When Charles Barkley recently guested on Rowan University's Speaker Series, he was surprised by a visit from former Philadelphia 76ers employee Allen Lumpkin. Lumpkin worked for decades with the organization and went from ballboy to Executive Director of Team Logistics upon his retirement.
But Lumpkin wasn't brought to the event to exchange pleasantries with Barkley. He was there to confirm whether Barkley's crazy story about taking showers with his Sixers jersey on was true.
"First of all, it's 100 percent true," said Barkley before Lumpkin took the Mike. "Like my first four or five years, we flew commercial. And you had to wash your jersey. You're flying the next morning, so after the game…Well first of all, you went out and find something to eat. You get in the shower, on your jersey, soap in down and just find a place to get it to dry out cuz you're flying."
As Barkley narrated, NBA teams flew commercial back in the day due to high charter costs. But after the Detroit Pistons purchased a BAC 111 plane, dubbed "Roundball One," in 1987 and started flying private, the other teams followed. But before that, Barkley said players had a dilemma when they had back-to-back games because they had to fly out to the next city early in the morning.
Because of that, Charles said he used to shower with his jersey on and then let the uniform dry out at the hotel afterwards so that it will be ready for packing when they left early the next day. Crazy as it sounds, considering today's NBA stars have extra uniforms, hotel services, and fly on team planes, back then, the struggle was real, and Lumpkin confirmed Chuck's story to be 100 percent true.
" They thought I was lying," Barkley told the man he affectionately called "Lumpy." "Who would make up a story like that?"
However, showering with his jersey on wasn't the only by-product of NBA players flying commercials back in the day. According to Barkley, there were also several instances during his early days when he suffered a stiff arm because, while on the flight, some old lady fell asleep while leaning on his shoulders, and he didn't want to disturb her.
" There was a couple of times I would get to a city and I couldn't move my arm and our trainers were like "Dude, what happened to your arm? Did you get hurt in the game last night?" I was like "No, man. I had this old a– lady lay on me and I didn't want to be an a–hole…This old sweet lady is leaning on my shoulders for three hours. And because I was raised to respect my elders, but man sometimes, I get to the next city, I can't even lift my damn arm."
Today, not all NBA teams own airplanes, but all of them fly private with those who don't charter flights. That's an advantage for today's NBA stars, especially if they have back-to-back schedules. Just imagine them going through what Charles talked about.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Sep 28, 2025, where it first appeared in the Off The Court section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
