Business is booming for longtime Kansas Jayhawks equipment guru Larry Hare: Here’s why

Larry Hare remembers when summers were “dead quiet.” Not anymore.

From June 3-4, Kansas’ assistant athletics director for equipment services ran a “fittings carwash” for all the men’s basketball transfers and freshmen. After ascertaining shirt, shorts and shoe sizes, Hare immediately ordered uniforms to arrive for photoshoots later that week.

Then, on June 5, 533 boxes of already-ordered Adidas gear for KU Olympic sports arrived, ready to be processed.

Kansas men’s hoops is going to Puerto Rico in August, women’s hoops is also readying for an international trip and football and volleyball and soccer are reporting for preseason practice soon, to name a few more things for which KU managers must prepare.

If that didn’t keep Hare busy enough, recruiting visits now take place throughout the summer with ever greater fanfare and publicity, thanks to increased NCAA allowances and social media’s rise. The dynamic transfer portal has added wrinkles: more offseason visits and more newcomers needing uniforms for next season.

Hare, entering his 19th year at Kansas, has a hand in all of it amid a college sports landscape that’s changed significantly since he joined the equipment manager profession as a student manager more than 30 years ago. He told the Star that the most pressing current issue for equipment managers, as well as coaches and support staff, is a chock-full calendar.

While equipment managers’ traditional duties — pack-up, put-away, cleaning and repair — largely remain behind the scenes, social channels illuminate everything they furnish players for practice and games.

“Everyone’s always looking for content,” Hare said, so equipment managers get uniforms in further in advance to meet marketing and media needs.

Recruiting continues to demand more of equipment managers. Uniform try-ons and photoshoots are quintessential aspects of selling the university to prospects and their families, and stirring up fans on social media.

“Those are additional events to work,” Hare said. “It’s a collaborative effort from so many groups when recruits are on campus, but those are additional events and weekends and dates that can occur.

“That was already occurring. Now you add in the transfer portal details of greater movement of transfers. Those additional recruiting visits aren’t just your juniors and seniors in high school. They’re now your current college students who are figuring out where they might want to head next.”

College sports’ prolific roster turnover has altered how equipment managers order products. The transfer portal’s prominence — nine or 10 newcomers each year, opposed to three or four traditionally — forces them to better forecast their future needs.

Hare ordered the jersey chassis for the 2022-23 men’s basketball season in December 2021. Knowing he needed them to last through most of summer 2023, he had to “build in more blank uniforms” than he would in the pre-portal era to immediately have kits available once newcomers arrived. KU has in-house heat presses and keeps numbers and letters on hand so it can make a jersey quickly in a pinch.

Furthermore, carrying uniforms from one season into another isn’t as easy as it used to be before the portal. Hare used these examples: In a year where an equipment manager plans to “just fill in” on a uniform order, “the fill-ins might be three quarters of the roster” after a coaching change and subsequent roster rebuild.

Or, if all that’s left are larges and the newest transfer is an extra large, an equipment manager might have to make a “crash order” to get the chassis he needs in as soon as possible.

“It has extended the season,” Hare said of the portal. “It used to be in June, the roster was what the roster was. You wouldn’t see a lot of movement. Now you’re still figuring it out over the course of May and June, and even into July, trying to get those final details done on a roster.

“Each of those (additions), you pause, look through your list of vendors and products that you bring in and (say) ‘Oh, you know what, I need to reach out to this vendor and add a sixth of these with this person’s name on it. I need to order one more of these,’ or ‘We were counting on carrying forward this product from the spring until the fall. With this person’s size, can we do that?’

“There’s a ripple effect to it with this. There’s more times in the course of the year where you’re assessing ‘Do we have enough? Do we need to go get more?’ Because the way of the world is, there’s just more turnover now.”

That’s no different at Kansas, which has added 10 men’s basketball newcomers this offseason. One of those is 7-foot-1 Michigan transfer Hunter Dickinson, who required unique accommodations.

“When someone like that commits, it’s immediately, ‘OK, I know, his needs. Let’s go pull the trigger on a couple of quick orders so we’re here ready to go when he arrives,’” Hare said. “So there is some of that, when someone’s a little bit more of an outlier on the size chart. I’m 6-foot-8, so I can appreciate that.

“Udoka Azubuike was a similar detail on ‘Alright, what size shoe are you wearing?’ OK, I need to get more of those because he’s coming to school here.”

In general, personalization matters to players perhaps more than ever before. To keep that in perspective amid his other responsibilities, Hare uses a mantra created by the Athletic Equipment Managers Association: “Safety, Service, Swag.”

With basketball, safety mostly entails making sure shoes are fitted correctly. That, along with laundry and setting up and helping run practice serves the athletes by preparing them for the day’s activities. After that, Hare does his best to tailor to each player’s swag.

“I’ve got athletes that wear oversized T-shirts to practice, and I’m like, ‘Well, it makes it look like I haven’t even issued shorts to you,’ but that’s what they’re comfortable in and we accommodate that,” Hare said. “Now guys are wearing their shorts, obviously, much smaller, and I might get a comment from a coach, like, ‘Larry, can’t we get him some bigger shorts?’

“I’m like, ‘That’s the size he wants to wear. I did not make him wear that size. I can appreciate you’re seeing what I’m seeing, but that’s what the young man is comfortable wearing and we can accommodate that.’”

On top of athlete apparel arrangements, Hare also oversees KU Athletics’ varsity awards program, buses and vans, Pepsi products and student managers. His role at Kansas has expanded on his previous jobs at Boston College, Northern Arizona and Connecticut.

How does he compartmentalize all that’s asked of him in this era of major college sports?

Adapting and improvising with every delivery issue, weather change and coach decision is crucial, as is keeping equipment rooms organized. And when Hare is occupied, he has a trusted staff that doesn’t miss a beat.

“Learning how to delegate, that is a key one from my standpoint, because you can’t do it all,” Hare said. “Figure out prioritizing what needs to be done during the work day that you can only get done because of when businesses are open, or certain other offices. (Also) what you can do in some quiet moments earlier in the day, after hours, on weekends.”

Quiet moments? In the summer?

The latest newcomers — and 533 more boxes from Adidas — are surely on their way.

This story was originally published July 17, 2023 at 6:00 AM.