From ‘Jorts’ to Japan, a Kentucky fan favorite reflects on his basketball journey
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We Meet Again
The Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com are publishing a series of stories catching up with former University of Kentucky athletes. Click here to read all of the installments published previously.
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Editor’s Note: This article is part of a weekly series in which the Herald-Leader is catching up with former University of Kentucky athletes.
The legend of Josh Harrellson began before he ever put on a Kentucky uniform.
It started with another wardrobe choice.
Harrellson — a 6-foot-10 center from St. Charles, Mo., then playing junior college ball at Southwestern Illinois — was in Lexington with his mother and brother for a recruiting visit, and he got an early glimpse of the fishbowl nature of UK basketball.
“There was a Blue-White football scrimmage that day, and Coach (Billy) Gillispie and I were out there on the sidelines, and I was wearing jean shorts. Where I’m from, that’s just what I did. I thought it was classy,” Harrellson said with a laugh. “I had my basketball shorts underneath, but I had my jean shorts over my basketball shorts — I thought it would look more formal. So I was wearing them there, and somebody caught a picture of me, and Matt Jones posted it on Kentucky Sports Radio. And then it just blew up from there. And the more popular I got at Kentucky, the more popular the name got.
“There were times that people would just — I don’t even think they knew my first name — they just called me Jorts.”
The name stuck.
In the final days of his college career — as UK was fighting for its first Final Four appearance in 13 years — signs and banners honoring “Jorts” could be found all over campus. Harrellson said his current teammates in Japan call him by the nickname. His Twitter handle is still @BigJorts55. His fashion choice on that first visit to Lexington won’t be forgotten.
“Even when I played for Miami, LeBron used to say, ‘What’s up, Jorts?!’ It’s just something I embraced. It’s a nickname, and it’s unique, and it suits me well, so I embraced it,” Harrellson said, pausing for another chuckle, before adding: “I think me, John Cena and Stone Cold are about the only people who wear jorts.”
Bumpy start at UK
Of course, Harrellson committed to the Wildcats not long after that recruiting visit, but his first couple of seasons in Lexington weren’t exactly what he had in mind.
His first year at UK was the second and final season of the Gillispie era, a strange time in Kentucky basketball’s recent history and a campaign filled with extraordinary stories. One night in Nashville provided a couple of the most colorful tales of that season.
UK star Patrick Patterson sat out that game with a sprained ankle, and Harrellson ended up starting in his place. He played seven minutes, and the teams went to halftime tied at 30.
The head coach was not in a good mood.
”You know, Coach Gillispie didn’t believe in people sitting out,” Harrellson said. “So he was already really frustrated that Pat was taking the game off. Calling Pat ‘weak’ and stuff like that. … To be honest, I don’t remember doing anything wrong. But it was halftime, and I think he was just trying to find somebody to take some anger out on. And he chose me.
“We were just sitting there, and he was like, ‘We’re not leaving the locker room until Josh leaves.’ He’s like, ‘Josh, get out of the locker room.’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m not moving.’ Because I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was playing basketball.”
Gillispie didn’t let up, telling the team they wouldn’t return to the court for the second half until Harrellson left the room.
“And I’m like, ‘All right, well I’m not moving, so we’re not going back out,’” Harrellson recalled.
Patterson and Jodie Meeks — the team’s star players — spoke up and asked Harrellson to “just go to the other room,” which happened to be the bathroom.
“If it wasn’t for Jodie and Pat, I wouldn’t have got up and left,” he said. “Unless Coach Gillispie would’ve moved me. But they asked me to do it. And they were my older teammates and had been there longer, so I just respected them and did what they asked me to do.”
Since the rooms were basically connected, Harrellson could still hear everything that was being said in the locker room, and vice versa. He sat there quietly. Teammate Perry Stevenson later told him he should have flushed the toilet while Gillispie was talking.
“And thinking back, I probably should’ve,” Harrellson said. “I probably should’ve taken a leak. That would have been funny.”
But he doesn’t think Gillispie would have found the humor in that.
“Ah, man. He would have said every word under the sun that he shouldn’t have been saying. I would have heard it all,” he said. “Probably would have got kicked off the team.”
Kentucky lost that game, 77-64. Harrellson was still on the team, but Gillispie didn’t let him ride back to Lexington on the team bus. Instead, he rode in the truck that was hauling UK’s equipment.
“His theory behind it was I would get home faster in the equipment truck because I had an 8 a.m. class,” Harrellson said, skeptically. “But the big bus we had had beds in it — had 12 beds in it. So I was like, ‘I think I would have been more comfortable sleeping in that than sitting in the front seat of an equipment van.’ But, you know, I got back and went to class, and did what I was supposed to do.”
