University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Players Picky About Gear
August 11, 2008 | Football, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Aug. 11, 2008
By Adam Lucas
When it comes to Tar Heels who are finicky about their uniforms and equipment, there are three distinct groups: there are those who don't care, there are the kickers...and then there is Greg Little.
Of anyone on the football field, it's the kickers who draw the closest relationship between their equipment and their on-field results. Several Carolina kickers in the recent past have had unusual equipment quirks. Jeff Reed, for example, wouldn't pack his kicking shoes with everyone else's equipment on road trips. Only two people were allowed to touch the magical kicking shoes: Reed and assistant equipment manager Mark Yaekel.
In those days, the Tar Heels wore white cleats (which are slated to return in 2008). But Reed's preferred shoe model wasn't available in white, so the equipment staff had to paint a set of black cleats white.
Reed would soon pass the torch to Connor Barth...both in the UNC kicking record book and in the weird equipment preference department.
"No question, Connor was the weirdest," says Tar Heel linebacker Chase Rice, one of Barth's closest friends. "I came in the locker room two years ago and he had these shiny white shoes with no laces. They looked like white plastic slippers. He said he liked them because they were light, but they cost something like $350. He always wanted to be the lightest he could be, with the lightest shoes, smallest pads, and he even wanted the one-bar facemask."
The current Tar Heel kickers won't be sporting any white plastic slippers this year, but Barth's brother, Casey, a UNC freshman kicker, recently ordered some personalized Nike kicking shoes.
"I guarantee this," says equipment manager Jason Freeman, "when the other kickers see them, we're going to have to order some for all of them, too."
Ordering those kicks in the correct size can be a challenge. Punter Terrence Brown wears a 13 in his street shoes but prefers a 12 in football cleats. Kicker Jay Wooten also wears a size 13 in his normal shoes, but would occasionally kick in 10.5's or 11's in high school. Since his arrival at Carolina, he's bumped up to a size 12 for football because of the amount of running and conditioning required.
Why purposely try to squeeze your feet into shoes that are at least a size too small?
"The smaller the better," Brown says. "Kickers want our cleats to fit like gloves. You want more of your foot on the ball--the closest you can get to kicking barefoot. It hurts for about a week and a half, but once you get them broken in it doesn't feel as bad."
Among the position players, a few have certain requests. Defensive end E.J. Wilson wants his jersey cut low around his arms to prevent offensive linemen from holding him. Hakeem Nicks always wants to have a fresh pair of gloves on game day, and he doesn't take them out of the pack until game time.
But no Tar Heels puts the same amount of thought into his appearance as Greg Little. The sophomore from Durham picked Miami as his favorite childhood team. How did he latch onto the Hurricanes? Several of their players wore multicolored visors.
So, how did Little take it when he arrived at Carolina and found out the NCAA had outlawed the shiny visors?
"I was devastated," he says. "That was one of my biggest dreams. Hopefully, when I get to the next level I can make it happen."
It is important to note here that Little seems deadly serious about the visor issue. It's not hard to imagine a tiny tear trickling down his cheek as he affixes the clear visor (this is the one part of his ensemble that he admits has a function, as it prevents defenders from poking a finger--or worse--in his eye) to his helmet, pining for that sharp multi-colored look.
Oh, and about that helmet. Little wore the Riddell Revolution last year. He's switched to a more typical helmet this year. There's probably some performance-based reason, right?
"Nope," Little says. "It's more about looks. The Revolution is a better helmet, and it protects you better. But I'm about the looks. I'm going with elbow sleeves this year, too. I'm trying to get that Adrian Peterson look. If I look like him, I might play like him."
Freeman often hears that refrain from players requesting new gear. It's the same not quite grammatically correct thought Nicks has every time he pops a fresh pair of 4XL gloves--he wore 3XL gloves last year but says his hands grew in the offseason--out of the pack minutes before kickoff.
"You have to look good," Nicks says. "Because when you look good, you play good."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.
