Chris Bosh and His Locks: A Male Hairstory

So, generally when I talk about natural hair and transitioning, I am referring to women but men are involved in these stories too.  Now that Chris Bosh is one of the newly named "Three Kings" of the new Heat trio, Wade, James and Bosh, there is a lot of discussion about them all.  The focus has been on Wade and James primarily so I will focus on Bosh as he has a true hairstory.  I am not a sports fan, per se, but because Miami is where I live, and my husband and son are sports fanatics, I thought I would chime in, just a little bit, but my focus will be hair, of course.  So below is a comment I  found on SI.com to start this discussion (January 25, 2007):

"The In Between"

"Chris Bosh is one of the few players who sport the short braids.
AP
The look: A mini-Afro that can be twisted into tiny braids."
NBA type: Steady rebounder, scorer without the flair of cornrows."



I can't believe that there is an actual hair analysis in that article.  In any event,  subsequently, Chris Bosh, as a Free Agent and very soon before his big decision to go to the Heat, cuts off his trademark locks. This was actually a topic of conversation via the web (see link below).

     This brings to mind a conversation that I had with an athlete that I know who was recently drafted to the NBA.  He used to wear locks and explained to me that he couldn't get any media coverage (front page covers, photo shoots etc.) while he had his locks. He said that his locks were definitely a hindrance to his career so sadly, he cut them off. He said he had regrets about it but it had to be done. 
When he decided to cut his locks, suddenly media outlets suddently wanted an image of him.  He was recently drafted. So, it just makes you think; what was the story associated with Bosh cutting off his locks?

Per a quote from: http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/Chris-Bosh-cut-his-hair-hasn-t-talked-to-LeBron?urn=nba,251011 , here is a thought...

"Cutting off your "trademark" hair when you're hoping to sell yourself to franchises as a marketable superstar is kind of strange."

In any event, locks or no locks, for the brothers,whether they go for the big chop, where cornrows, or locks...the bottom line is that their hair remains natural. So for Bosh we can presume that Natural Is Cool Enough and that's N.I.C.E.  If we see Bosh with a perm next...well that WILL be kind of strange.  Below are some photos of Bosh's hair journey....

      

                                      

Perhaps Bosh's Tweet says it all:  "I can't believe it's gone...." - Twitter / Chris Bosh: I can't believe it's gone....