Harrellson laughed off that night in an interview with the Herald-Leader last week, and he said Gillispie’s antics didn’t affect him all that much at the time either.
“Every day, we were thinking about how crazy he would be,” he said. “At that time in his life and his career, he wasn’t a players’ coach. It was his way or the highway. As far as Xs and Os and being a coach, he was a great coach. He knows basketball. He just didn’t know how to teach basketball to people. He kind of teaches one way, and not everybody can adapt to that one way.
“My thing was, ‘What’s wrong this guy?’ It didn’t bother me. It didn’t bother me at all. At the end of the day, I had a free education and a free place to say. So I couldn’t complain too much.”
Gillispie was fired about a month later after just two seasons at Kentucky.
Harrellson said he spoke to his former coach not long after that departure, and they’ve been in touch some in the years since.
“He’s totally different when you talk to him outside of basketball. It’s night and day,” Harrellson said. “He’s such a nice guy. Very nice and outgoing, and such a personable guy. Somebody you can talk to, you know? But when it comes to basketball — at that point in his career; I’ve heard he’s changed a lot — but at that point in his career, he just wasn’t somebody you would want as a coach on the basketball court.”
From Billy G to Coach Cal
Gillispie’s exit led to the arrival of John Calipari, who brought the No. 1 recruiting class in the country to a program that had nearly 20 players, thanks to the ousted coach’s penchant for adding walk-ons.
Two of the incoming players were five-star centers DeMarcus Cousins and Daniel Orton.
“I just didn’t know if there was going to be a scholarship for me,” he said. “So, definitely, in my mind, I was like, ‘Where can I go?’ I was thinking Western Kentucky or something like that. But he ended up keeping me, and it was great.”
Harrellson made the team, but he played just 88 minutes that season.
His breakout year — and his big run-in with Calipari — would come the next season.
Harrellson said he put in a ton of work between his junior and senior years, knowing he’d need to make a major step forward to realize his dream of playing basketball professionally. With star center recruit Enes Kanter’s eligibility in question, and junior college addition Eloy Vargas as the only other big man on the roster, Harrellson had an opportunity to make an impact.
In his first competitive game in front of a crowd — the Blue-White Scrimmage — Harrellson grabbed 26 rebounds. Afterward, Calipari seemed to question what that stat really meant, and said: “Either we are the worst offensive rebounding team in America or he’s gotten better.”
Harrellson, thinking it was clearly the latter, bristled at Calipari’s remarks, and he took to Twitter.
“It’s just amazing to me I can’t get a good job or a way to go,” he tweeted, noting that he had been working hard all offseason. He closed by saying, “but I look past it and keep trucking. You can’t stop this train.”
Almost immediately after he tweeted that — Harrellson recalled the time lapse as about 45 seconds — UK assistant coach Orlando Antigua called him.
“What are you doing?! Take that down right now! Delete that!” Antigua implored him.
Before Harrellson could delete the tweet, it was already going viral.
The damage had been done.
Credit Ellen Calipari with helping to save UK’s season before it even began.
“The next day, I had a meeting with Coach Cal,” Harrellson said. “He was furious. He said, ‘If I would have been in town yesterday — if I wasn’t out recruiting — I would have kicked you off my team. But I came home. I talked to my wife. My wife really likes you. So I’m gonna give you a chance. But you’re going to have to do 30 days of conditioning, every day, for an hour before practice.’”
Harrellson was just relieved to still be on the team. And after what he’d been through in his first season as a Wildcat, a little extra conditioning didn’t seem all that bad.
“I made it through Coach Gillispie. I can make it through an hour of conditioning,” Harrellson thought at the time. “Man, there was a lot of days I wanted to quit basketball during those 30 days. And the 30 days turned into four months, because it propelled me — my endurance was so good that I could just play the whole game. And it propelled me to be such a good player down the stretch. It kind of stopped being punishment, and it was almost like a routine. But, man, for those first 30-45 days before my body actually got used to doing that, there were a lot of days that I wanted to quit.”
Magical senior season
Kanter, who was also Harrellson’s roommate, was eventually ruled ineligible by the NCAA and never played a game at Kentucky.
Harrellson said last week that he was obviously rooting for Kanter to get his eligibility and that he wouldn’t have minded backing him up in his final year at UK, but the NCAA’s ruling put the pressure on him to step up, fill that void in the post, and become a senior leader.
“And that’s what basketball is all about,” he said. “When you get the opportunity, you have to take advantage of it.”
Harrellson did just that, emerging as a dependable player in UK’s frontcourt. The highlight of his regular season was a 23-point, 14-rebound performance in a victory at archrival Louisville.
