This is my second Grateful Dead concert, so I know what to expect. But in the stifling heat, I’m trying to absorb as much chaos as possible, and the lyrics are swimming around my brain. If you get confused, listen to the music play.
There are so many things to look at around me right now, and the music is getting louder. I smile. Now that I’ve heard them sing it, you know what? This psychedelic cowboy music kind of rocks. I wish I was a headlight on a northbound train.
I put on another big goofy grin with raised, knowing eyebrows whenever I can look at my friends and sing along to whatever lyric I recognize simply because I recall it from when I heard it for the first time when the song began half an hour prior. And the band keeps playin’ on. Keep on dancin’ through to daylight.
Most of the Deadheads are here because for them, in a way, this is home. I’m here, mostly, to listen. It’s a rainbow full of sound.
I didn’t grow up with the Grateful Dead. But I didn’t hesitate at all when one of my friends from college asked me if I wanted to head out to Citi Field for the final show of Dead & Company’s recent tour with John Mayer. When I caught up with Basketball Hall of Fame big man Bill Walton, who was at the concert in Queens as well, he referred to it as the night that “Mayer turned into Michael Jordan.”
It was an awesome show. But what I didn’t expect, with the draft and free agency behind me, was to think about my day job of covering basketball. What could be further from an NBA game than this ubiquitous blend of bluegrass and rock and funk? I started paying attention to the fashion that surrounded me.
As my eyes scan the rows of people surrounding me, however, I notice that one of the most popular shirt types doesn’t even mention the band. I recognized this as the iconic tie-dye t-shirt worn by Lithuania’s men’s basketball team that won the bronze medal at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. You may have seen this t-shirt before without realizing it.
There is a photo of Jonah Hill rocking the same look. Lisa Kudrow’s character, Phoebe, wore one on an episode of “Friends” in 1997. The sportswriter Jack MacCallum has described the shirts as “a stoned-out psychedelic masterpiece” and his favorite sports memento.
They’ve become collector’s items – there are multiple versions, some rarer than others – that re-sell for hundreds of dollars on eBay and vintage clothing sites such as Grailed.
Bill Walton, who has been to over 1,000 (!) Dead shows, says the shirts are at every show.
“It always brings the biggest smile to my face because I know how much went in,” Walton told me. “It’s really difficult to understand the magnitude and the significance and the impact and the power of what went down with those shirts.”
He’s right: The night of the show, I had only the vaguest idea of how these shirts became so enduringly popular. What the hell was going on here? Did a band as distinctly American as the Grateful Dead really fund an international basketball team, or is that just urban legend? I decided that I wanted to know everything that I could about this story.
[pullquote align=”right” source=”— Bill Walton”]It’s really difficult to understand the magnitude and the significance and the impact and the power of what went down with those shirts.[/pullquote]
So I’ve spent the past few weeks obsessively researching the history of this tie-dye shirt to report the true, full story of how it ended up in the hands of the Lithuanian basketball team.
I had suspected the answer would be weird, and it is. More so than I had guessed. But I also found out that what Walton said — that it’s hard to capture the magnitude of what these shirts really meant to the people who first wore them — is true.
Still, it’s worth trying, anyway.
***
II. THE ORIGINS
You’ll hear a few versions of the story if you ask around. But the most common folklore is fairly straightforward, as summarized in this misleading tweet from a verified account:
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Lithuania could not afford to send its basketball team to the 1992 Olympics.
The Grateful Dead offered to sponsor the team if they played in tie-dyed uniforms. They wore the below on the podium when taking home bronze.
(🖼️: Greg Speirs.) pic.twitter.com/KXs2Grbp1o
— Quite Interesting (@qikipedia) February 3, 2020
“The Grateful Dead offered to sponsor the team if they played in tie-dyed uniforms.”
Similar versions of that explanation have been repeated here, here, here, and here. As it turns out, that is a warped story, and like a game of telephone that has lasted over thirty years, it leaves a lot lost in translation.
But the Grateful Dead assuredly had something to do with these shirts, so on my mission to find out everything, one of the first people I wanted to check in with to set the record straight was Dennis McNally, a longtime publicist who is the official historian for the band.
He was right there when this story began. On March 24, 1992, McNally was wrapping up a Grateful Dead tour at The Palace of Auburn Hills in Detroit, Michigan.
The Grateful Dead are from the Bay Area, and as a publicist, McNally was friendly with many Northern California-based journalists. One acquaintance was the late George Shirk, who covered the Golden State Warriors for the San Francisco Chronicle. McNally, a Warriors fan, knew the team was in town to play against the Pistons the next night.
