Tattoos gain in popularity among area players

By Bret Hayworth, Journal staff writer | Posted: Wednesday, December 14, 2005

It's a trend that readily can be seen.

And by "seen," that's not just summarized for you by overarching, paid-to-notice media types. "Seen" means obviously, openly and blatantly right before your very eyes when observing athletes, in college and high school, both male and female, on courts, mats and track ovals.

Fans can see very basic or greatly detailed tattoos sticking out under shoulder pads, on upper backs or chests and on calves.

Iowa High School Athletic Association Assistant Executive Director Dave Anderson said he's "not sure athletes are being tattooed more than any other segment of society," but that those who sport them are certainly readily observed. As high school sports attire has moved to more Spandex and frankly more revealing uniforms in recent years, he said, "there is more of the body observed than there used to be, and there are more tattoos."

Anderson said when he was participating in sports at the University of Northern Iowa in the early 1970s, "a tattoo on a player in that time was rare." He places the athletes-tattoo trend as taking off about a half dozen years ago.

Why? Perhaps because professional athletes have tattoos. "We always believe there is some trickle-down effect from the pros to college and from college to high school," Anderson said, and more recently from males to females.

Woodbury Central (Moville, Iowa) boys basketball coach Terry Horsley concurred, saying, the pro players "have to realize, they don't want to admit it, but these kids look up to them."

Horsley said the biggest tattoo example was now-retired flamboyant NBA forward Dennis Rodman, whose body was a tattooing canvas. That appealed to one Rodman fan Horsley coached in the mid-1990s at Lawton-Bronson -- "If his parents had let him, he would have had (tattoos) on all of his body."

For basketball players, the more current example is Allen Iverson of the Philly 76ers.

Football fans can't miss the seemingly omnipresent barbed wire tattoos on the well-developed arms of players.

Female athletes tend to have smaller, less in-your-face tattoos.

Athletes use tats to remind themselves of important people in their lives, to feature trappings of their favorite sport, display some intriguing art and show off their names big-and-bold.

Briar Cliff University senior basketball player Martez Van Buren said "everybody loves Iverson with all his tattoos." Van Buren sports a tattoo showing a basketball going through a hoop, with flames and stars around the ball.

"When I got it, I was getting a compliment on it like every five minutes," he said. No opponents have taunted him about the tat, but a couple of friends joked, "too bad you're not that hot."

Van Buren recalled how seeing a distinctive tattoo on the court stayed with him. When playing junior college ball in 2001, he noted an opponent's tattoo picturing an elderly man. When Van Buren transferred to Briar Cliff, he saw the tattoo again -- on the arm of BCU guard Koty Cowgill, his new teammate. Cowgill had the tattoo of his grandfather.

A West Monroe, La., native, Van Buren got his just after turning 19, since "the big thing was tattoos coming around at that time," he said. "I was out of my mother's arms, she couldn't persuade me not to do it."

Van Buren went to the parlor with a couple of friends, and he paged through a book with sports-related tattoos. The initial pricks of the needle felt "like a bee sting, but I got used to it," he said.

Now a freshman at UNI, Tina Groth was a member of the 2002 Woodbury-Central softball state championship team, and she also played volleyball, basketball and track. Groth decided as a sophomore she wanted a tattoo to follow her older sisters -- and mother -- who have them.

Her father, Marlin Groth, has a Camaro she got to drive to practice if she slugged a timely softball hit. As her batting picked up her junior year, "he asked me why I couldn't crank one over the fence," she said. So Marlin Groth offered that if his daughter got a home run, she could get the desired tattoo.

So when Groth was at the plate, WC teammate Jerra Steffen would yell, "Come on, Tina, how bad do you want that tattoo?" When the fateful tater came the summer of 2004, Groth recounted, "as soon as I hit it, they all started screaming, 'Tina, you get a tattoo!'"

Right before her senior year began, Groth got a cross with halo and wings permanently inked on her lower back, making it hidden in all her uniforms. Females most generally get tattoos on their backs or hips, she said, but males place them on arms, since "guys want to show them off a little bit more."

MARKINGS RAISE EYEBROWS OF COACHES

Mark Wetz of Sioux City, who has refereed basketball for 17 years, said the number of tattoos on athletes said has particularly taken off in the last two years. Wetz said the tattoos are probably equally as popular on athletes from small highs schools as big schools, and "extremely prevalent at the college level."

