Untucked

“What are they gonna wear next?”

This was likely what was on the mind of any Marquette Men’s Basketball fan in the 70s. The team was pushing boundaries on the court in not only their athleticism, but their uniforms.

The famous, colorful, out-of-the-box, and often untucked jerseys of the 1977 NCAA Championship team were mostly thanks to the pairing of legendary coach Al McGuire and star player Maurice “Bo” Ellis. Bo was a star Warrior: According to the 1977 edition of The Hilltop, Marquette’s now-retired yearbook, he was the number two scorer in Marquette history at the time. He was MVP his sophomore year and captain as a senior.

This iconic coach-and-player duo was no accident. In the documentary Untucked, Max McGowan, Marquette Class of ‘68 and Sports Information Director from 1969-’71, explained McGuire’s style of coaching. Everything was different about him, from the clothes he wore to the way he carried himself.

“Al would recruit these eccentric players because he was eccentric and they were eccentric,” McGowan said. “One of them was Bo Ellis.”

“Eccentric” seems to be the perfect word to describe Bo. From the day he joined the team, everyone knew he was something special. Jim Boylan, Bo’s teammate and player from 1976-’78, described in the documentary what Bo was wearing when he first met him.

“He walks in wearing a pair of cut-off, army fatigues and a large dashiki — multi-colored with different kinds of designs on it,” Boylan said. “The entire practice comes to a dead stop. I looked over at him and I said to myself, ‘I’ve gotta get to know this guy. He’s got something going on.’”

Bo put his unique sense of style to use after McGuire allowed him to go to the nearby Mount Mary College to study fashion design. Although a bit strange of a path to take at first, Bo would end up designing one of the most iconic basketball jerseys of all time: the untucked jersey.

Although the uniform was soon banned — some might say for safety reasons, while others argue jealousy was involved — its legacy is still strong. McGowan noted that Marquette began changing up their uniforms long before everyone else.

“Back then, you wouldn’t do that,” McGowan said. “But Marquette did it.”

Now, there are still some hints of Bo’s influence on Marquette’s jerseys. One style worn this year is reminiscent of the “bumblebee” with its slight stripped pattern. The world is still talking about Bo’s unique style: Just two years ago, the Marquette Twitter account posted an article about the iconic photo of the 1977 team in front of a vintage car.

In the end, in the midst of the celebrations, banned jerseys, and broken records, Marquette basketball in the 70s was about the unity of a team. To quote Bo in the March 30, 1977 edition of the Marquette Tribune,

“We’ve got a unity thing here. We all win together and we lose together. When we win everybody gets the glory.”

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