“I invited George,” McNally told me. “He was a Deadhead and a friend of mine. I said come and tell the team that anybody who wants to come can come.”
From there, word of the show reached Donnie Nelson. The former Mavericks executive was then an assistant coach and part-time scout for the Warriors (who were coached then by his father, Don.) Seven years prior, in 1985 when he was still a player, he was participating in an international tour for Athletes in Action. He played an exhibition game in Eastern Europe and was matched up against a young Lithuanian basketball player named Sarunas Marciulionis.
Donnie Nelson then helped in the complicated process that led Marciulionis to the NBA in 1989, which was a groundbreaking move for European basketball players. Marciulionis, who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014, became friends with Nelson over the years. He tagged along for the show.
The former Warriors star told me he was interested in attending the show because, like the Warriors, the band was from the Bay Area. They went backstage when they arrived and, as he remembers, the sounds and the smells were different from what he was accustomed to.
“We didn’t have big concerts in Lithuania back then in big arenas. I never experienced anything like that,” Marciulionis told me. “It was specific music but people were so excited … They got into it for a long time. They knew all the songs, the Deadheads.”
But the NBA player also had other motivations that differed greatly from the thousands of other people at this particular show. At the time, Marciulionis was also leading fundraising efforts so that the Lithuanian basketball federation could send a team to compete in the 1992 Olympics.
Lithuania had gained independence from the Soviet Union one year prior but still needed to raise money to participate in the Olympic qualifiers.
So when the night was over, after meeting the band members, Marciulionis handed McNally a letter asking if the Grateful Dead’s non-profit, The Rex Foundation, would consider donating. I asked Marciulionis what made him think this would work.
“They’re free-minded people. We had just become a free country. There was a freedom connection,” Marciulionis said. “Maybe they would catch that feeling for a new country that wanted to build a new history and a basketball history?”
McNally passed the unexpected request to the late Laurence “Ramrod” Shurtliff. McNally characterized Ramrod as the biggest basketball fan affiliated with the Grateful Dead, and he is perhaps the most unrecognized character in this story. Many of the following events would have never happened if not for Ramrod.
[pullquote align=”right” source=”— Sarunas Marciulionis”]They’re free-minded people. We had just become a free country. There was a freedom connection.[/pullquote]
Ramrod was the chief roadie for the band and also served as the Grateful Dead Productions corporation president. Financing an Olympics team was categorically dissimilar to any other donations by The Rex Foundation, but ultimately, Ramrod helped encourage the pitch to get approved.
Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart and guitarist Bob Weir have since explained why.
“The Lithuanian basketball team, these aren’t homeless people. This isn’t a soup kitchen,” Weir said in a press conference in 1995. “But at the same time, here’s something that can do a lotta good for a lotta people. That whole country of Lithuania can have a spirit of national identity, and these people can go to the Olympics.”
“I was also proud to see the underdog come up there as a David and Goliath fight,” Hart added. “Basketball really represents an important part of the human spirit. When people can get together and play together and do all these — it’s a good model. It’s not unlike a band, you know? There is the group mind at work.”
Ramrod and McNally were later asked to attend a Warriors game to present a check on behalf of the band. The idea is that the gesture would encourage others to make donations, too. The check was for a $5,000 donation, a small but not insignificant portion of the nearly $200,000 Marciulionis ultimately raised to fund the trip.
McNally figured that was the end of the relationship. But the publicity of the donation pushed Martin Leffer and the late Mike “Fitzy” Fitzgerald to get involved. Both were vendors who sold Grateful Dead merchandise and had independently become friends with Ramrod.
Fitzy, who died in 2015, was the son of former Warriors owner Jim Fitzgerald. He was a Deadhead who followed the band on tour and owned an apparel company, Fitzgerald & Associates, focused on collegiate cross-licensing with the Grateful Dead. If you saw a t-shirt featuring a college logo and any of the Dead iconography, it was likely them.
Bill “Kidd” Candelario, who was the longtime president of Grateful Dead Merchandising, remembers golfing before shows with Fitzy and Ramrod.
“That was our connection,” Candelario explained. “Fitzgerald was a Deadhead and he was always at our shows on tour.”
Leffer still owns Woodstock-based Not Fade Away, which became an official licensing partner with the Grateful Dead in 1984. He told me he is a huge basketball fan and remembers going to several Warriors games with Ramrod.
He said that it was common for his company to send out free shirts to celebrities, especially musicians and athletes because it promoted his brand.
“When I met Sarunas, he explained to me what was going on,” Leffer told me. “It really touched my heart.”
