Grant Hill is in the Final Four, Christian Laettner is a very hot topic, and if you bring up The White House, you can’t help but think of a Clinton. Yes, 2015 truly feels like 1992 all over again. Except this time Grant Hill will be calling the the Final Four and National Title game for CBS as a color analyst; Christian Laettner is burning up the internet and social media, and Hillary Clinton is the overwhelming favorite to claim the U.S. Presidency.
Hill is one of the major stars appearing in Rory Karpf’s astoundingly good documentary “I hate Christian Laettner,” as he played with Laettner on those dynastic Duke teams.
I asked Hill about his relationship with Christian Laettner, back then, as well as today. I also inquired into his thoughts on the documentary, and Laettner becoming a top trending topic.
Grant Hill: “Christian was a great teammate and is a great friend. I got the chance to watch the premiere with him this past week in New York, and also be a part of a Q&A afterwards at a private screening. It was a lot of fun to relive some of those great moments while watching the film with him.”
“I was happy for him. I think the two things that came out of the film that pleased me were, one, it reminded everyone how good he really was. Everyone who talked about him, who had issues with him, who didn’t like him for whatever reason, pretty much acknowledged that he was a great player. I think sometimes out of sight, out of mind, people forget.
“There’s probably a generation of young people who never really got a chance to watch him play.”
“Two, I think it [the doc] humanized him a bit. I think you got a chance to get to know him like I know him, like my teammates know him, like those that were a part of the Duke basketball family knew him. He was complicated in some respects but he was a whole lot of fun to play with.”
With the Laettner 30 for 30 winning the internet Sunday, and the ascension Grant Hill has seen in his broadcasting career, add to that the recent Fab 5 and UNLV documentaries, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that the early 90s were the Golden Age of college basketball.
Here’s the link to our review/critique of “I Hate Christian Laettner.” This one is could be at the top of the ESPN 30 for 30 all time top ten list.
You really should listen to the podcast with Laettner too. The whole thing was great, but there was some good Grant Hill talk on here:
Issues related to race, class and even sexual orientation serve as vital plot points. The gay rumors which surrounded Christian Laettner in the early 1990s are covered in full detail here; as well as in the doc. The internet is blowing up in searches regarding Laettner’s sexuality.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital. You can read Banks’ feature stories and op-eds in the Chicago Tribune RedEye newspaper and hear his regular guest spots on numerous sports talk radio stations all across the country.
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