OT 3 point goggles...Patty Mills joke spreads to college
Terraholm
College Basketball's Big-Play Goggles
By DARREN EVERSON and BEN COHEN
Since we're all brushing up on the finer points of college basketball
this week, here's a new vocabulary term to remember: "Three-point goggles."
As you'll see in the NCAA tournament this week, players on teams from
Duke to Kentucky will celebrate three-point buckets by fitting
themselves with pantomimed spectacles, the kind your kindergartener
might make while pretending to be a superhero.
To make the gesture, players form the 'A-OK' sign over both eyes to form
"goggles" with their thumbs and forefingers, and (to denote the change
in the score) stick the other three fingers up in the air.
Duke star Nolan Smith, Vanderbilt's John Jenkins and Marquette's Darius
Johnson-Odom have all donned the goggles in recent games. Kentucky
freshman guard Doron Lamb was an early adopter: He's been doing the
goggles for at least two months now.
The goggles are the latest fad in a sport that's increasingly full of
them. A few years ago the gesture of the moment was "jersey-popping,"
where players would tug at the chest of their jerseys to show off the
school's name. Pre-game dance huddles have had their moment, and
continue to be popular. Some players continue to beat their chests after
big shots, too.
SP_GOGGLES2
Getty Images
"Last year we had the John Wall dance," dumbfounded Kentucky coach John
Calipari said. "I didn't even know. Now there's a goggles T-shirt that
came out, and I'm like, what is that? I'm just trying to make sure they
run back on defense."
The goggles started earlier this season in Portland as a joke. Patty
Mills, a guard for the NBA's Trail Blazers, liked to tease teammate Rudy
Fernandez about his poor eyesight. "I'd always give him a little
bit�well, not a little bit, but a lot of grief for not being able to
see," Mills said. In the first half of one particular game, Fernandez
struggled from long range. Mills said he told Fernandez at halftime that
he needed glasses or contact lenses�something.
After halftime, Fernandez hit a few three-pointers. He turned to Mills
on the bench and brought his pointer finger and thumb together in a
circle over his eyes, with his three other fingers extended upward. "It
was like, 'I don't need glasses. I've got these three goggles that work
perfectly,'" Mills said.
The goggles caught on with the rest of the team and later, Blazers fans.
Before long, as with any worthwhile fad, there were T-shirts. The rest
of the NBA took notice, too: The Denver Nuggets' J.R. Smith has flashed
his own goggles, as has Detroit's Ben Gordon.
The fad has filtered down to the college ranks and grown to the point
now that the three goggles sometimes don't even have anything to do with
a three-point shot.
On Sunday, when CBS revealed that St. John's had won a spot in the
tournament, the network cut to a live shot of the celebrating team. One
of its guards, Dwight Hardy, could be seen mugging for the camera by
putting on the goggles.
Teammates had no idea what he was doing. "I can't even tell you, to be
honest," said injured guard D.J. Kennedy. "I think he's just showing his
love for his neighborhood."
While some teams don't even know where the goggles came from or what the
gesture means, others are fully aware. Marquette's players started to
mark three-pointers with goggles for their Jan. 10 home game against
Notre Dame after Wesley Matthews, a Marquette alumnus now with the Trail
Blazers, called Johnson-Odom, a Marquette junior guard, and told him
about the latest trend in Portland. "He made sure that we did it,"
Johnson-Odom said.
When it comes to the goggles, the Golden Eagles are more fanatical than
other teams. Because they were early adopters, Johnson-Odom said he
expects the fad to endure past this season in Marquette. His teammates
wear the goggles after every made three-pointer�and he says students on
campus like to flash the goggles on campus. He says he's looking forward
to the NCAA tournament, when the three goggles will be on display for
everyone to see�even if Marquette's coach, Buzz Williams, pretends not
to notice. "He knows that we're doing it, but he doesn't pay attention
to it," Johnson-Odom said.
The goggles may have the look of tomfoolery, but most coaches don't seem
to mind that their kids are doing it. In fact, the sight of players
having such fun might be considered a recruiting tool.
"What happens is the players here are known," said Kentucky's Calipari.
"People know who Wall is, who DeMarcus Cousins is, who Josh Harrellson
and Darius Miller are. That's what it's about. If that's what happens,
that's great."
From Portland, the sight of all these college kids donning make-believe
goggles is an unexpected sight. "It's kind of weird to see it catch on,"
Mills said. "It's cool when you see it. Like, oh, we had a part in that."