Lately I’ve wondered, when did it officially become cool for male athletes to wear earrings? Other ponderances:

1) Is there only a certain level of athlete who can get away with them?
2) Is there a racial component to it? (obvious alert!)
3) Why do some wear earrings in each ear and some only wear one?
4) Why doesn’t Tiger Woods wear them?

We all know Michael Jordan as a trendsetter in shoes and apparel. But it appears he also started off athletes wearing earrings. I’m sure he wasn’t the first one (maybe some odd ABA player?) who did it in high profile sports. But I have no doubt that he is the primary reason we see so many athletes wearing earrings today.

If you look at old photos of him during his career, you’ll notice that he didn’t start in on the earwear until he was years-deep into his pro career. Why did he do it? I’m guessing he was inspired by other male entertainers, more specifically hip-hop artists, wearing them. But that’s just a stab.

Presently, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a male athlete who wears earrings. Why, can you now name a high profile black NBA player who doesn’t wear earrings? Years ago, it seemed like only the hottest pro athletes would wear them, as they were the only guys who could do so and avoid ridicule. But that stigma is now long gone. Now you seem them at every level of college and high school. So with that in mind, I’m thinking there must be a whole lot of people who think athletes wearing earrings is cool. Right?

I did a web search on: “Why do athletes wear earrings?“, and a Yahoo Answers page came up. Here were a couple of the responses.

From “Purple Girl”:

They were not properly taught that earrings are an exclusively feminine item in America. It may be out of hatred for gender roles and American customs. Men who wear earrings fail to realize that it is uncool and that athletes who wear them are either repressed homosexuals or wearing them out of ignorance.

From “dacook”:

in my opinion, they have too much money. most pro athletes start in that business because they love the game, they live the game. then fame comes and the guy with the most tattoos and the biggest “bling bling” wins!

when you think about it, it’s truly sad. pro athletes make more money that the president of the United States- remember I’m not just referring to Bush on this one……

seriously though- it truly doesn’t look good and in the end- they may be able to buy everything and more while they are HOT, eventually another new comer will be the star and they will be stuck with all the stupidity they did along the way.

truly a disaster

Because so many athletes wear earrings now, I really don’t subscribe to the “repressed homosexual” thing.

The reason for the spread of the trend in the past decade, in the end, is general tolerance that pervades our society. 10-15 years ago, I think a junior varsity scrub who wore earrings would be ridiculed to no end. But now, with so many athletes wearing earrings, it’s accepted.

Perhaps I’m intolerant and in the minority, but I still have trouble seeing a middle-aged man in earrings. And it doesn’t matter if it’s 60-something movie producer too old for the club, or Kobe Bryant, I just can’t get past it.

But if I had all that money and assorted underlings telling me I was always right, I’d probably wear them too.