The True Story Of How The Grateful Dead Sponsored Lithuania’s 1992 Olympic Basketball Shirts [Video]

[imagesource:mikekorzemba/x]

Several celebrities have recently been spotted wearing tie-dyed Lithuanian basketball shirts, and the story of how these bright shirts came to be is even weirder than seeing hippies at a sports game.

These bright shirts’ origin story eventually surfaced again thanks to an X (Twitter) user named Mike Korzemba. Korzemba revealed the fascinating story of how the Grateful Dead, the legendary psychedelic rock band, stepped in upon finding out that the freshly independent country of Lithuania was struggling to send their newborn national basketball team to the 1992 Olympics.

Thanks to the musicians, Lithuania managed to send their team to the Olympics wearing incredibly cool tie-dyed T-shirts, which have now become famous.

Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1990 and was ready to conquer the Olympics with their athletes finally playing for the nation and not for the USSR. Unfortunately, the financial state of Lithuania’s finances made this near-impossible, so they announced the country’s withdrawal as there was no sponsorship and a huge lack of money.

Sarunas Marciulionis, a Lithuanian who was playing for the NBA at that time, understood how desperate his fellow citizens were to make it to the Olympics, and along with coach Donnie Nelson, began raising funds as the story about their struggle was covered by San Francisco Chronicle sports writer George Shirk.

The story eventually found its way to the Grateful Dead, who were inspired by the former USSR country and their dream to send their basketball players to compete in the Olympics. The band decided to contribute to Lithuania’s basketball team’s journey to the Olympics, including sending a box of tie-dye T-shirts designed by their band’s designer.

The t-shirt that has now become a recognisable token of Lithuania’s sports team was designed by Greg Speirs and features a skeleton dunking a basketball. It came with matching flamboyant shorts – all garments coloured in the country’s national colours- yellow, green and red.

Adding to the legendary status of the t-shirts, the Lithuanian team went on to win bronze in the 1992 Olympics, standing on the podium in tie-dyed triumph.

The shirts have now become a part of pop culture and people are often trying to get their hands on the originals as a few other designs have followed. The shirt was also famously worn by Phoebe in Friends and they are often spotted at the Grateful Dead’s concerts.

The story of how the Grateful Dead saved Lituania’s Olympic dreams was eventually made into a documentary released in the early 2000s.

It’s almost impossible to find one of the original shirts today, but those who have it own a part of Rock ‘n Roll, and Olympic, history.

[source:boredpanda]