Greivis Vasquez is Mr. GQ
The current look. (Toni Sandys - TWP)
After his record-tying assists night in Maryland's win on Saturday--a win that has the Terps steaming their way toward the Top 25 (two votes this week!) and making American look better and better--lots of folks were talking Greivis Vasquez.
"You need someone that's a little crazy out there," Gary Williams said, roughly, after the game. "Greivis does that very well."
Crazy, huh? Tell me more.
"I know a few layups he threw up off the glass, they looked kind of suspect, but I knew they were going in," Jerome Burney told me. "Other times he would throw up a shot and you're like, 'No, noooo.' You never know what's going to come."
And off the court?
"Same way," Burney said. "He's not crazy, just hyper."
Hyper, huh? But what of his style?
"Greivis is fly, man," Boom Osby said. "We call him 'Mr. GQ.' He's like the Tom Brady of our team. That's who he is. He dates competitive cheerleaders and softball players. He's just something else. Did you see what he had on today, the Diesels and the jeans and the button-up? He's fly, man. He's a pretty boy. He's something else."
So he has a particular style, yes? Can it be described?
"You never know," James Gist said. "Some days Greivis will come in in just sweats, another day Greivis will come in with an Eskimo hat. You just never know what you're gonna get with him."
"Eskimo hat" being James Gist-speak for a winter hat with furry ear flaps, which is a fine look for a chilly day like today. Well, and the curious facial hair, right? Eskimo hats are fine, but they hardly to compare to the shaving of random, non-symmetrical hieroglypics into one's face, do they? What were those strange markings, anyhow?
"Oh, that Caracas gang sign stuff?" Osby recalled. "No, I'm kidding. I don't know what that was man. I thought it was all right....What'd you call it, James, when Greivis had that stuff Z'd in his face?"
"I don't know what the hell that was," Gist said.
It was a little different," agreed Eric Hayes. "Never seen anybody have that before. I wouldn't mind seeing it again."
"I liked it," Burney told me. "Actually, he's got a moped, that's where he got the design from. It had the lightning strikes."
A moped, huh?
"Greivis actually does have a moped, he has one, and he loves riding around," Dave Neal said. "He doesn't abide the laws or anything, he just kind of drives around and goes crazy."
At which point I wasn't sure whether I should be more interested in the fact that Greivis rides a moped around campus--crazily, and in Montrose Christian colors, no less--or that his facial hair may have been influenced by said moped's design. Greivis, what say you?
"It's not mine, somebody [loaned it to] me," Vasquez said of the moped. "Sometimes I drive it and then people think it's mine but it's not. The moped got lines all up and down and stuff and then people be like that was [the designs], but it's not why."
More current look.
Ok. So, um, why?
"That was like some style my barber used to do, images and lines," he said. "I thought it was cool."
It should be noted that when Greivis shaved his head last year, teammates began calling him "G.I. Jane." And that, by his own count, he's now on his fourth hair style of this basketball season. I wondered how he might describe the latest look, the appearance of which has corresponded roughly with the Terps' win streak.
"I try to represent the Spanish countries," he said. "I'm from Venezuela. I just don't want to be the typical basketball player that everybody look [like], you know, with the braids and all that. I just want to be myself, and I want to look good out there, and I kind of just thought about putting my hair like this....I don't know, like it's electricity going, everything up," he said.
The current facial hair, I pointed out, is rather pedestrian, sort of Scott Spiezio mixed with Cary Elwes in The Princess Bride.
"Girls like it though," he said, which was a fine answer.
So, last thing. Out of curiosity, who has the better basketball hair-cut, Boom with his fro or Greivis with his "Electricity Going" Spanish country look?
"Definitely me man," Boom said. "How many people out there got spikes? How many people out there got fros?"
I came very close to asking Gary Williams for his opinion, but I figured I'd let him enjoy the win and let me enjoy being alive.
By Dan Steinberg |
February 12, 2008; 1:37 PM ET
| Category:
Terps
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Posted by: ScottVanPeltStyle.com | February 12, 2008 1:41 PM
i can only imagine what the geeks at duke will have in store for beavis and boomhead tomorrow night...
Posted by: Barno | February 12, 2008 1:53 PM
Has anyone heard Grievis give an interview? Maybe he should spend more time in ESOL classes rather than at the Hair Cuttery. The sad thing is that this guy will recieve a bogus degree from an otherwise prestigious university.