Fitzy and Leffer collaborated on an effort to help outfit the team in Barcelona. Leffer hired an artist at Not Fade Away, Greg Speirs, to design t-shirts. Fitzy provided the team with matching tie-dye shorts embroidered with the Lithuanian flag, warm-up suits, and polo shirts.
I recently met up with Mordechai Rubinstein, a New York City-based photographer who published the Grateful Dead fashion book Dead Style: A Long Strange Trip Into the Magical World of Tie-Dye.
He argues the tie-dye shorts were by far the best part of the outfit.
“The shorts were killer,” Rubinstein told me. “The in-seam was beautiful. The cotton they use is beautiful. The drawstring is beautiful.”
When I called Fitzy’s son, Ryan Fitzgerald, he told me his father was perfectly embedded in the right communities for such an unlikely crossover. Fitzgerald isn’t wrong. How many other people on the planet were as well-positioned in the Venn diagram between the Grateful Dead and the NBA?
“It was a combination of good timing and my dad having a really unique network and just being in the right spot and providing the right thing at the right time,” the younger Fitzgerald said.
Once they arrived, the gifts were well-received. Some players cut them into tank tops. Donnie Nelson, who also served as an assistant coach for the Lithuanian team, has said the players wore the shirts everywhere.
“We felt kind of confident,” Marciulionis said. “People turned their heads with a smile, you know? That was nice for us.”
“With those t-shirts, we were like the new kids on the block,” explained Rimas Kurtinaitis, a starting wing for the team who is now head coach of Lithuania’s BC Wolves.
Alvydas Pazdrazdis, who spent eighteen years as the director of international scouting for the Mavericks, was the youngest player on the Lithuanian team.
“We had no idea about Grateful Dead, to be frank,” Pazdrazdis said. “We thought it was pretty cool. We didn’t know much history, honestly. Just the tiny bit that it was a rock band and they donated some money.”
According to Rytis Sabas, editor-in-chief of the Lithuanian Basketball Federation, there are two reasons why the team was so infatuated with these gifts, though.
First and foremost, due to a bizarre mixup with their apparel provider, all the gear they were given for the Opening Ceremony were heavy long-sleeve shirts designed for wintertime. It was hot in Barcelona, so the lighter shirts were salvation for the team.
However, the tie-dye also gave them a unique identity that stood out on the international stage.
“That shirt and shorts were very funny looking,” Sabas said. “But you instantly can recognize it as this Lithuanian team.”
“Now everybody knows us,” Kurtinaitis added. “All the world knows.”
***
III. LITHUANIAN BASKETBALL HISTORY
To say that basketball is a big deal in Lithuania would be an understatement.
Arnoldas Kulboka, who played in the NBA for the Hornets last season, once told me that basketball is “like religion” in Lithuania. That phrase is commonly repeated, and it rings true today.
The four most-watched television broadcasts in Lithuania in 2015 were all Lithuania games at EuroBasket. The Lithuanian club Zalgiris recently recorded the highest average attendance per game in Euroleague history.
“When the national team plays,” Pazdrazdis said, “the world stops.”
Lithuania’s population is less than 3 million, smaller than 35 different U.S. states, including Arkansas and Mississippi. But the nation has a long history with the game, with success dating back more than eight decades — long before LaMelo Ball left high school to play there professionally in 2018. The small country has produced several notable NBA players including Arvydas Sabonis, Domantas Sabonis, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, and Jonas Valanciunas.
“Arvydas Sabonis was a combination of Kareem, Larry Bird, and Pete Maravich,” Walton explained. “He had this incredibly spectacular game.”
Part of the fervor for Lithuanian basketball can be traced to the late Frank “Pranas” Lubin, an American of Lithuanian descent who played college basketball at UCLA from 1928 until 1931. Lubin is regarded as the godfather of basketball in Lithuania.
Lubin was a player coach for Lithuania when they hosted and won the European championships in 1937 and 1939. Lubin was almost like a basketball missionary and the game quickly became the most popular sport in the nation.
But in 1940, during World War II, the Soviet Union formally annexed Lithuania. It was then that deportations to Siberia began. Without its sovereignty, basketball became a source of pride for many Lithuanian athletes.
“During Soviet times, basketball was the only means to show you were from Lithuania, especially when you were beating the army clubs of Russians,” Sabas explained.
Zalgiris faced off against their rival CSKA Moscow Red Army, long affiliated with the Sports Clubs of the Soviet Ministry of Defense, for the first time in 1946.
