Florence-Griffith Joyner’s style statements seeped into other sports. The fastest woman and three-time Olympic gold medalist’s fashion was iconic in the 80s. Thus, when the NBA’s LeBron James was recently seen wearing an outfit very similar to her one-legged tracksuit, people couldn’t help but remember Flo-Jo. However, her association with the league is nothing new. While she used to design her own outfits for track and field, she once designed the uniform for the NBA’s Indiana Pacers. Were they the team’s best-looking uniforms? That’s up for a debate. But it surely was distinctive.

Those uniforms were popularly known as ‘the Flo-Jo’s’. The team was heading into a new decade after a turbulent 28-54 record in the 1988-89 season and had experienced a coaching change too. So it was the best time for a re-branding, and that’s what Flo-Jo did. With promising players like Reggie Miller and Chuck Person in the mix, Flo-Jo’s design for the Pacers in the 90s stood out.

How Florence-Griffith Joyner brought in a fresh new perspective to the Indiana Pacers

“I have so much respect and admiration for Florence-Griffith Joyner and I’m happy to see Flo-Jo jersey coming back,” said former Indiana Pacers shooting guard, Reggie Miller back in 2015, when the Flo-Jo-inspired jerseys saw a comeback. It made him wish to “grow back the bobby brown haircut and take the court with the fellas.” That’s the influence that the track and field legend left on Miller.

Interestingly, wearing those Flo-Jo jerseys, from 1990 to 1997, the team led by Reggie Miller made six appearances in the playoffs and made it to the Eastern Conference finals twice. Donning that uniform on May 7, 1995, Miller scored 8 points in 9 seconds. Taking on the team’s heated rivals, the New York Knicks, in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, the Pacers took the reins with the score of 105-99 with 18 seconds left.

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The players seemed to gain more confidence once they draped themselves in the new attires. A radical change was what Flo-Jo was known for, and that’s exactly what she brought to the table for the Pacers. But whose idea was this project? Well, Rebecca Polihronis, an unpaid intern at the Pacers, read how Joyner created her own looks and was into fashion. Polihronis thus put together Flo-Jo’s various looks and created a montage. She pitched the idea to the Pacers’ leadership, and it eventually got approved.

Flo-Jo and the Pacers got into an agreement of how the project would move further. “We made an agreement that what looks good on Florence won’t necessarily look good on Greg Dreiling and LaSalle Thompson,” general manager Donnie Walsh explained. And thus, the V-neck jersey and longer shorts were introduced. It received a positive response from fans too. The uniforms were formally introduced on January 23, 1990.

Now back in 2015, NBA.com paid ode to FloJo’s influence throughout the years. The honor and glory she brought home from the 1988 Seoul Olympics were truly one for the history books and during the early years of the 1990s, even the NBA had to pay its respect to her landmark achievement. Therefore, ‘the Flo-Jo’s’ became the most distinctive outfit of the Pacers ever.

However, the uniforms, during the inception of the NBA, rarely changed. Teams wore the same style for decades. For the Indiana Pacers, the Flo-Jo jerseys were a forward fashion statement- a unique uniform in the NBA at the time.

A new style statement: What did Flo-Jo do differently?

“No one-leggers or lace,” Joyner assured her new associates, and she managed to pull the task off with flying colors. Florence introduced longer shorts, a more stretchable fabric, and V-neck jerseys to make sure the uniforms would stand out everywhere. And FloJo’s style statement continues to inspire the younger generations to this day. For America’s current sensation and the widest shoulder upon which the country’s Olympic dreams reside, Noah Lyles also hailed Joyner for having paved the way for others to follow.

On the other hand, Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce continues to breathe down upon Joyner’s 100m record and claims that her last Olympics will see her go all out in hopes of edging past the benchmark set by Florence almost forty years ago.

With so many people vying to elevate themselves to FloJo’s standard, her fashion statement is still leading the way for so many icons across different sporting realms. While Indiana Pacers donned the Flo-Jo-inspired style statement back in 90s, the Lakers’ star LeBron James stole the show with his recent Flo-Jo-inspired one-legged outfit. Indeed, FloJo not only left her track and field bequest behind but also left her fashion statement for the generations to follow, don’t you agree?

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