Smooth as silk…
These pants aren’t made of silk, but I believe they were once worn by none other than “Silk” himself, Jay Edwards. Fitting name for a guy whose stroke was pure…and as smooth as…well, silk, of course.
Let’s flash back to the 80’s. When I wasn’t outside shooting or playing ball, I would take my game indoors to the Nerf goal, keeping score as I pretended to be the Hoosier players I had idolized growing up — Steve Alford and Jay Edwards. Occasionally there would be a foul. Socks…shorts…1, 2, 3. Swish. Lots of threes in these shootouts with a lot of points going up on the board. What else would you expect?
While Jay Edwards’ career at Indiana was simply far too short, his two years on campus were incredible and certainly not short on heroics. Take a moment to relish in these numbers — 1038 points along with that NCAA freshman three-point record mark that still stands today — 53.6%!
IU wasn’t expected to be much of a contender coming into the season — and their early season woes did nothing but support that prediction. They started out the season with a paltry 3-4 record, having given up more than 100 points on three different occasions while being blown out in the process. The Big Ten was stacked that year, led by Illinois and Michigan. Many recall the trio of consecutive nationally televised home games in 1989 where Edwards sank a last second shot…and had it not been for some counter-heroics by Nick Anderson, he damn well would have won all three of those games. Indiana’s season was derailed only by the national runner-up, Seton Hall, who lost to Michigan in the final — which IU had beaten twice during the regular season, albeit by a total margin of a whopping two points.
Check out these videos of Edward’s last second heroics here:
Indiana vs. Purdue (February 12, 1989)
Indiana vs. Michigan (February 19, 1989)
Indiana vs. Illinois (March 5, 1989)
The candy stripes featured here check all of the boxes for an authentic, team-issued pair — the nylon material is high-quality to the touch, made by Medalist Sand-Knit, size 36, and have the number ‘3’ written on the tag. I don’t have anything to substantiate this, but Edwards was the only IU player to wear #3 during the 1980’s. Provenance or not, these candy stripes will forever be silk to me.