Shopping for clothes can wear on a big man

You don't just go to any store. Bucs Cosey Coleman and Kenyatta Walker had to head to L.A. to find the right shop.

By ANTONYA ENGLISH, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 24, 2003

SAN DIEGO -- So you're on a trip in a fabulous city and you want to do a little shopping. You check the local entertainment guide sitting on the coffee table in your hotel room, then head out for the mall or some other trendy shopping establishment.

Uh, that is unless you're 6 feet 4 and 322 pounds.

In that case, it might take a little more effort.

That's why Buccaneers guard Cosey Coleman and teammate and friend Kenyatta Walker (6-5, 302) hopped a shuttle to Los Angeles on Tuesday in search of clothes.

"We didn't make it to Rodeo Drive because we're big guys so we couldn't shop on Rodeo," Coleman said with a hearty laugh. "We went to Fox Hill Mall. We can't go where the norm is, we've got to seek out the big and tall shops."

Welcome to the world of the big man, where advertisements for slashed-price clothing at places like International Mall -- or virtually every other mall -- go unnoticed. Finding just the right outfit is a chore.

"Life as a big man is very hard," center/guard Todd Washington said. "You can't just go into any mall or any store and say, "Oooh, I like that, I wonder if they have that in my size?' No, they don't have your size. It doesn't work that way. You do a lot of shopping on the Internet, a lot of shopping through catalogs."

Coleman and Walker hit the Rochester Big and Tall shop, a well-known big guy establishment.

"That's where the big and tall men everywhere go," Coleman said. "And once you find a big and tall shop, you keep in contact, you exchange numbers, it's almost like a marriage. They'll even send you stuff. Because big men can't go to the mall, at least not to buy clothes. So to keep your options alive, when you find a store somewhere, you have to keep in contact even if they have to mail you stuff because it's just so hard to shop as a big man."

Coleman, Walker and Washington aren't alone. According to research by the San Diego Union Tribune, the increase in 300-pound players in the NFL is astronomical since the mid-1970s.

In 1975 there were no 300-pounders, one in 1980, five in '85, 17 in '88, 39 in '90, 67 in '92 and 139 in '96. Today, there are 327 who weigh 300 or more.

"It's kind of bad when you go to a casual, big-man store and the only jackets they've got are Members Only," Washington said. "I mean, no offense, but Members Only is just not us.

"It's a tough world, but we make do. Even though it might be about four or five of us with all the same stuff, we just have to coordinate and make sure we don't wear the same thing at the same time."