DETROIT -- Jalen Rose awarded $50,000 in college scholarships Wednesday, for the fifth straight year, to five Detroit high school seniors.
Scholarship winners Ja'von Bell (Crockett Technical) plans to attend Wayne State, Martin Lucaj (Southwestern) to the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Brittany Meeks (Mumford) to Central Michigan, Jamel Riley (Cass Technical) to Morehouse College and Brenten Williams (Cass Technical) to John Hopkins or Cornell.
Rose, a member of Michigan's Fab Five in the early 1990s, graduated from Maryland in 2005.
"I left the University of Michigan after my junior year to enter the NBA draft but never lost sight of the value of a college degree," he said in a statement. "I believe everyone deserves the opportunity to further their education, and through this program, more Detroit students will join me in achieving that goal."
The Jalen Rose Foundation selected the scholarship winners within Rose's hometown -- from a pool of 200 applicants -- based on academics, goals, extracurricular and community activities along with financial need. Rose gave $240,000 to Michigan to establish an endowed scholarship in 2004.
Rose played for Phoenix last season and is a free agent. The 6-foot-8 guard played sparingly with the Suns after averaging between 11 and 24 points the previous eight seasons in New York, Toronto, Chicago and Indiana.
He regularly appears on ESPN as an NBA analyst.