At the rivalry’s peak during the end of the Soviet era, though, Zalgiris won three consecutive titles over the Russian team in the USSR Premier Basketball League between 1985 and 1987.
“That was kind of a peaceful resistance through sports,” Pazdrazdis said. “It was a game but it was more than a game for us.”
“We say that Zalgiris playing against CSKA Moscow actually helped build our national consciousness and our Sąjūdis national movement that got us independent,” Sabas added.
Basketball helped players like Marciulionis cope during the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States.
But basketball caused frustration during the Soviet era, too. Some of the best Lithuanian athletes had no choice over what jersey they wore when they were on the court.
“They just took me,” said Kurtinaitis, who played for the Red Army from 1981 until 1983 before eventually joining his hometown club, Zalgiris. “For me, it was better to play for CSKA Moscow than to go to the normal army or live somewhere in the forest of Siberia.”
The lack of autonomy was especially frustrating during international tournaments, including the 1988 Olympics in South Korea when a dominant USSR team defeated the United States to win the gold medal.
The loss in 1988 was just the second time the United States men’s basketball team had ever lost an Olympic game. The U.S. was 84-1 before that game and the defeat may have partially prompted the U.S. to assemble the original Dream Team in 1992.
[pullquote align=”right” source=”— Rytis Sabas”]During Soviet times, basketball was the only means to show you were from Lithuania, especially when you were beating the army clubs of Russians.[/pullquote]
“I believe the loss in Seoul in 1988 to the Soviet national team absolutely helped for the need to allow pros to play in the Olympics,” said Kim Bohuny, the NBA’s senior vice president of international basketball operations. “They were grown men that had been playing professionally for many, many years … and they were playing against college kids.”
While the Western world likely assumed everyone on the team was Russian, four of the five starters for the Soviet Union were actually from Lithuania.
“It was not really our country,” admitted Kurtinaitis, who led the 1988 USSR squad in 3-pointers.
The four starters (including Sabonis, Marciulionis, and Kurtinaitis) were all from the same city of Kaunas. Sabonis would become one of the best playmaking bigs of all time, and Marciulionis (an incredible slasher) was eventually credited with bringing the Euro step to the NBA.
The Lithuanian players on the Soviet roster were conflicted about their success because they wanted to represent their own flag. According to Bohuny, the Lithuanian players were confident they would never play for the Soviets again.
“It was a long trip home, like two or three days from Seoul to Vilnius,” Marciulionis said. “We had some thoughts, even in ‘88, about how we could play for Lithuania.”
Sabonis and Marciulionis had already been selected in the NBA Draft. But athletes from the USSR were effectively still playing behind the Iron Curtain as Soviet restrictions made it hard to come to the United States.
After winning a gold medal for the Soviet Union in 1988, however, the tides were beginning to change: the late Mikhail Gorbachev, then the new head of state, promoted perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness) policies.
As the Soviet Union neared a dissolution, the Warriors were finally able to sign Marciulionis in June 1989. During his first season, to clear up any confusion, Marciulionis proudly said he is Lithuanian and not Russian.
Marciulionis also extended the opportunity for other players to use basketball as a tool for brighter futures as well. He introduced fellow Lithuanian hooper Arturas Karnisovas to Bohuny, who then introduced Karnisovas to former Seton Hall coach PJ Carlesimo. Based on her recommendation, he offered him a scholarship sight unseen.
Karnisovas, now the vice president of basketball operations for the Bulls, had to wait several days for approval from the KGB in order to come to the United States. Once finally approved in 1989, he became one of the first players from Eastern Europe to play college basketball in the United States.
At the height of the Cold War, basketball helped Karnisovas find a home in America.
“If it’s war or economic difficulties or natural disasters or whatever it is, everyone needs an outlet at some point,” Bohuny explained. “I think that both in Lithuania and in other countries, we have seen that through time.”
Finally in the United States, the times were changing around Karnisovas and Marciulionis. Marciulionis’ first year in the NBA coincided with both the Tiananmen Square protests and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Meanwhile, back home in March 1990, Lithuania declared itself a sovereign state from the Soviet Union. But such a decision didn’t come without severe and devastating challenges, like when Soviet tanks rolled in and fourteen Lithuanian civilians died in what is now remembered as The January Events of 1991.
Eventually, after so much bloodshed and turmoil, the Soviet Union officially recognized Lithuanian independence in September 1991.
Finally an independent nation in 1992, the basketball team would have to win eleven games in a row at the FIBA European Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Spain even to have the chance to play in the Olympics.
Marciulionis believes the qualifying tournament was maybe the hardest part of the process.
