opened the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy in 2011, four years after retiring from the league. As busy as he is, the 6-foot-8 Rose is a regular in the building and outside when people in the community pull up for free food.

“Jalen is here all the time,” said Jazmine Allen, principal and superintendent of the open enrollment, tuition free public school in Detroit. “I think people think that the school is named after Jalen and he is just a celebrity. He actually is a normal fixture here. He is not just the board president and founder of the school. He works here and doesn’t receive a paycheck.”

Rose was also not paid for a recent speaking opportunity, recently delivering the commencement address at the University of Michigan.

And to him, it was priceless.

“This is actually my, `Mama, I made it’ moment,’” he said during his 22-minute speech to the graduates on the covered turf and tens of thousands of people in the stands at Michigan Stadium on May 2.

The 53-year-old Rose was raised by his mother, Jeanne Rose, who died in 2021, and grew up poor in Detroit, where he said she kept a box of unpaid bills tucked away in a closet. He didn’t see his father, Jimmy Walker, who was drafted by Detroit No. 1 overall in the 1967 NBA draft, until he attended his funeral in 2007. Walker wore No. 24 during his nine-year career in the league with Detroit, Houston and Kansas City.

Intentionally, Rose wore No. 42 because he wanted to be the opposite of Walker. He helped Detroit Southwestern High School win state championships as a junior and senior in 1990 and 1991, playing on a team with fellow future NBA players Voshon Lenard and Howard Eisley.

Rose was the fifth member of the Fab Five to commit to Michigan, so he wore No. 5 with the Wolverines. He was the point guard and the team’s unquestioned leader as it reached the NCAA final in 1992 and 1993 with Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson, losing to Duke and then North Carolina.

Rose had the most swagger on perhaps the most charismatic team in the history of college athletics.

“Jalen has always been the mouthpiece for the Fab Five,” King said, standing in a hallway at Rose’s school where Ivy League pennants adorn the walls to inspire students to aim high, cell phone access is limited and the dress code includes blazers, collared shirts and khaki pants. “He’s been the one out front for us.”

Rose left Michigan after his junior season and in 2007, shortly after retiring from the league, he earned a degree from the University of Maryland Global Campus.

Denver drafted him No. 13 overall in 1994. He finished 13th in NBA MVP voting in 2000, when he won the Most Improved Player Award. Rose later played with the Indiana Pacers for six seasons and also had stops in Toronto, Chicago, Phoenix and New York while averaging 14-plus points a game during his 13-year career with more than $100 million in earnings.

He has also made significant money as a TV analyst, podcast host and executive producer of the show “South West High,” on Tubi, which is the first project from a multi-media company he launched earlier this year with Pistons owner Tom Gores.

All of this alongside his effort to educate and feed his community in the Motor City at a school that gets limited state funding.

Basketball Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas was so impressed by Rose’s efforts that he has donated money, which is recognized by a plaque outside a classroom.

“It would’ve easier for him to say, `I’m going to have a gym to play basketball,’ or something recreational for kids to play and have fun,” Thomas said. “Instead, he took on the challenge of opening a school to educate kids and build their minds, as opposed to just building their bodies. He has to raise funds to make all this happen because he’s doing it independently.”

When Cierra Gee moved from New Jersey to Detroit and chose to attend JRLA, she didn’t recognize the school’s namesake.

“For the first few months I was like, `Who is this tall guy everybody keeps high-fiving?‘” recalled Gee, a senior who said she gained admissions at 37 colleges. “I did not know who he was until my dad came to pick me up one day. He was like, `Oh yeah, that’s Jalen Rose, go get a picture.’ I was like cool peeps. He doesn’t walk around with a sense of entitlement.”

Rose’s school is in a former elementary school and he is assessing the logistics and cost of moving it into a former hospital.

“To pour back into the community, it just means everything to me,” Rose said.

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