I was having dinner at a neighbor’s house yesterday evening. After we ate, I read an article about the host that had appeared in his hometown newspaper. There was a short paragraph mentioning his idea to use a girdle for running back Terry Miller’s recurring hamstring issues because ace bandages kept slipping off. I saw Terry Miller play many times when I was a kid, but I never knew he was wearing a girdle!
I said, “I think you invented compression shorts!” He replied that Miller had no more hamstring problems after he started wearing the girdle. He also said several articles had been published about Miller’s girdle. I found this one that appeared in Time Magazine in 1976. My neighbor is Dr. Donald Cooper. For many years he was the head physician for the Oklahoma State University Athletic Department. He was also the USA team physician for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City and was a long time member of the President’s Council on Fitness. (He also said that when my foot has zero pain my stress fracture is healed. ; ) )
Does anyone know of another candidate for inventor of compression shorts? It is not like Dr. Cooper is going to make any money off this, but it would be interesting to know if he was the first person to come up with this idea.
I don’t know who invented them but I am very glad they did! A few weeks ago, all my compression pants were dirty so I ran in a regular pair of shorts for the first time in years. Let me just say, there was an awful lot of motion and movement back there that the compression shorts obviously control usually!
Not that I have any claim on inventing them, but I was the first person that I ever knew to wear something similar. I played soccer and baseball my entire life. In 1981, my freshman year we had moved to Massachusetts and the soccer season ran into the early winter months. I would be tight hips and hamstrings. In order to keep those areas warm, I cut up an old pair of baseball pants. I also found they were a good substitute for a jockstrap.
They were a small pair and tight and held up well to my running and keeping my hips and upper thighs warm. I wore a few variants over those years to try different lengths. the slightly longer worked well. I tried with other materials, but the stretch of baseball pants always worked. Needless to say, I was ridiculed for doing so…but no more leg cramps or tight muscles.