The real fireworks came in the NCAA Tournament.
The No. 4-seeded Wildcats squeaked by Princeton in the opening round and then needed a second-half comeback to beat West Virginia — the team that had shockingly ousted them from the tournament the previous year. Harrellson averaged 15 points and nine rebounds in those two games, but he’s most remembered for what came next.
Kentucky went into its Sweet 16 matchup with Ohio State as a major underdog. The Buckeyes were seen as the best team in college basketball. They won their first 24 games of the season and had a 34-2 record going into the game against UK. Ohio State also had first-team All-American and national freshman of the year Jared Sullinger, a bulky, 6-9 post player.
“A lot of people thought our tournament was over,” Harrellson said. “We’re playing the No. 1 team in the nation. They got the best freshman in the nation, the best big man in the nation. Me, going into that game, I was just saying, ‘Hey, if I stop this guy, we’re gonna have a chance.’ So I just kind of put all that pride on my shoulders, and I just went out there and played as hard as I could the whole game.”
With Ohio State leading 27-25 in the final minutes of the first half, Darius Miller put up a three-point shot that bounced off the rim. Harrellson hustled around Sullinger for the rebound, and the Buckeyes big man gave him a little nudge while he was in the air with the ball, turning his momentum toward the baseline. Harrellson landed, tip-toed to stay inbounds, and — still off balance — turned and delivered an absolute fastball to Sullinger’s chest at point blank range.
“Oh, man! Was that thrown with a little bit of velocity,” CBS announcer Jim Nantz exclaimed.
The ball bounced out of bounds off Sullinger, who took a couple of steps back in disbelief as Harrellson pumped his arms out in excitement and stomped toward the UK bench for the final TV timeout of the half. CBS showed the replay before going to commercial.
“I’ve never seen one …,“ Nantz started to say before trailing off with a chuckle.
“He put some zip on it, Jim!” color commentator Clark Kellogg said excitedly.
The CBS broadcast panned to a group of UK fans on their feet and cheering wildly. The Kentucky fans watching at home were all surely doing the same.
“The only thing going through my head was, ‘This dude just pushed me. And I’m going to save this possession,’” Harrellson said. “I jumped up, got the offensive rebound, and he kind of nudged me in the back. And I didn’t have my balance, so I was stepping, and I stepped toward the sideline. I played baseball my whole life growing up, so I knew, ‘He’s not gonna catch this ball.’ So I just threw it as hard as I could and aimed for the biggest target, and I hit him right in the chest.
“And that was kind of the turning moment in that game. We showed them, ‘Hey, we’re here to play. We’re not backing down from you guys.’”
Kentucky went on to win that game on a shot by Brandon Knight in the final seconds. Two days later, the Wildcats defeated North Carolina to earn the team’s first Final Four berth in 13 years, ending the longest such drought in program history.
Life in Japan
Following that season, Harrellson was selected with the No. 45 overall pick in the NBA Draft and went on to play a total of 75 games over three seasons with the Knicks, Heat and Pistons. Since then, the former Wildcat has played professionally in China, Puerto Rico, Latvia and Japan.
His favorite stop has been Japan, and he’s expected to return there in August for his fifth season in the B.League — the country’s top basketball league — and his fourth overall season with Osaka Evessa.
When the 2019-20 season was halted due to the coronavirus pandemic, Harrellson ranked in the top 10 in the league in points, rebounds, blocked shots, steals and three-point percentage.
Before the season was called off, Harrellson actually contracted COVID-19, along with most of his Osaka teammates. He said he showed only minor symptoms and that he and his teammates are all now fully recovered and ready to get started on the 2020-21 campaign.
Until then, he’ll get to spend some more time with his wife, Laura, and their 5-year-old daughter, Arianna, at their home outside of Detroit. Harrellson said his family is also able to join him for a few months during the season in Japan, which he called a second home.
Even though he’s half a world away, he still feels the Kentucky love.
This past season, a woman from Lexington whose husband was working in Japan reached out to Harrellson’s wife via social media, and the former UK player hooked them up with tickets to a game.
There’s even a Kentucky sports-themed restaurant in the city where Harrellson plays. The UK Cafe — started decades ago by a man from Osaka who attended UK for a year as an exchange student — offers American-style food in a space adorned with UK-related posters and memorabilia.
Harrellson has eaten there and recommends it.
“When you walk in, everything’s blue,” he said. “Everything is just Kentucky’d out.”
Wherever Harrellson’s basketball journeys have taken him since he left Lexington, he has always found that familiar blue and white. The BBN moniker, he said, is too limiting.
