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Walt Frazier
By Caleb NeelonPhoto By courtesy of Puma
When we came up,” NBA Hall-of-Famer Walt “Clyde” Frazier remembers, “the Temptations and Four Tops, they were our idols, and they all dressed up, so we dressed like them. Today, it’s Jay-Z and all the rappers, and the players dress like them off the court. You’d never know that they have money now, the way they dress with their baggy jeans!” For the longtime New York Knicks guard, dressing like his idols meant impeccably tailored suits, late-’60s style, following the lead of his older teammates. “I copied from them early on. When I came to the team, the others would dress up and try to outdo one another. I found out where they got their monogrammed shirts and their tailors. But where I really distinguished myself was with the hats, and then came the full-length mink coat and the Rolls-Royce.”
Frazier came to the Knicks as a rookie in 1967, and quickly refined his wardrobe. The hats—a broad-brimmed, brown, velour Borsalino number chief among them—timed perfectly with the release of the Warren Beatty film Bonnie and Clyde, in which Beatty played Clyde Barrow and wore one similar. Young Walt Frazier walked into the Knicks’ clubhouse wearing his new Borsalino atop his low-profile Afro, long muttonchop sideburns, and luxuriant goatee. He walked out with the nickname that would last a lifetime: Clyde.
Clyde Frazier, like Clyde Barrow, was a professional thief. Frazier would play back on his man on defense, letting him get complacent in his dribble, and then, just as he crossed half court, pin him in a corner where he had nowhere to go but out of bounds—unless he ended up chasing after Clyde, who might all of a sudden possess the basketball. In the midst of all the pressure of the biggest stages of the NBA in the 1970s, whether visiting the Los Angeles Lakers, Washington Bullets, Boston Celtics, or playing at home at his Knicks’ own Madison Square Garden, Clyde Frazier kept the ultimate poker face, a blank slate of cool.
The Knicks of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s were a special team. They won the NBA title in 1970 and 1973, both times over the Lakers. Knicks Dave DeBusschere, Jerry Lucas, Willis Reed, and Earl “The Pearl” Monroe made the Hall of Fame along with Frazier. So did Bill Bradley, who came to the Knicks with a Princeton degree, Rhodes Scholar credentials, and an Olympic gold medal under his belt, and after basketball became a U.S. Senator from New Jersey and Presidential candidate. Once Phil Jackson decides to retire from coaching, he’ll join this remarkable list in the Hall.
A Hall-of-Fame game—coupled with a distinctive fashion sense— catapulted Walt Frazier to legendary status, but playing in New York certainly helped in that regard. On draft day as a senior at Southern Illinois University, he was certain he’d be headed to Seattle, but was met after class by his puzzled lawyer, who told him he’d be playing in the Big Apple. Soon, Frazier found himself walking down Fifth Avenue, looking around at all the impeccably dressed people of all kinds, and knew he had to step up his fashion game. “Early on,” he laughs, “I hated tailored stuff. I hated to wait two or three weeks – I wanted my clothes right then. But over time, I acquired a talent to get my fabric and my buttons to match the shirts and what kind of collar they would be. And the shoes – one outfit would take me a month!”
When Puma first approached Frazier, asking him to endorse his own shoe in 1973, it was such a novel idea that his NBA friends didn’t even know enough to be jealous. “It was no big deal, because nobody knew what it would evolve into. Nobody knew I was getting paid!” Now well into its third decade of production, the Puma Clyde is as popular as ever, even if most of its wearers today don’t make the connection between Clyde the player and Clyde the shoe. “People don’t always know what the Clyde means, but they know that the shoe is called the Clyde!” Frazier laughs. Basketball, ironically, is one of the few activities in which the Clyde hasn’t played a significant role over the years. Instead, it became an icon of hip-hop and European soccer, and its durable suede and grippy sole made it the first great skateboarding shoe.
Frazier is happy about the legacy of the game and the shoe. Today, he works as a color commentator for the Knicks, resides in St. Croix in the off-season, and still exhibits the flair that made him an icon—the flair that it takes to rock sneakers with a full-length mink and a fedora. Of course, it’s a look that works best if they’re your sneakers.