Chris Webber - Growing Up In Detroit

Mayce Edward Christopher Webber III was born on March 1, 1973, in Detroit, Michigan, the oldest of five children. His father, Mayce, was a plant foreman for General Motors, often working double shifts, and his mother, Doris, taught special needs children in the Detroit school system. Although reared in a tough lower-middle-class Detroit neighborhood with few positive economic and social opportunities, Webber benefited

Chris Webber

from a close-knit family with supportive parents who kept a close eye on their son.

Webber did not play much basketball until the summer before entering the sixth grade. His father encouraged him to take up the sport because his son was already exceptionally tall for his age. Joining a summer basketball program, with little idea how to play, Webber almost quit because the other kids teased him for his awkwardness. Encouraged by his father to tough it out, Webber was helped by a local coach who recognized his potential and spent hours working with him to improve his play, which paid huge dividends for Webber. Despite Webber's protests, his parents enrolled him as a freshman at Detroit Country Day High, located in an upper-middle-class suburb of Birmingham. During his time at Country Day, Webber led the school to three state basketball championships and averaged twenty-eight points and thirteen rebounds per game during his senior year. In 1991 he was named Michigan's Mr. Basketball and National High School Player of the Year.