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Maryland Newsline Thursday, April 25, 2002 The University of Maryland men’s basketball team had an exceptional season, earning its first Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season title since 1980, capping a ninth straight appearance in the NCAA tournament and winning the national title. But more important to fashion mavens, as Joan Rivers has been known to ask in her pre-Academy Awards commentary, is, “Who were they wearing?” And how did they look in those labels? For the record, the team was wearing Nike, in white and red. And how you thought they looked might depend on if you approve of how sports fashions have evolved.
Over the last 50 or so years that the Maryland basketball team played at Cole Field House, fashion on the court morphed from small, fitted jerseys, short, fitted shorts, and knee-high socks to ankle socks, baggy shirts and shorts that nearly droop to players’ knees. Basketball superstar Michael Jordan gave the trend some
early impetus in the 1980s, when he started wearing his shorts a little longer
than most NBA players, says Grant Wahl, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated
who covers college basketball and soccer. But the most dramatic change came in the early 1990s, Wahl says. Michigan, which had one of the top basketball programs in the country, recruited the nation’s top five freshmen. “Suddenly, hemlines started falling, and they started wearing huge, long shorts,” Wahl says of the Fab Five, as the Michigan players came to be known. Wahl and Nike’s product line manager, Matthew Park, agree that these players helped revolutionize not only the uniforms, but the image of college basketball. Future basketball stars grew up imitating these players’ confrontational attitudes on the court, along with their baggy shorts and black socks and sneakers. Other college basketball teams adopted the fashion, which mirrored mainstream fashion of the time, where hip-hop music was influencing young people to wear extremely baggy styles. “It started in the streets as an urban kind of uniform, was made popular through music, and made its way to the courts,” says Annet Couwenberg, chairwoman of the Fiber Department at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Park agrees, but adds that the influence works both ways. “Rappers want to be ball players, and ball players want to be rappers,” he says.
Basketball players want to look tough and confident on the court, which includes being fashionable, even if it means having to constantly pull up their shorts. But clothing has never been solely functional, says Couwenberg. Millions of women who wear 6-inch stilettos can attest to that.
Wahl says attractive uniforms can do more than make players look pretty and influence the style of entertainers and other fans. He says they play a role in recruiting players, and may sometimes be a factor in which college team a high school star chooses. “I’ll talk to college players who watch a lot of [ESPN] SportsCenter … and they really study it, they know who’s got the best uniforms,” Wahl says. “The guys really pay attention to that kind of stuff. They like looking good.” Len Elmore, a Maryland men's basketball star from the early 1970s, agrees that looking good on the court is important, but adds that uniforms didn't enter into his decision-making process when choosing a college. "You want to look good, you want to look sharp, you want to represent your school" on the court, Elmore says. But, he adds, "I cannot believe [uniforms] would enter into the decision-making process at all. To me, it's just not that important." Elmore says he doesn't mind that the style of basketball uniforms has become long and baggy, because it's simply a reflection of fashion trends. "I'm not one of those fuddy-duddies who can't change with the times," Elmore jokes. "Who am I to stand in judgment?" In his day, people wore fitted hip-huggers and bell-bottoms in their leisure hours, so he says he equates sharpness with the tapered look. So does Will Hetzel, a Maryland player from the late 1960s. Hetzel says he prefers the tight, sleek look of the basketball shorts of his day. "The baggy look to me looks a little disheveled," Hetzel says. "It doesn't look right; it's unattractive." However, he admits that his tighter shorts sometimes gave him discomfort during games, putting pressure on his stomach.
Making players look good while providing comfort isn’t easy. The collaborative process is quite extensive, says Park. The head coach, his administrative assistant, the equipment manager and a representative from Nike are typically involved in designing a new uniform. All participating parties meet nearly 18 months before the start of the season, Park says. The coach may describe his vision of a new uniform, which Nike designers sketch and bring back to the coach for approval. The process continues back and forth until all parties are satisfied. A coach may describe the image his team wants to portray by saying, “ ‘We want to be a ’57 Chevy or a Mercedes-Benz,’ ” Park explains. “They can’t explain the look, but the designers bring it to life.” And they do so with the help of new technology, which has greatly improved the quality and effectiveness of uniforms. The new fabric used on the uniforms, a microfiber, has become lighter and softer, doesn’t stick to the skin and is tailored to fit each player better, Park says. “The best uniform is one they don’t notice, “ Park says. “You feel like you’re wearing nothing at all.”
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