Decades of Bad Hair Daze

Insight on the News, Sept 24, 2001 by Patrick Hruby

Sports hairdos are often don'ts. Athletes, like rock stars, express their larger-than-life personas by adopting outrageous hairstyles ranging from the mullet to the Afro to cornrows.

It possibly was the last true remnant of the Cold War, an unfortunate by-product of a regrettable era. Long after the collapse of communism, the fall of the Berlin Wall and comedian Yakov Smirnoff's rapid slide into irrelevance, Jaromir Jagr's hairdo -- a fluffy on top, flowing in back, hockey God cum Eastern-bloc monster of metal mullet -- soldiered on, oblivious as an Easter Island statue to the stylistic sea change all around it.

In fact, it wasn't until the summer of 1999 that the then-Pittsburgh Penguins forward decided to lop his top. Following multiple trips to an Italian barber -- in Italy, it should be noted -- the Czech superstar reported to training camp sporting a streamlined new look. "I think I'm old enough to have short hair now," Jagr told stunned reporters about his first significant trim in 12 years. "No more of the girl stuff."

When it comes to bad hair, rock 'n' roll has nothing on sports. "It's definitely a rock-star thing," says Glenn O'Brien, a style advice columnist with GQ magazine. "And it hasn't peaked yet." Indeed, like a triple bill of the Backstreet Boys, Flock of Seagulls and Metallica (circa 1990), the sports world teems with outrageously misguided mops, an entire ecosystem of hairdos that are clearly and unequivocally don'ts.

It's New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza flaunting an 'N Sync-ish day-glo peroxide trim that seems ripped from the pages of Tiger Beat. It's 38-year-old Oakland Raiders wide receiver Jerry Rice mixing cornrows and a shaved scalp in tragically unhip fashion. It's basketball announcer Marv Albert, whose immaculate hair-piece could likely double as a cobra repellent, resembling nothing so much as a well-groomed mongoose pelt.

The history of bad sports hair is long, tangled and often accompanied by egregiously ill-conceived facial hair. Although many observers consider it a uniquely modern affliction, it actually spans decades.

The 1950s. Start with the granddaddy of all cranial folly, the buzz cut. A no-nonsense, well-ventilated style that stays out of the eyes and can't be grabbed, pulled or set aflame, the buzz was perfect for the postwar era. As such, it was warmly embraced by Baltimore Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas, young Jack Nicklaus and the entire University of Alabama football team.

"It's a low-maintenance cut," says O'Brien. "If you're on the road for half the year, it's a pretty safe solution. Cal Ripken Jr. looks really good with his silver one." Beneath that workmanlike veneer, however, hides the buzz cut's awful truth: It's not for everyone. In fact, it's hardly for anyone. The reason?

Like Torquemada with a Flo-Bee, it exposes flaws better left unseen. Take former Baltimore Colts lineman Artie Donovan's perma-buzz, which blended badly with the uneven topography of his knobby skull.

The 1960s and 1970s. As the nation let its collective hair down in the late sixties and early seventies, the sports world followed suit -- strand by overgrown strand. Long hair blossomed. Afros bloomed. Bill Walton was, well, Bill Walton, in all his fuzzy glory.

It was the era of Rollie Fingers' handlebar mustache, waxed to a 19th-century sheen. Of Pete Rose's flop top, hustling out from beneath his batting helmet. Of the American Basketball Association, home to a shaggy-haired Larry Brown, a Viking-styled George Karl and the unparalleled Darnell Hillman, owner of the league's biggest 'fro.

Viewed as a whole, it was nothing short of a "hair quake" -- a seismic cultural event that left no scalp untouched. "If you looked at videos from then, you'd think they're the ones who are crazy, not the kids with cornrows today," says Georgetown basketball coach Craig Esherick. "You had beards, goatees. People were trying to redefine the Afro."

In addition, David Bowie's bi-level mullet -- business up top, party in the back -- hit with the force of a Tsunami, currying favor with relief pitchers and hockey players alike. "It's an absolutely flawless hair style for any sport, really," says Mark Larson, author of Hairstyle of the Gods, a definitive history of the mullet. "It allows you to have that powerful Visigoth, Viking look and still sweat. There's really no downside."

The 1980s. Washington Redskins running back John Riggins opened the decade with a bang, shaking up the staid National Football League with a Repo Man cum Last of the Mohicans Mohawk. (He would presage the emergence of pseudo-sports figure Mr. T.) "Riggins was really important," O'Brien says. "It was kind of the first great punk statement in sports."

As the "me decade" moved forward, bad sports hair morphed again, mirroring the worst excesses -- and accessories -- of its time. Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon commercialized his spiky 'do with a matching corporate headband. Wrestler Hulk Hogan hid his steroid-ravaged scalp under stringy blond locks and a self-promoting Hulkamania bandanna. New York Jets lineman Mark Gastineau brought a taste of New Jersey into America's collective living room.