“The conditions were not too good,” Marciulionis recalled. “It was hot. There were twelve people in one apartment. We had one shower, one bathroom. You really had to be patient. We had to suffer, but it was for a good cause.”
But the teammates formed a special bond with the same goal of representing the young nation. Plus, with Marciulionis and Sabonis on the roster, they were a force to be reckoned with on the court.
“We were one family,” Kurtinaitis said. “We were the same friends outside the court.”
Lithuania went undefeated in the qualifying tournament, beating Croatia’s Drazen Petrovic and Germany’s Detlef Schrempf. Petrovic and Schrempf had both ranked as two of the leading scorers in the Eastern Conference in 1991-92.
“We did not know our power, how strong we were,” Kurtinaitis said. “That tournament showed that we are really good. We beat all the European teams … After this, we started to believe we can do something in the Olympic games.”
Once actually at the Olympics, Lithuania made it to the semifinals. They lost to the United States. Karnisovas was famously so excited to face the likes of Jordan and Magic Johnson and Larry Bird that, while in his jersey, he ended up taking photos of the game from the sideline.
“The Other Dream Team” (as nicknamed in the 2012 documentary) was slated for the Bronze Medal Game and had to face off against the former USSR. It was a scrappy duel, and though there was just a one-point differential with six minutes remaining, Lithuania was victorious to win the bronze.
There was a six-hour window between when the game was over and when the medal ceremony began and they suddenly had lots of time on their hands to think about their journey.
“We were a little bit buzzed,” said Marciulionis with a big laugh, as he remembered partying in the locker rooms with the Australian team.
During that period, Pazdrazdis recalls that a rep from Adidas visited the locker room and insisted the Lithuanian team wear their sponsor-issued green shirts to accept the medals. According to Pazdrazdis, however, Marciulionis had other ideas.
“We were supposed to come out with this Adidas shirt. There would have been all these photos seen around the world,” Pazdrazdis said. “Sarunas said ‘No. No, we’re not doing that.’”
“He may not remember that story,” Pazdrazdis continued, “because he had a little more to drink than I did.”
But it makes sense why Marciulionis was so excited to wear those shirts. He told me he never had much input about what clothing he would wear during the Soviet era. For him, the colorful t-shirts were a very welcome change of pace.
“We were very proud to wear those shirts,” Marciulionis said. “Life used to be pale, no colors, no excitement. It was like a black and white movie where we lived … Now this was something fresh, something different.”
“Everybody was like, jaw-dropped when they saw,” Pazdrazdis said. “Everybody was amazed and surprised and at the same time, they were thrilled to see somebody doing something out of the box.”
Karnisovas, who insisted on wearing his as a tank top, recalled the feeling.
“We showed up for that medal ceremony all in tie-dye, all smiling, all happy and laughing and free,” Karnisovas told the Houston Chronicle. “We had our president in the locker room, taking his shirt off, putting the tie-dye shirt on, and showering with champagne.”
Paul Roidoulis is the CEO of Liquid Blue, another Grateful Dead merchandising company. He was watching and could not believe what he saw.
“There’s the Dream Team and there are the tie-dyes, and talk about stealing the show?” Roidoulis said. “It was kismet. It was viral before viral was a word. It was just massive.”
I spoke with MJ “Mykolas” Anton, whose family hosted Karnisovas when the Lithuanian player first came to the United States. I asked him what it felt like to see Karnisovas and the Lithuanian national team accept the medals in tie-dye shirts.
“Even as you, right now, are just saying it, I’ve got goosebumps on my arm,” Anton said. “It was absolutely amazing. The feeling is a sense of pride. We just got our freedom, you know? It’s so hard to describe. It’s raw emotion, man. I mean, I cried. I’m crying right now.”
“It became the brand of Lithuania,” Anton continued. “My grandparents and my grandparents’ friends and all these 80-year-old Lithuanians are wearing that. It was just amazing. Now, there was some kind of uniqueness about us.”
[pullquote align=”right” source=”— MJ Anton”]It’s raw emotion, man. I mean, I cried. I’m crying right now.[/pullquote]
***
IV. THE IMPACT
The tie-dye became incredibly popular among fans. Marciulionis recalls people asking him for his, but he didn’t want to give it away to anybody. Pazdrazdis said he was offered “a lot of money” for his t-shirt, too.
“But there was such a limited amount of them,” Pazdrazdis said, “we were not selling them.”
Back home, McNally thinks that once the broadcast showed the team wearing the tie-dye, people falsely assumed the band designed this vibrant t-shirt. To that point, however, they had only filed a donation through The Rex Foundation.