“It’s Big Blue World, man. It’s all over.”
Q&A
What do you remember most about Coach Gillispie?
“That’s tough. … On the basketball court, I would just say he was almost like a tyrant. On the court, he would always tear you down, tear you down, tear you down — he would never build you up. But, off the court, man, he’s one of the nicest people. You could have a great conversation with him, and he was so personable. It’s almost like Jekyll and Hyde. I guess that’s what I would say: Jekyll and Hyde. That’s how I remember him.
“I think his biggest flaw was that he just had one way. Being at Kentucky, you get players that are pretty good players. You’re going to get guys that don’t need to be torn down and rebuilt. When he was at A&M, that’s what he did. That’s why he had boot camp. He would tear you down, pretty much to your foundation, and try to rebuild you and mold you into this player. And it worked. He had a lot of guys that were juniors and seniors that were really good players.
“But you come to Kentucky, you get freshmen that are already really good players. And he tried to do the same thing at Kentucky, and it didn’t work as well, because these guys were good players. Darius (Miller) was Kentucky Mr. Basketball. You’re already getting players that are good, and to try and tear these guys down — you can’t coach everybody the same way.”
What do you remember most about Coach Calipari?
“Man, Coach Cal — he put you in position to succeed. He put you in strong points. Although I’m a great shooter, I can do more things than what I did at Kentucky — even when I was there — but I didn’t need to. And he knew that. I was a great screener, and I was a good passer. So, he put me in a lot of dribble hand-offs, a lot of pick and rolls, and stuff like that that put me in a position to succeed. That’s what he does. He sees players and what they’re good at. And — I’m not saying he limits you — but, for certain players, he will, because those are your strongest points, and that’s what’s best for the team.”
Was there ever a time when you questioned picking UK?
“Oh yeah, there were a lot of times. Especially my sophomore year playing for Gillispie. And then my junior year, not playing at all. Or barely playing. I was like, ‘I could be somewhere else and playing.’ But I’m loyal. If somebody gives me a chance, I’m not going to back out. I’m not going to leave. I’m going to ride it out, stick it out. And that’s how I am wherever I go.”
If you hadn’t picked UK, which college would you have gone to?
“I probably would have gone to Saint Louis University and just stayed close to home. But, man, I’m glad I left. I left St. Charles, Missouri, at 18, and I’ve been all over the world. And it’s been great.”
What is your favorite on-court memory as a Wildcat?
“Probably beating North Carolina to go to the Final Four. They were a great team. They were one of the best teams in the nation. They beat us that year already. Having that redemption game and beating them, and going to the Final Four — it was a great moment and great feeling to reach that level.”
What’s the most recent UK sporting event you attended?
“That was probably back when I was playing in the NBA. So, probably the 2014-2015 season. In 2014, I was at ‘College GameDay.’ I went to the UNC game when Anthony Davis blocked the shot. That was a great game. I’ve been to a few. I’m not going to say I can’t wait to retire, because I want a longer career. But I’ll be excited for the day when I retire, so I can actually come back and enjoy some games.”
Who has been your favorite UK player to watch during the past few seasons?
“I would have to say De’Aaron Fox was one of my favorite players to watch. He reminded me so much of John Wall with his speed and his quickness. And so it reminded me a lot of when I used to watch John Wall play. So watching (Fox) come in there and play — and he played with such tenacity, he played so aggressive — it was just so much fun to watch him play.”
Who was your sports idol growing up?
“I’m from St. Louis, and I played baseball my whole life growing up, so I would say Mark McGwire. I played first base like he did. I always wanted to be like him, hitting home runs and stuff. And then I finally switched over to basketball in high school.”
What do you wish someone had told you before you began your college career?
“I wish somebody would have told me that life after college was going to be so hard. Enjoy not paying rent and stuff like that. No house payments.”
What is your biggest regret from your time at Kentucky?
“I wouldn’t really say I have any regrets. I went to the Final Four. I guess my only regret would be not winning a championship. I think that team we had that year was good enough to win a championship, and I think if we would’ve got past UConn, we would have won the championship, because I don’t think the other two teams could have compared to us. So, yeah, I guess my biggest regret is we should have beat UConn. That was the only team that beat us twice in that whole season. Out of every team that beat us, we ended up getting a chance to beat them.”
Which of your former UK teammates do you stay in contact with the most?
“I would say Darius. We’re kind of on the same path in life. We both have families. We both have daughters. So I probably keep in touch with him the most. I still keep in touch with Pat (Patterson). Those two guys, I was probably the closest with at Kentucky.”
This story was originally published June 29, 2020 at 6:55 AM.
