New York Times Trend Alert: Wristbands

September 18, 2008
In Name of Fashion, Embracing a Trend
By JOHN BRANCH
The New York Times

Giants linebacker Danny Clark recently saw a basketball player use his wristband to — get this — wipe sweat.
“I said, ‘That’s what those are for?’ ” Clark said. “I had forgotten that.”
Clark wears wristbands, too. But he does not wear them to wipe sweat, and he does not wear them on his wrists. Like a growing number of fashion-conscious N.F.L. and college football players — and countless kids who emulate them — Clark wears his wristbands well above his elbows.
“I’ve got all sorts of biceps and triceps busting out of there,” Clark said. “It’s a good look.”
Wristbands, like their stretchy ringed cousin, the headband, have long performed dual (if not dueling) roles of form and function for athletes. Depending on the sport, the era and the hipness of the wearer, they have not always been worn to good reviews.
But only in the past few years, it seems, have wristbands dared migrate north, past the elbow.
Some football players, like Jets defensive end David Bowens, pull fat 2-inch wristbands up into the crook of the elbows. Some, like Giants defensive end Dave Tollefson, use scissors to cut a skinny edge from the elastic band for a thin strand. Some even use sliced old socks, swatches of stretchy material or athletic tape to create the wrap-around look.
Some wear the bands at the elbow. Some wear them across the middle of the biceps. Some, like Jets cornerback Dwight Lowery, wear them over the top of a long-sleeved shirt.
A few wear a band only on one arm, a look popular in the N.B.A. Fewer wear two on each arm.
Most do not wear the bands to practice, signaling the vanity of their use. All admit that they wear the bands only because they think it looks good, which would be the only plausible reason.
“There is absolutely no benefit from a performance standpoint or a medical standpoint,” said Ralph Reiff, a certified athletic trainer and director of St. Vincent Sports Performance in Indianapolis. He has seen the upper-arm bands become popular on football players from the N.F.L. down to middle school. “It’s purely a fashion statement.”
Ronnie Barnes, vice president for medical services for the Giants, agreed.
“There is no medical benefit or purpose,” said Barnes, who has about 10 players on his team wearing versions of the bands. “A lot of players wear them because they believe it enhances the muscular definition in their arms. At the end of the day, you can attribute this increasing trend to the old adage: look good, feel good, play good.”
It has become trendy enough that Nike sells thin, swoosh-logoed “bicep bands.” The N.F.L. this season began supplying players with 1-inch wristbands — too thin to be cool that far down the arm — with the league’s red, white and blue logo on them.
The look is so popular that college football games could double as fashion shows for arms, and the nation’s high school football rule-making body has cracked down. The National Federation of State High School Associations, which establishes the football rules for all states except Massachusetts and Texas, sees upper-arm bands as just another frivolous product to sell to kids, and another piece of unnecessary equipment to be policed by officials.
“The last thing we want is our kids looking like walking billboards,” said Bob Colgate, the federation’s assistant director.
Last year, noticing the rampant use of upper-arm bands, the federation made the enforcement of Rule 1-5-3k one of its points of emphasis for officials around the country. The rule addresses illegal uniform adornments and is specific about the only kind of wristband allowed: those “worn on the wrist beginning at the base of the thumb and extending no more than 3 inches toward the elbow.”
Yet wristbands have edged upward into prime real estate, perhaps the last vacant visible swaths on a football player — the arms that hold the ball or throw it, the bulging biceps of the strong men who block and tackle. Arms are the last uncovered body part, one that seems to find its way into the middle of every television angle or photo frame.
“You look at those things,” Colgate said of the bands, “and they are positioned just right.”
The high school federation has talked to the N.C.A.A. about the issue — “It doesn’t help our cause on Saturdays when you see them all over television, and then even more so on Sunday,” Colgate said — but the N.C.A.A., which has banned bandanas that are visible out the back of a helmet, is not yet concerned about the mismatched striping on the arms of football players.
“We have not discussed arm bands in any great detail, and we don’t see any issue with them,” said Ty Halpin, the N.C.A.A.’s associate director of playing rules administration.
The N.F.L. has no concerns, either. Despite its reputation for strict sartorial rules, the league has seemed to encourage the use of the latest piece of equipment that can prominently display the N.F.L. logo.
In the middle of the locker room at the Jets’ new headquarters in Florham Park, N.J., socks, towels and N.F.L. wristbands sit in separate bins for the players to use. Safety Kerry Rhodes is one of about eight Jets who wear wristbands above his elbows, a look he has harvested since high school, he said.
“It was just a fashion statement at first,” Rhodes said. “Now it’s just a thing I do as I get dressed.”
Over at Giants Stadium, tight end Kevin Boss saves his bands for last when he puts on his Giants uniform. He wears his just above his elbows.
“I feel naked without them,” he said.
He looked over at tight end Michael Matthews, who was wearing wristbands, too.
“I always make fun of Mike for wearing them on his wrist,” Boss said. “That’s old school.”