Recognizing the popularity, though, it became obvious that the shirts should go on sale. It was at that point when they were first sold by the Grateful Dead, the Warriors (for several years), Ticketmaster, and Not Fade Away.
“Nobody expected it to hit the way it did,” Candelario said.
Much of the subsequent proceeds were then given to Lithuanian schools and to the Lithuanian Children’s Fund (which received a check for $500,000).
“It was pretty amazing, pretty emotional,” said Leffer, who went to Lithuania on behalf of Not Fade Away and met some of the children helped by the donation. “It was really good energy and that country has gone through some tough times.”
Lithuania’s tie-dyed shirts were becoming an immediate classic. Ticketmaster reported 5,000 orders within the first 48 hours, per the Tampa Bay Times. Not Fade Away received 50,000 orders within the first week, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Leffer told me he had to buy new printing presses and sourced dye from other companies so that he could keep up. Due to excessive demand, he had to partner with Liquid Blue as a supplementary production house.
“You never saw anything like that in sports before,” Speirs, the designer, said. “The rest is history. It took off.”
Walton, who was also watching the games live on television, told me he was an immediate fan of these t-shirts.
“My favorite color is rainbow,” Walton said. “That’s one of the reasons why I love the colors of the Lithuanian shirts. It’s really the rainbow of life.”
Liquid Blue’s Roidoulis also believes the colors of Lithuania’s flag played an important role in why the shirt became such a hit.
“The fact that they were reggae colors did not hurt,” Roidoulis said. “In fact, it definitely helped.”
Jon Weinbach, who produced “The Other Dream” documentary and is now president of Skydance Sports, has had an expansive career in sports media. He has also worked on “The Last Dance” and a “30 for 30” project for ESPN.
But he says that this doc on the Lithuanian team will always have a special place in his heart.
“If one fashion item could encapsulate this moment in time, it was those shirts. You had the blending of worlds of politics and pop culture and basketball in this really fun, great-spirited way,” Weinbach said. “That’s what made that story so attractive to us as filmmakers.”
Weinbach said that Skydance Sports is hoping to develop the journey of Lithuania’s 1992 basketball team into a scripted project, either as a television series or as a feature film.
“A lot of fight, a lot of pride became attached to those shirts,” Pazdrazdis said. “We just escaped the Soviets … At the time, for young guys, it felt pretty cool, pretty fun, and it was very catchy. People loved it. We enjoyed wearing it and we were proud and we made a lot of history doing that.”
“It’s lovely,” said McNally, who liked the funkiness. “There’s a reason it was the hit of Barcelona.”
But the popularity of the shirts led to some unexpected complications and frustrations, though. Speirs was reportedly paid $17,000 for the original design, per Sports Business Journal. But in 1996, he alleged that “millions” of the shirts were sold and that he deserved more.
[pullquote align=”right” source=”— Jon Weinbach”]If one fashion item could encapsulate this moment in time, it was those shirts. [/pullquote]
“Instead of me taking any profit, I let all of the profit go to the team,” Speirs told me. “So basically I funded the team and the children’s charity and anything else that it was spent on.”
Even though the original estimated sales of the shirt were around 150,000, per Deseret News, disputed claims reported the figure at “less than 90,000” units. With a massive discrepancy, it wasn’t long before litigation hit, with Speirs suing Leffer. The case was settled out of court.
Speirs later filed a trademark for his “Skullman” character in September 1996. He filed a trademark for Lithuanian Slam Dunking Skeleton in July 1998 and Lithuania Tie Dye in April 2003. He has since launched his own Lithuanian t-shirt line (though this may have come as a surprise to the band and to Lithuanian basketball officials).
The 1992 t-shirts and other similar designs are still available for sale on his website.
[pullquote align=”right” source=”— Greg Speirs”]You never saw anything like that in sports before. The rest is history. It took off.[/pullquote]
Speirs still maintains that the Grateful Dead’s Bertha skeleton did not inspire his design.
“It’s a Greg Speirs piece,” the artist emphasized. “Greg Speirs, the licensor. Greg Speirs, the creator of the Skullman Slam Dunkin’ Skeleton. The Skullman Lithuanian Tie Dyed Slam Dunkin’ Skeleton. It’s never been Grateful Dead art. It’s always been Greg Speirs art.”
Speirs, who said he grew up wearing tie-dye t-shirts in the 1960s, told me that he had two very specific influences when making his design in 1992.
“It was like the phoenix rising from the ashes,” said Speirs, who explained that the slam dunk represented a “victory over communism” for the Lithuanians. “But it also comes from another part. I got inspired by the Bible.”
