Self-Taught Barber Behind U Swag
If only Get Right Kutz had been around for Jimmy Johnson
By JANIE CAMPBELL
Updated 8:28 PM EDT, Mon, Oct 12, 2009
Jacory Harris had only just led his Hurricanes to victory over 8th-ranked Oklahoma -- the first time Miami had beaten a top ten team in almost four years -- when ESPN's Lisa Salters met him on the field on a mission.
Tell us about your hair.
"It's just U Swag," Harris explained to Salters about his 'do, which featured "U" cut into his hair one on side, and "swag," short for swagger, on the other. "That's something we gotta bring back to the program."
Indeed, because that'd be the swagger Howard Schnellenberger started in the early '80s with suspenders and a tie and a wife cloaked in full-length white mink. Jim Kelly kept it alive with one swanky shirt and a dash of gold jewelry. Jerome Brown had his fatigues.
Today's Hurricanes? They've got one talented barber.
Steven Rivera, 23, is the man behind Harris' much-publicized haircut, along with the aerodynamic number Harris sported against Georgia Tech and a host of other ill styles various UM football and basketball players are wearing these days. Rivera is self-taught, but says his childhood graffiti habit helps him pull off the improbable: "You gotta have an eye."
Rivera was working as a corrections officer when former UM receiver Lance Leggett urged him to take his "side hustle" pro and open Get Right Kutz in South Miami Heights. But Rivera still travels to campus several days a week to serve about half the Miami football team for $8 each; a text announcement summons his clients to an apartment where the unofficial "Official Barber of the Miami Hurricanes" whips out his clippers and works his magic.
Some players, he says, come with ideas. Other styles, like the famous "U swag," are his own creations.
"Jacory and I have a unique bond," Rivera says. "He's like my little brother...He trusts me, lets me cut what I want."
The results of that follicular partnership and others now speak for themselves on national television, getting widely discussed on message boards and forums whenever Harris or other 'Canes (and even Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco) are seen sans helmets.
Still, it's likely that nothing in Lisa Salter's years of sideline reporting could have prepared her for the sight of linebacker Jordan Futch's request of last year: President Obama on one side, coach Randy Shannon on the other.
Swag, indeed.
Copyright NBC Local Media
First Published: Oct 12, 2009 2:59 PM EDT
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