“Used to Take a Shower in Our Uniforms”: When Charles Barkley Recalled the Unique Way He Used to Wash His Jerseys

His storytelling ability is one of the attributes that has made Charles Barkley the most influential person in basketball media. In his decades of playing and broadcasting, Sir Charles has been in every situation imaginable. And he narrates them with trademark humor. Some of his best stories, though, involve just him. He shared one of them during the 2023 NCAA Tournament, hilariously describing how he used to wash his uniforms during road trips.

Barkley was trying to laud all the people who work behind the scenes to help a basketball arena function when he went on a tangent, narrating that he didn’t wash his uniforms by throwing them in the washing machine. Instead, he would just wear them into the shower.

“I’m so old, we used to take a shower in our uniforms, because we flew commercial my first few years,” Barkley had revealed.

Chuck was quickly interrupted by an incredulous Kenny Smith, who said, “Wait, timeout. There’s no era where you did this. Stop, you’re making this up.” 

Barkley stuck to his story though. He explained that because of the lack of time between games and flights, players had no choice but to wear their uniforms into the shower. The best part about Barkley’s stories is that you can never tell how much he’s exaggerating them at any given point.

Much like Kenny, Clark Kellogg also found it difficult to believe Barkley’s tall tale.

It should be noted that Kellogg’s rookie year in the NBA was 1982, Barkley’s was 1984, and Smith entered the league in 1987. Barkley’s claim that this was a product of the era rings hollow since Kellogg preceded him in college as well as the NBA.

This wasn’t Barkley’s only wild uniform story

Taking showers in his uniform is a wild claim, but it pales in comparison to the stories Barkley has told about his time playing in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

Barkley was part of the Dream Team, the greatest unit of basketball talent ever assembled. While he and his teammates were running roughshod over the rest of the world, Barkley was also helping himself to a few items of priceless memorabilia along the way.

Chuck has talked about how he took warmup jerseys from Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and others, and in 2020 he auctioned them off, along with other items like his 1993 MVP trophy.

The story has a good ending at least, because Barkley used the proceeds from the auction to help build affordable housing in his hometown of Leeds, Alabama.