During his conversation with me, Speirs then quoted the Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones in Chapter 37 of the Book of Ezekiel. He told me that the skeleton in his piece is “alive” and he was celebrating life and rebirth with his design.
Leffer, meanwhile, stated to me that the original image was actually based on Scottie Pippen.
[pullquote align=”right” source=”— Dennis McNally”]It was just Grateful Dead serendipity … We got a lot of credit that we didn’t deserve.[/pullquote]
Whether or not it was derived from Pippen or the Book of Ezekiel, McNally admits that the narrative these days is too often personalized to credit Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia, who he said didn’t even pay much attention to basketball.
McNally said the band is credited with “genius marketing” on this project even though the first round of memorabilia contained no band logos, nor was it directly funded by the Grateful Dead.
“It is a much less romantic version of the story,” McNally admitted. “That’s the story that everybody constantly ignores. It was just Grateful Dead serendipity … We got a lot of credit that we didn’t deserve.”
Speirs feels similarly when he reflects on how previous versions were told.
“It’s such a great story that maybe they wanted the story the way they envisioned it or the way they really wanted the story to be,” Speirs said. “Like a fantasy but not in reality or with correct facts.”
***
V. THE NEXT CHAPTER
By the time of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, the Lithuanian basketball team once more partnered with Not Fade Away, though Speirs was no longer involved.
For the second attempt at this launch, the remaining members of the Grateful Dead (Garcia died one year earlier) were much more involved with the Lithuanian basketball team merchandising. Hart composed music for the opening ceremony as well.
Chris Mullin, Sarunas Marciulionis and Bill Walton hangs out with Grateful Dead (Bob Weir, Mickey Hart) in 1992: pic.twitter.com/obRlfHK6
— SI Vault (@si_vault) October 9, 2012
The Grateful Dead even held a press conference with Walton (who was then an NBC broadcaster), Marciulionis (then with the Kings), Nelson (then a Suns assistant), and Warriors forward Chris Mullin to promote the sales.
Their 1996 design, still in the iconic tie-dye, had no skeleton but did have the Grateful Dead 13-point lightning bolt imprinted on a basketball. Additionally, with a close examination, the net resembled the “Steal Your Face” skull. This design was by Wayne Swarthout and Bob Sauer.
“I think it’s genius,” said McNally, who believes that if you asked a graphic artist to combine the Grateful Dead and basketball, that would be exactly what they would come up with. “I thought that was a beautiful design.”
Walton gave a shout-out to Not Fade Away during the Olympics broadcast and then unbuttoned his formal shirt to reveal he was wearing the tie-dyed shirt. Leffer said Walton’s words helped with the popularity of the shirts.
“This was a harmonic convergence of different teams at the highest levels to make the world a better place,” Walton told me. “I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of it and a witness to it and to see the success and to see the joy.”
“It was a team effort, just like basketball,” added Leffer, whose company continued to supply the Lithuanian basketball team with tie-dyed gear until 2004. “Everybody that worked together made it great and that’s why it was such a hit in 1996 as well.”
Liquid Blue also made shirts for the 1996 Olympics. This version depicts a Lithuanian player as a skeleton dribbling a basketball. They made a commemorative jersey, which you can see here. Spalding issued a commemorative basketball.
“There was a cultural ripple,” Roidoulis, whose company released a t-shirt reissue in 2020, theorized. “It’s a cool item. It’s a unique item as it is. It’s compelling as it is. But it begs the question: What is it? The popularity combined with the mystery created a strange appeal and everybody wanted it.”
The shirts are still popular today, and they’re often spotted at gatherings involving fans of the Grateful Dead. Fitzgerald now works in live music as a concert photographer, mostly focusing on the bluegrass and “jam grass” scenes.
#LTUbasketball on their way to #EuroBasket 2022 🛫#mesuzlietuva pic.twitter.com/OkfTzrQcpp
— LTU Basketball (@ltu_basketball) August 30, 2022
“I wound up seeing those shirts a lot,” said Fitzgerald, who has a black-and-white print of the original dunking skeleton framed in his house. “Thirty years later, I still see them at the shows I go to.”
“You still see them today and they look like they’re brand new,” Candelario added. “We put them on the best garment that we could put them on.”
Even since I began researching this story, I’ve seen people wearing this t-shirt everywhere, even while walking around the park in Brooklyn. Marciulionis and Bohuny said that if you watch a basketball game in Lithuania, you will see several fans in the crowd proudly wearing tie-dye as well.
