Sleets grew up in Campbellsburg, KY and starred on the basketball team at Eminence High School. When he was young, his father, Lamont Sleets, Sr. would frequently entertain visits from his old army buddies. Sleets Sr. served in Vietnam, in the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry regiment. "It was the Bobcat division," Mont said, "but my dad and his friends always called it 'The Five.'" Sleets Sr. and his army friends started an informal greeting between them while serving in Vietnam. It consisted of extending their arm straight up in the air with all five fingers parted and saying the name of their division: "Five." Sleets thinks that when he was around 2 or three years old, it was only natural to want to emulate the old army men that gathered in his house. Since it was tough for a youngster to keep track of all the different names of the visitors, the saying of "Five" became young Mont Sleets' universal salutation for his fathers friends. Sleets recalls the story with the weariness of anybody recounting the family stories they heard over and over while growing up, but not without telltale signs of enthusiasm throughout: "They'd walk in the door, and a three year old kid, he doesn't know the difference between all these grown-ups. But they're all sayin' 'Five' with their hand up like this, so I just start saying to them, 'Hi, Five!' like it was their name."
Sleets Sr. and his friends found Mont's desire to emulate them charming and would often kneel down on the ground so little Mont could return the salutation to them as well. Mont would hold his hand up and say "Hi Five!" back. "And when you're a little kid, you're curious," said Sleets. "You see all these old veterans, and their hands are so much bigger than yours, and you want to put your hand up and compare it to them." From there, the gesture simply evolved over time. As Mont got older, he of course learned the proper names of his father's visitors. But his childhood greeting of a hand held high and a "Hi, Five!" had stuck. Though he stopped wanting to compare hands with his dad's friends, teenage Mont remained willing to give their hands a quick tap with his own.
