The History Behind Marquette’s “Untucked” Jersey
The “untucked” jersey began with a basketball team a renegade coach and a basketball player with a passion for fashion. Bo Ellis a member of Marquette’s Men’s Basketball 1977 championship team was not your ordinary basketball player. Bo was eccentric, but as described by Max McGowan in ESPN’s Untucked documentary, said that former head men's basketball coach Al McGuire “ would recruit these eccentric players because he was eccentric.” It sounds like a match made in heaven, and it was, Bo would become the team leader and captain for the Marquette men's basketball team demonstrating that he may be eccentric but he had strong leadership capabilities and that he was there for a reason.
McGuire believed so much in Bo, that as stated in the Marquette Hilltop McGuire is quoted as saying “ as Bo goes so we go”. Besides basketball, Bo had other passions, one being fashion design. Marquette at the time did not have a fashion design program, however, Mount Mary University, another Milwaukee university did. McGuire arranged for Bo to take classes there in fashion design to earn his degree. However, Mount Mary was an all-girls school, so as Bo said in the Untucked documentary, he was the first male student to ever attend the university.
It was the drive that Bo had for fashion design that would eventually lead him to create Marquette’s 1977 championship “untucked” jersey. Back then Marquette was known for changing their jerseys often, as stated by Max McGowan in the Untucked documentary, “Al and Marquette would change their jerseys every year”, so it wasn’t strange for Marquette to change their jerseys again. However, something was different about Bo’s jersey that would be groundbreaking in jersey design, and how they look, to this day.
Bo’s jersey design was a jersey that was made to be worn untucked hence the name the “untucked jersey.” The jersey was revolutionary in basketball jersey design because at that point all jerseys were supposed to be worn tucked in. Since then the untucked jersey is no longer allowed, but we can still see hints of the jersey in Marquette’s current Men’s Basketball jersey design today.
Today Marquette still goes for the solid color jersey, as Bo once did, and the current jersey still shows hints of inspiration from the “untucked” jersey, from the color block look to the different color trim all around the jersey. Even back in 2003, you can see the similarities between Bo’s jersey and the 2003 jersey. When Marquette launched their throwback jersey in the spirit shop in honor of Marquette Men’s Basketball legend Dwayne Wade, you can still see “untucked” jersey inspiration in the solid color jersey with the different color trim, and people are still in love with the look. One Twitter user in response to the new throwback jersey said “ Got mine!!! That's awesome!!!.”
It seems that Bo Ellis’s influence is still present today and will live on through the Marquette Men’s Basketball jerseys for many more years to come.