“You have this small country and you gravitate to and you are proud of the things you do extremely well,” Bohuny said. “Lithuanians do basketball extremely well … It put their country on the map. Everyone knows Lithuania and a lot of it has to do with the success of their basketball programs.”
Pazdrazdis imagines that most of his teammates have their original shirts.
One of the most interesting anecdotes I learned about these shirts is that when Sabonis was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, he asked Walton to be his presenter. Beforehand, however, Sabonis pulled Walton aside.
He reached into the jacket pocket of his suit and gifted him the original 1992 t-shirt.
“It was as emotional and powerful of a moment as I’ve ever had in my life,” Walton said.
These shirts have made it everywhere from the Basketball Hall of Fame all the way to, I’ve been told, the International Space Station.
It is hard to find an original version of the shirt for less than a few hundred dollars. Kyan Mckernan, who owns the vintage store Heir Portland in Oregon, said it was one of the most beloved grails customers found at his store.
Rubinstein understands why the old versions are appealing to so many.
“The shirt is eaten up from whatever, grilled cheeses and acid,” Rubinstein joked. “I always say the more holes, the more you should pay for the shirt because it’s a museum.”
Meanwhile, Nike released a Grateful Dead-themed SB Dunk Low and now we’re seeing more of the band’s influence in the basketball world, like when LeBron James wore a Grateful Dead outfit.
Nike also released a tie-dyed shirt with skeletons (but without mentioning Lithuania). The streetwear brand Market made something similar. Warren Lotas, who has collaborated with the Phoenix Suns, has become popular for his designs linking basketball with skeletons as well.
With so much appetite for these shirts, you may soon find some versions of the shirts available in retail stores. But these days, the legend of the original t-shirts has become something far bigger and much more far-reaching than anyone ever expected.
Unfortunately, Fitzy’s contributions to the story aren’t reported as often when the story is recounted. Still, at least for his son, the charitable aspect of the project made that tough pill a bit easier to swallow.
“I wish my dad hadn’t been essentially written out of the story. But it’s still cool,” Fitzgerald said. “What happened ultimately is a bunch of former Soviet Bloc kids got food and a team got gear, and then they won a bronze medal. That’s a good story all around.”
The humanitarian aspect is one reason this story resonates with so many fans.
“It was a very timely story but it’s also timeless because look at what’s happening in the world now,” Weinbach, the director, said. “The leader of Lithuania during that period, Vytautas Landsbergis, was absolutely the Volodymyr Zelenskyy of his time.”
Living through the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, meanwhile, has stuck with many Lithuanians to this day – as once again leadership in Moscow uses violence to try to take away another country’s land and identity.
“War is a desperate time.”
Former NBA players Šarūnas Marčiulionis and Alexander Volkov have worked together, @jon_wertheim reports, to help young basketball players in Ukraine escape Russia’s attack: https://t.co/uIHZwmQbrz pic.twitter.com/Ipe7jOXLMr
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) April 25, 2022
A few months ago, upon a request from former USSR teammate Sasha Volkov from Ukraine, Marciulionis helped set up housing for nine Ukrainian refugees. He has encouraged them to “use basketball as an outlet” to “escape the trauma of war” in their home country, writes Sports Illustrated’s Jon Wertheim.
“There would be no greater story than if they excelled and were able to medal this summer in Berlin,” added Bohuny.
The 2022 EuroBasket tournament began on September 1. Ukraine started the tournament by winning two consecutive games. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, FIBA has indefinitely banned Russia from participating in the tournament.
The NBA recently delivered clothing and basketball gear to the players enrolled in Volkov’s academy. Rimantas Kaukenas, who represented Lithuanian basketball during the 2008 and 2012 Olympic games, has also helped people in Ukraine through his RK Charity Foundation.
[pullquote align=”right” source=”— Martin Leffer”]If you have a forum and people like what you make, you might as well get out there and do something to help out.[/pullquote]
Additionally, as noted by Mavericks forward Davis Bertans, the Latvian Basketball Association is providing housing for several young Ukrainians as well. Examples like these, and programs such as Basketball Without Borders, remind us of the global positivity basketball can provide.
Leffer told me that also sees the parallels between what happened in Lithuania and what is currently happening in Ukraine. With that in mind, he hopes to release a Ukrainian benefit shirt.
He said that his Woodstock shop will soon re-release the 1996 version of Lithuania’s “Steal Your Face” shirts as well. Leffer noted that some of the proceeds will benefit another Lithuanian children’s fund suggested to him by Karnisovas.
“If you have a forum and people like what you make, you might as well get out there and do something to help out.”
***