The Iowa High School Athletic Association has precise requirements on uniform content and prohibits jewelry (an easy rule, Anderson said -- if you weren't born with it, it's jewelry), but no abolition of tattoos on the high school boys. "The only concern we have is if the tattoo is of an objectionable nature," he said, such as displaying profanity.

Not all coaches have made peace with the tattoos on their charges. Old school coaches like Horsley, 61, have forbidden display of tattoos, which means a male roundball player had to cover an offending tat with a T-shirt.

With 42 years of coaching, Horsley said, "as an older coach, I have a tough time with earrings and tattoos." But "in the more conservative area of Iowa," he said, the tat trend isn't that pronounced in the Maple Valley Conference.

Said Horsley, "I don't like to see it at all. In fact, I have a rule that if they have a tattoo, they have to keep it undercover... You are not going to flash it."

CJ Hancock played under Horsley at W-C through 2005 and also played football and baseball. Hancock said he never debated Horsley over the left-arm tattoo. He just wore the T-shirt to cover it so he could play.

"I know the coaches and some fans have a problem with them," he said, but "most tattoos I've seen don't disrespect anything, they don't say anything bad."

Van Buren said he's gotten no grief from coaches over his tattoo, but a younger brother in Louisiana has a coach who has limited his players to no more than three tats. Before coaches have objections, Van Buren said, they should be mindful of what the tattoo contains.

"It kind of depends on what they have on there," he said. "Some people have like gang signs on there," but others have tattoos in honor of a daughter or display a cross or praying hands. "I can't see why coaches would have problems with that," Van Buren said. Sioux City North basketball player Adam Palmer has a tattoo in honor of his father, who died a few years ago.

Hancock said the genesis for getting his tattoo at age 17 was to honor a deceased cousin. "Going into my junior year, my cousin passed away," he said. "He was one of my best friends. I just got it because he was a respectful, loyal person." Thus, the 3-by-5 inch tattoo, with letters CJ above a Chinese symbol in black, was chosen since the symbol meant "respect and honor, to be respectful of people and to honor things."

TREND MORE PRONOUNCED IN COLLEGE

Hancock recalled male conference opponents from Kingsley-Pierson, Battle Creek-Ida Grove, Whiting and Westwood sporting tattoos. K-P 2004 graduate Michael DeWall, a state-ranked wrestler, has his last name etched on his upper right arm.

Jenni Flynn, a junior starter on the University of South Dakota Coyote basketball team, said the number of tattoos definitely jumps when moving from the high school to college level. Flynn said she'll be on the court and periodically make note of a tattoo that surprises her.

She recounted recently watching the game from the bench, "and we were saying, that is weird, (an opponent) has one on her calf. It was a symbol that no one knew what it meant."

A product of the state title-churning South Sioux City girls basketball program, Flynn doesn't have a tattoo and couldn't recall a teammate who had one in high school. But Flynn joined USD teammate Ashley Robinette -- also a former SSC teammmate -- in saying roughly half of the 12 Coyote players have tats.

Robinette said the most interesting tattoo on the USD team belongs to senior point guard Meghan Woster, who has a heart with a basketball on her back. "Most girls are a lot more modest (than males) about where they choose to put them," Robinette said, although she's seen many on the court.

Robinette recounted seeing a player in a California November tourney with a tattoo "covering her whole entire leg, with flames and a ball. It was eye-catching." She admitted mulling a tattoo herself, but the permanence of a tattoo has kept her away. "I could possibly get one if I found something I liked, if it meant something to me."

Flynn said she heard an interesting story two weeks ago at home between her mother Barb and father Kelly, the incredibly successful coach of the Cardinal teams. Apparently the mother of player McKayla Knudson last year made a pact with her daughter, that if she would start in the 2005-06 year, she could get a tattoo. Well, the 6-foot Knudson is starting as a freshman.

After being told about the upcoming tattooing, Flynn recounted her father as saying, "I need to talk to her." That's not surprising, Flynn said, since her father "would never allow one of us kids to have one."

Flynn said college athletes add the tattoos out of burgeoning independence. "Once you get out from your parents' house, it is more of a rebel-ish thing," she said like adding a piercing -- another trend popular among college athletes.

Referee Wetz put the tattoos not on rebellion, but conformity. "They want to be part of everybody else."

Regardless of the reason for the tattooing, he's not a fan. "I haven't seen too many good ones."

Bret Hayworth may be reached at (712) 293.4203 or brethayworth@siouxcityjournal.com