Former UW basketball forward Nigel Hayes today used Twitter to share an email he got from a fan identifying herself as Jenny Madden from Sun Prairie, advising him to change his hair and recommending “JC afro barber over on the west-side.”
(We assume she meant JP Hair Design.)
I guess a black male’s naturally dreaded hair in a ponytail isn’t fit for NBA teams/communities. As well as, it seems, professional society. pic.twitter.com/9zdnyygyR9
— Nigel Hayes (@NIGEL_HAYES) May 17, 2017
After opening with congratulations on graduating, the email asks, “what the heck crazy odd hairdo are you having on top of your head?”
Hayes’ “crazy odd hairdo” can best be described as relatively short dreadlocks, often bound together in a topknot-style ponytail.
It apparently wasn’t the first time Madden felt compelled to weigh in on a Badger player’s hair.
In response to Hayes’s tweet, white teammate Zak Showalter shared an email he got from the same fan praising his “fresh, clean” cut and asking him to email her photos to share with her brother’s barber, so her brother could get the same ‘do.
Yeah, that’s as weird as it sounds.
@NIGEL_HAYES Guess you should be more like me 🙂 pic.twitter.com/NItIJ7Mjf6
— Zak Showalter (@ZShowbball333) May 17, 2017
UW itself subtly came to Hayes’s defense, it would seem, tweeting its own photo from this past weekend’s graduation which included both Hayes and Showalter.
You looked fantastic last weekend @NIGEL_HAYES @AnnieTamblyn @ZShowbball333 #UWGrad #Proud pic.twitter.com/WRSSkO1dLL
— UW-Madison (@UWMadison) May 17, 2017