Retro jerseys are bringing the ‘80s back
Items that are evoking memories from Kanasas’ 1988 national championship season are selling fast at sports stores around Lawrence.
The items, including a DVD of Kansas’ 1988 Final Four games, t-shirts, jerseys, pint glasses and posters, are selling like hotcakes.
By Luke Morris (Contact)
Monday, February 18th, 2008
Photo by Mindy Ricketts
Brad Witherspoon, senior guard is wearing the retro uniform that they wore in 1988 when they were champions and now you can buy it.
Legwarmers and rope chains aren’t the only fashion items inducing ‘80s flashbacks on campus. Stores on campus and in Lawrence started selling replica basketball uniforms from Kansas’ 1988 national championship season two weeks ago.
The dark blue throwback jerseys feature a variation of the previous font that the font Trajan replaced on jerseys this season. The throwback jersey also has red-, yellow- and blue-striped trim and features a patch recognizing the 20th anniversary of the 1988 championship. Jerseys feature a few number choices, but most feature the number 25, which Danny Manning wore that year.
The shorts are back too, but they look a little different from their 20-year-old counterparts.
“Fortunately, Adidas had enough foresight to make them a little longer,” said Toni Retonde, assistant store manager at Jayhawk Bookstore, 1420 Crescent Road.
Prices for jerseys range from $75 for the official replica to $40 for a screen-printed mesh version. Shorts cost between $40 and $55 at local stores and online. Youth jerseys are also available, but Retonde said that the adult jerseys were more popular.
Retonde said that her store sold its first shipment in a week, and received a new, larger shipment Thursday.
Kansas Bookstore, second floor of the Kansas Union, has sold about 50 jerseys and pairs of shorts, according to Mario Bonilla, lead clerk for gifts and clothing.
1988 throwback jerseys are on sale at:
—KUStore.com and inside the Booth Family Hall of Athletics
—KU Bookstore, second floor in the Kansas Union
—Jayhawk Bookstore, 1420 Crescent Road
—University Book Shop, 1116 W. 23rd St.
—Jock’s Nitch, 837 Massachusetts St. and 1443 W. 23rd St.
—Sports Dome, 1000 Massachusetts St.
—D3 Sports, 2040 W. 31st St., Suite D
“We’ve had phone calls for them and maybe 2 or 3 weeks before that. We had to call a few back and tell them we had them in,” Bonilla said.
Other 1988 items that stores are selling include a DVD of Kansas’ Final Four games from that year, T-shirts and pint glasses celebrating the championship and a poster of the front page of The University Daily Kansan the day after the Jayhawks won the title.
The men’s basketball teams wore the throwback jerseys Saturday against Colorado, but they weren’t the only ones in Allen Fieldhouse sporting the tend.
“It’s a cool piece of history to be able to say you own the retro jersey,” said Chelsea Montgomery, Hays sophomore, who wore the throwback jersey her boyfriend bought her.
Montgomery, who was only five months old when Kansas won the national championship in 1988, said owning the jersey was like owning her own piece of University history.
—Edited by Matt Hirschfeld
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