Kansas fans petition White House on new adidas jerseys, Bill Self is not happy either

kansasgamedayr | February 28, 2013 at 5:59 pm | 2 Comments

Kansas will be sporting some Zubaz-style jerseys for at least one game of the Big 12 conference tournament. (Photo courtesy adidas)

On Thursday, adidas unveiled a whole new set of jerseys that six teams will be sporting in their conference tournaments and March Madness. One of those schools is Kansas, and Jayhawks fans are not happy about it.

In fact, the White House has already been petitioned regarding the gaudy garments.

Kansas fans have already started a White House petition to stop the Jayhawks from wearing the new unis: 1.usa.gov/XIV7rr

— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) February 28, 2013

Generally speaking, crazy sports fanatics do not have a supporter in their team of choice’s coach. These jerseys, however, are simply not the average case of ugly in the eyes of Rock Chalk Nation. Instead of simply a few bloggers freaking out on message boards, Bill Self himself told reporters that his Jawhawks were not going to wear the jerseys any more than is absolutely necessary.

“We agreed with Adidas several months ago to sport that uniform as part of their marketing campaign in the Big 12 Tournament,” Self said Thursday during a press conference, via The Kansas City Star. “Now, how much we wear them in the Big 12 tournament will probably depend on how we play in them.

“Kansas tradition and history should be what is promoted for … in our look,” Self said, “and we’ve done that for years, but this is the one game where we will make that exception for Adidas.”

Last season, adidas put bright neon jerseys on Baylor and Louisville, but Kansas escaped the fashion-forward treatment. Not this time, however. At the very least, Kansas fans can take solace in knowing that their players won’t be wearing jerseys with sleeves. Louisville and Baylor are both once again subjugated to the funkiest of uniform treatments, along with UCLA.

Star Kansas scorer Elijah Johnson is not nearly as bent out of shape as the rest of us, however. In fact, the dude is just ready to get out there and ball, as long as he has clothes on at all.

“They’re jerseys at the end of the day,” Johnson said. “You can’t go out there with no clothes on. That’s all that really is. When coach say ‘put them on and go play’, we’re gonna put them on and go play.”

Yes, they are definitely going to play, and hopefully, they win enough that they can put their regular jerseys back on.