At his first practice as a Michigan freshman, Jordan Poole panicked when coach John Beilein shook his head and told Poole his basketball shorts were too short and he had to stop rolling down the waistband.
“I was like, ‘Yo, let me talk to Bob (Bland, the team equipment manager),’ ” recalled Poole, now a sophomore guard. “I was like, ‘Bob, I need some smaller shorts. If Coach won’t let me (wear) them, I don’t know how good I’ll be.’ ”
Beilein eventually relented as Poole wore a smaller size — and continued to roll down the waistband to make the shorts look even tinier.
Poole’s shorts stop about four or five inches above his knee with little breathing room between skin and fabric, and he isn’t alone in college basketball. Nobody seems able to pin down when and where this throwback look reignited into a sports fashion statement.
But it’s obvious: Short shorts are back.
“Some guys like to show off their legs,” Louisville forward Jordan Nwora said Wednesday in Des Moines, Iowa, “especially if you’ve got bounce.”
While it’s a bit of a chicken-or-egg debate, most believe sports apparel companies began to downsize their shorts after noticing players rolling down their waistbands. Uniforms already were becoming tighter, following the trend of non-sportswear such as skinny jeans and buttoned-to-the-top fitted dress shirts.
“Everything is faster now with social media,” said Paul Lukas, who runs Uni Watch, a blog devoted to sports uniforms. “If a trend is happening at some high school in rural wherever, everyone will know about it and it can become cool.”
The length of basketball shorts has risen and fallen over the years like a yo-yo.
Wilt Chamberlain’s 1960s shorts look like underwear compared with today’s standards. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson showed plenty of leg in the 1980s. Jazz point guard John Stockton was among the last to wear the form-fitting style.
Then things went the other way in the 1990s. There’s a theory that Michael Jordan started the trend of requesting looser shorts so he could grab the hems when he was bent over and tired.
The Fab Five from Michigan took it farther — literally. The group that reached the 1992 and ’93 NCAA championship games used yards more fabric than the uniforms Poole and his teammates wear today, their billowy shorts hanging below the knees.
“Yeah, I don’t know about those,” Minnesota guard Amir Coffey said.
“It’s more comfortable,” Poole said of the shorter style. “You don’t have to worry about the shorts being too baggy and you crossing over the ball and it hitting your shorts.”
Some college players ask their equipment managers for shorts a size smaller than they typically would wear. Some roll the waistband to make them shorter.
Louisville forward Dwayne Sutton said he prefers two rolls, sometimes three. In high school, he said, opponents told him that’s how girls wear their shorts.
“I don’t care,” he said. “I just laughed at it.”
Companies such as Under Armour have begun placing branding inside the waistband. Players said the Adidas Nations camp customized its shorts to a tighter fit.
“I actually wish mine were shorter,” Ohio State guard Musa Jallow said. “But if I keep on rolling them, it wouldn’t be appropriate.”
In the 1970s and ’80s, sock height rose with shorts height as knee-high tube socks were in fashion. With the longer shorts in the 1990s, ankle-length socks became the rage.
Now it’s about showing all the leg you can.
“Pushed-down socks, rolled-down shorts, baby,” Minnesota’s Jarvis Omersa said.
Most current college players began wearing their shorts smaller in high school. Some say former Illinois and Oakland guard Kendrick Nunn started the trend at Simeon. Others point to former Cal star and current Celtics guard Jaylen Brown or former Indiana guard OG Anunoby for starting the hiked-up look.
Poole said he wore shorter shorts in high school when nobody else did. He said he played for a “strict coach” at Milwaukee’s King High School who, like Beilein, wasn’t keen on a freshman standing out with a different style.
“I feel faster,” he said. “I feel more athletic with the short shorts.”
After Michigan reached the national championship game a year ago, Poole said he has seen more college players latch on to the trend. He turned to teammate Zavier Simpson in the locker room and asked, “Are you in the short-shorts game?”
Simpson laughed and indicated his thigh-length shorts to acknowledge he has indeed adopted the look.
Not many NBA players sport the shorter length. Poole hopes to change that.
“If I can get there, I’m going to bring it there,” he said. “I’m a trendsetter.”
Twitter @sryantribune
