Morning Brew: The fashion of sports

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Tonight, Mt. Oread is home to events from seemingly disparate worlds. In the Kansas Union Ballroom, at 7 p.m., SUA will host its fourth-annual Project Runway show. Just down the hill, and also beginning at 7 p.m., the Kansas men’s basketball team will play in its second exhibition game.

Such a convergence of sports and fashion is rare to be sure, but not unique. In fact, one of the Internet’s best sports blogs, uniwatchblog.com, is devoted entirely to the intersection of these two worlds. Spun off from a 1999 column in The Village Voice, Uni Watch made its name in the blogoshpere when, in 2004, it debuted on ESPN.com’s Page 2, where it still runs. Over the years, the blog and column have reported on the intricacies of what author Paul Lukas calls the “aesthetic of athletics.” Which can often mean obsessing over apparently trivial details.

But not this week. This week, Uni Watch is devoted to fulfilling its promise, and realizing a seemingly impossible goal: naming the worst uniform in the history of (North American) sports.

Last week, readers narrowed down the field, choosing one uniform to represent each of the nine categories in the finals.

From MLB, the 1978 San Diego Padres lead things off. A tragic marriage of yellow, brown and hideous font, the Padres’ unis are a strong contender.

The NBA is represented by the expansion Toronto Raptors’ unis, which featured an anthropomorphic Raptor dribbling a basketball. Jurassic Park, it was not.

The Seattle Seahawks’ current neon-green alternates were selected as the NFL’s worst. Which, in my mind, is an instance of top-of-mind awareness trumping historical awfulness. The Buccaneers of the 1970’s were right there, people.

The NHL and Minor League selections are not so easy to contest. Both featured a Padres-esque joining of yellow and brown, but boldly added red to the mix. The Vancouver Canucks and Tucson Toros are the two luminaries responsible.

Oregon football takes the college crown, by virtue of repeatedly placing fake steel-plate-looking things on its shoulder pads. For shame, Phil Knight.

The Orlando Thunder, of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it World League of American Football, emerged as the worst of the “miscellaneous football leagues” category. The Thunder, of course, sported a lightning bolt on its helmet. But it also mixed that lightning bolt up with another (blue for whatever reason) bolt and then placed the entire thing on the sleeves of its lime-green jerseys.

It gets worse.

In 1976, the Chicago White Sox decided to take a page from slow pitch softball leagues. Instead of wearing baseball pants, the White Sox players sported shorts. And this was the ’70s, so these shorts were really short and really tight. Thankfully, the Sox only wore these abominations for a few games, thus its representing the “short lived” category. Not short lived enough, sadly. Some things cannot be unseen.

Soccer’s struggles to gain a foothold in America have been well documented and thoroughly debated. But let me posit another theory: that the Colorado Caribous’ kits are largely to blame. Although the shirts commit a litany of offenses, the horror they inspire can best be accredited to their having tassels. Tassels. Seriously.

Of course, these are all examples of when sports and fashion fail to gel. Tonight, no such tragedies should occur. The game and Project Runway event, though occurring at the same time, are indeed separate. Still, to honor this occasion, I’d like to suggest a Tim Gunn-inspired speech for Bill Self to use before the game: Make it work.

— Edited by Abby Olcese

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