Out with the old, in with the Nike

The candy-striped warmup pants. No last name on the jersey. No major contracts with sportswear companies. \nMen's basketball teams have always been focused around distinct traditions.\nAfter the firing of former coach Bob Knight, these traditions, which have always been embraced and bragged about by Hoosier fans, have started to disappear. \nWhen the University of Michigan became a "Nike school," IU was above that. Long, baggy shorts plastered with a Nike swoosh on them? Never in Bloomington. Never under Knight.\nKnight's teams had contracts with Converse, the last of which expired before the start of the 2000-2001 season, athletics director Clarence Doninger told the IDS. The same is true for the team's contract with Logo Athletics. Both companies have experienced financial trouble, causing Doninger to look elsewhere for support.\nEvery coach is allowed to determine his or her own contracts with companies, but IU President Myles Brand has the final say. Doninger took over the men's basketball dealings because of the coaching change.\nNow, the men's basketball team is donning Nike footwear and apparel.\nDoninger said IU does not plan to have Nike outfit all its teams anytime soon. But for Hoosier fans everywhere, this is just the first step in the slippery slope of replacing everything Bob Knight stood for. \nWhat's next? Throw away the the warmup pants for Nike tearaway red metallic ones? Tom Coverdale's name emblazoned on his team jersey?\nFor what it's worth, the players' uniform shorts are already noticeably baggier. They are reminiscent of Michigan's Fab Five teams, which Hoosier fans always maintained were not IU material.\nFor a University and a state so enthralled in its basketball traditions, this is not a wise move. Maybe IU can recruit players from Nike camps and woo them in with our cool new shoes, but are they really the kind of student athletes Knight would have wanted?\nPerhaps not.\nIt seems the timeless traditions so many Hoosiers enjoy are disappearing as fast as Knight did.