Jim Harbaugh confirms Chris Webber as honorary captain for PSU game

This summer, Chris Webber and Jim Harbaugh found themselves talking to each other on WTKA 1050’s The M Zone. The latter said to the former headliner of the Fab Five:

“Chris, I want you to be an honorary captain to the Michigan football team next season.”

“Coach,” Webber said, “you definitely know that’s no problem and I’m honored.”

Harbaugh confirmed at his Monday press conference Webber will serve the role this Saturday for the Penn State game.

“(I’m) very excited about it,” Harbaugh said. “Of course — like most everybody. (I was a) big fan (of him and the Fab Five).”

This was long suspected to be the game for Webber’s first public appearance in Ann Arbor since his time on the Crisler hardwood. He posted the following Instagram post this past August:

He was disassociated from Michigan after the basketball program’s NCAA violations stemming from improper benefits from Ed Martin, a booster. The period ended in 2013 during the Trey Burke-led Final Four run.

Webber, as a member of the Fab Five, led Michigan to national championship appearances in 1992 and 1993, his two seasons at the school. He was the No. 1 overall pick in the 1993 NBA Draft. Webber was an All Star in five of his 15 seasons in the league.

Webber has yet to comment on social media. He described the possibility on Sirius/XM NBA radio last summer.

“The last three or four years, he’s been asking me to come to a game,” Webber said. “And I just said, ‘Coach, right now is not the time. There needs to be a process of healing for me. We need to kind of wait on it.’

“Hopefully, this is the start of the first step in the process of healing for everybody.”