Posted by: | February 12, 2008 2:11 PM
um, you do realize that the guy is from a different country, right?
Posted by: littles | February 12, 2008 2:37 PM
You could at least spell his name correctly before ripping his academic abilities ... I think he speaks pretty well for having lived in the United States for only a few years.
I personally enjoy how he always starts his post-game interviews with "I just want to thanks God."
Posted by: tmc | February 12, 2008 2:40 PM
the red hives on his face bring the entire look together
Posted by: inside out | February 12, 2008 2:41 PM
Wow, Vazquez being described as a "pretty boy"? Never thought I'd see the day. I guess hideousness is in the eye of the beholder.
Posted by: Blech | February 12, 2008 2:56 PM
Only took the West VA fans 34 minutes to put up their first racist comment.
Posted by: Sad | February 12, 2008 2:58 PM
@ ScottVanPeltStyle.com - by the way, MS-13 is from El Salvador and Greivis is from Venezuela. Big difference. Thats like calling Ichiro Suzuki a chinaman, or Yao Ming a jap, FYI...
Posted by: matt | February 12, 2008 2:59 PM
And there are plenty of engineers, scientists, academics, that speak english with accents. :(
Posted by: Matt | February 12, 2008 3:02 PM
I shall call him...Mini-Muresan!
Posted by: sjf | February 12, 2008 3:09 PM
Going from sweatpants and shaving patterns in his beard to button-up shirts and gelled hair? Maybe Gary had Tim Gunn make a guest appearance at practice.
Posted by: laz | February 12, 2008 3:16 PM
I would like to remind everyone that we're talking about a person who just turned 21 and is playing an amateur sport. Lets refrain from the comments about academic abilities, command of the English language and gangs. Thanks.
Posted by: lab | February 12, 2008 3:37 PM
Greivis Vasquez......jeeze.
Posted by: WaPoLiveFan16 | February 12, 2008 3:51 PM
I was at a game earlier this season and some young girls around me were talking about how hot he is. I was surprised by this, so I asked my 16 year old daughter and she said "yes - definately"
One more example of how old I am!!
Posted by: b | February 12, 2008 3:58 PM
Cary Elwes for the hair, but the facial hair much more Indigo Montoya.
Posted by: Bill Fitzgerald | February 12, 2008 4:13 PM
@ matt - It was more about gang references period, but I will leave future said references to your purview....
Posted by: ScottVanPeltStyle.com | February 12, 2008 4:30 PM
That attack on his intellect was uncalled for. No one on our basketball team gets a degree regardless of English language ability.
Posted by: section 126 | February 12, 2008 7:05 PM
MD doesn't graduate players anyways so who cares
Posted by: JDP | February 12, 2008 7:14 PM
Mike Jones graduated with a degree in studio art, thank you very much.
Posted by: Grant | February 12, 2008 11:26 PM
I actually think MJ and DJ didn't graduate last year, but I'm sure Kenny Beckway, Will Bowers, and Gini did.
Posted by: Liz | February 13, 2008 9:34 AM
p.s. I'm a girl and think he's hot. but every guy I know thinks he's the ugliest dude ever. maybe it's the basketball thing, even steve blake looks good to me in a maryland jersey.
Posted by: Liz | February 13, 2008 9:35 AM
That boy looks like a monster. I don't care what he has on. Looking at his face gives me the bubble guts. And those yellow uniform look terrible. Please go back to the white and black uniforms. The only reason he dates cheerleaders and softball players is because they are a bunch of groupies. The sexiest girls come after athletes no matter how terrible they look. They are just a bunch of hoes
Posted by: The REAL GQ | February 13, 2008 2:32 PM
BTW....My cousin who just transferred from Maryland took a class in Greivis Vasquez last year and said he just blurted out stupid comments and talking back to the professors. So I guess he can speak, he's just not educated.
Posted by: The REAL GQ | February 13, 2008 2:34 PM
Maryland offers a class "in Greivis Vasquez"? Maybe thats why he gets the girls - there is an entire class about him
Posted by: b | February 13, 2008 4:15 PM
all you guys are hating.....to the dumbass who said the comment bout ms-13, and those who are talking about his looks. You guys dont know him like that to be talking about him, as far as his looks so what...its quite obvious he gettin the girls n not u guys....so back up and get a life!
Posted by: BigLUe | March 26, 2008 7:18 PM
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Boom better recognize he's in MS-13 territory before he stars joking about Caracas gang signs.