Good Old Fashioned T-Shirt Racism In Kansas

A Lawrence retailer is selling t-shirts that say "Frank Martin Mows My Lawn." The K-State coach is Latino. This has understandably become a bit of a firestorm.

Joe-College, an independent college gear retailer, has already run afoul of KU for stocking Jayhawk gear without a university affiliation. Now they're doing their best to piss off Kansas State, as well.

The store's website is chock full of "hilarious" shirt designs like "Carolina Blue Is Past Tense For Carolina Blows" and "I Love To Play With My Self." You get the idea. But the latest design raised a few eyebrows.

KSU fans are up in arms. Even KU fans find it in bad taste. Anything that can bring those fanbases together must be the greatest uniting force of our time.

Joe-College finally pulled the shirts, and owner Larry Sinks says there's a perfectly good explanation:

Well, I'm getting ragged for it but basically what happened is we decided to do the shirt – a college kid submitted it to me – then the next thing we know, somebody said it was racist," Sinks says. "I thought (Martin) was Italian but somebody said he's Cuban, so we pulled the shirt."

Oh, you thought he was Italian, and thought of that old stereotype of Italians mowing lawns. I see. Carry on then.

Joe-College Speaks Out on Frank Martin T-Shirt [KC Confidential]