Photo: San Diego Tribune
Few people can truly rock a pair of Uncle Sam trunks with style. The Harlem Globetrotters and Apollo Creed. That’s pretty much as long as that list is going to get. Sure, you could paddle out in some red, white, and blue boardshorts on the 4th of July, but they’re probably not coming out the rest of summer. Furthermore, unless your goal is to end up on @kookoftheday, you’re definitely never wearing those boardies over your wetsuit.
But let’s add “Buckets” Blakes, a 40-year-old Harlem Globetrotter who grew up in Arizona and played college basketball in Wyoming, to that list of people with permission to don the American flag shorts while surfing. Over his wetsuit, of course. With the traditional Globetrotters headband to top it all off.
Just a couple of months ago, Blakes took an elevator to the top of the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio, Texas. He then walked to the edge of the tower, leaned over the railing, and dropped a basketball square into the hoop sitting 583 feet below. It was the highest shot ever made in North America. Take that, Steph Curry. So let’s just add that to the list of things that makes Buckets a stylish dude.
“Always wanted to,” Blakes said about learning to surf in Del Mar. “What’s the movie with Patrick Swayze – ‘Point Break?’ I’m a big Patrick Swayze fan.”
The surf lesson was a promotion for the Golbetrotters’ current visit to the San Diego area, as well as all the athletes’ charitable work and appearances that make up their never-ending world tour. He says members of the team will do more than 400 school appearances throughout the year as part of their community outreach, and Blakes himself will speak to kids at more than 100 schools about bullying.
“Kids tend to listen when you have some form of uniform on,” he says.
Cheers to that, Buckets. Keep the shorts on.
