I was watching some old classic 1979 basketball game on ESPN and the players look like they’re wearing little hot pants. When did hot pants basketball uniforms come in and when did they go out.
Why don’t girls teams wear these now instead of the men’s saggy baggies?
I don’t know when it started but I’m pretty sure that it was before 1960.
This site attributes the baggie style to Michael Jordan, who started wearing baggie shorts because he insisted on wearing his University of North Carolina shorts underneath his Bulls uniform for luck. That would have been the mid to late eighties. Tight shorts were the norm in the NBA before that, I don’t remember them ever wearing baggie shorts before Jordan.
I have no idea, but it sounds like a great idea for a website:
www.LeggyBabesInHotpantsPlayingSport.com
You know you’d click on that !!
Part of a larger phenomenon.
Just the other day I was scanning some vintage-1961 slides including my Dad in the ocean wearing swim trunks. And I realized I’d seen that slide many times as a kid and giggled my head off at how silly men looked in those long grandpa-shorts that came all the way down to your knees. Didn’t men back then know how incredibly DORKY they looked in those huge freakin’ bloomers?
Now, of course, those huge freakin’ bloomers have been back in style for over two decades, and it’s the regular shorts – uh, “hot pants” – that draw the jeers.
Go figure.
(I still think shorts and swim trunks that come down to your knees look seriously dorky and doofy though.)