Charles Barkley used to 'wash' his uniform by wearing it in the shower

The life of an athlete is certainly more glamorous now than it used to be, but if Charles Barkley is to be believed, things used to be worse than we thought.

During a studio segment for the men’s NCAA tournament, Barkley left his co-hosts in utter disbelief in describing how he used to wash his uniform in-between games when he was starting out in the NBA.

Since there was no dedicated support staff for doing players’ laundry and the team flew commercially, according to Barkley, he would instead take a shower while wearing his jersey after the game, dry it and bring it to the plane the next morning.

Charles Barkley had an, uh, interesting way of washing his jersey back in the day. pic.twitter.com/AbmQSydRPs

— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) March 17, 2023

Absolutely appalling stuff.

Not only is this incredibly unhygienic — and not how doing laundry works — but it also seemed to be a unique experience for Barkley, at least among the former players on the show.

“No one in their right mind has ever done that,” a stunned Kenny Smith said.

Keep in mind that Smith’s NBA career largely overlapped with Barkley’s. Most curious.

Whether this was common practice at the time was unclear, but regardless, I know nobody on the court wanted to get posted up by Barkley.