The Top Athletes – Real And Fictional – Who Made Glasses Look Cool

Watching NASCAR recently, I noticed Joey Logano wearing what appeared to be a pair of run-of-the-mill prescription glasses beneath his helmet during the shots of his in-car camera. This stuck with me for two reasons because A) I would have thought driving a racecar would be more of a contact lens situation and B) it was an inspiring example of an athlete with less-than-great eyesight making it work.

I grew up with lousy eyes. If I had a pair of billiard balls in my eye sockets, my vision would only be marginally worse than it is now. At a certain point, I was forced to don a pair of glasses and endure the common barrage of childhood taunts that come with them, like “four eyes” and “Look at this guy with his glasses! What do you do? Read books or something? Ha!”

Fortunately for me and other people with vision issues, there have been heroic athletes who broke barriers by wearing glasses where no glasses had been worn before (or where it’s at least fairly inconvenient).

Let’s take a look at some of the sports world’s bespectacled heroes.

Joey Logano

NASCAR driver Joey Logano was first spotted wearing glasses in 2019 at Talladega Superspeedway. He later confirmed that he planned to wearing them full time while driving that year:

“I have been wearing them during the week a lot to get used to them,” Logano told reporters at the time. “They help me see far away, which I think is a good thing when you are driving a race car. Being able to see little things like debris on the track or your sign on pit road. That seemed to help me last week.”

He said he decided he should probably go to an eye doctor after he tried on the glasses of his PR rep and they helped his vision.

Eric Gagne

When I was playing Little League and swinging at every ball that came my way (and several other flying objects I thought were baseballs but turned out not to be), I thought my hopes of making it to The Show were dashed.

However, proof that poor eyesight was not a baseball career death sentence would come by way of the Great White North. Enter: Eric Gagne.

Best remembered as a closer for the Los Angeles Dodgers (where he was an absolute save machine), Gagne also brought some serious specs to the mound. They looked like they’d be at home at the shooting range just as much as they did on the mound.

Imagine having to come to the plate in the ninth down by two. The entire game rests on your shoulders. You’re shaking in your cleats as it is, and now, you’re getting the stare down from those glasses. You’d swing at anything just to retreat into the clubhouse and drink a beer.

While pitching ability is probably the main reason Gagne was able to become the fastest pitcher to reach 100 saves, I like to think the glasses helped a little bit. Oh yeah, he also won the the Cy Young Award in 2003.

Ato Boldon

Track star Ato Boldon of Trinidad and Tobago caused an international stir at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 when he showed up to men’s Olympic 4x100m semifinals wearing a pair of futuristic shades known as the OVERTHETOP. Designed by Oakley, the OVERTHETOPs were engineered to help the silver medalist eliminate bounce, avoid pressure points, and minimize slippage from sweat.

In 2020, Oakley briefly brought the iconic glasses back, releasing a limited edition run of 20 pairs. The reissue was crafted with “precious metal” colorway of aged gold, silver, and bronze.

Price? $2000 a pair.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Folks, it’s important to remember that there are other eye maladies than just not seeing clearly. That’s why Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, opted to throw on his iconic goggles in the first place. Due in part to his height, Kareem got poked in the eyes a lot, and back in his college days, he even missed two games with a cornea injury.

Everyone knows you can’t rack up copious amounts of points if you’re sitting on the bench or missing an eye thanks to a defender’s rogue finger. You’ve got to protect those peepers, and if that means goggles, you wear goggles.

Abdul-Jabbar was a member of the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers during his career, but y’know what? He was also a Trailblazer… for eye protection.

Eric Dickerson

Even the gridiron has seen some glasses and (with apologies to Rodrigo Blankenship) there is perhaps no case more notable than Los Angeles Rams running back Eric Dickerson.

Dickerson sported a pair of rec specs during his time in the league, even if it was a less than desirable necessity. In a 2016 interview on the NFL Network, Dickerson was asked if his trademark frames were prescription or “all style,” to which he responded:

“I am blind as a bat. I hated them goggles. I hated wearing those goggles.

I tried to go without them a couple times. I’d go through practice and put contacts in. They worked. I’d get into the game. I said, ‘Keep my goggles on the sideline.’ First hit, contacts pop out.”

Whether he was a fan of his eyewear or not, they helped Dickerson become a Pro Football Hall of Famer, and if there was an Athletic Eyewear Hall of Fame (which I’m now realizing should be in Los Angles because that seems to be where everyone with glasses played at some point) he’d be a first-ballot inductee there too.

The Hanson Brothers

No, not those Hanson Brothers. We’re talking about another group of long-haired siblings who played together 20 years before “MMMBop” dominated the charts: Jack, Steve, and Jeff Hanson, who were scoffed at for their numerous eccentricities from the moment they arrived in Charleston, West Virginia in Slap Shot.

They were mocked for beating up a soda machine that had the audacity to take their quarter, playing slot cars in their hotel room on a road trip, and, of course, for all wearing thick-rimmed, Buddy Holly-esque glasses.

But the second the three got the nod from Chiefs player-coach Reggie Dunlop in a game against the Broome County Blades, the trio took the entire Federal League by storm, dismantling the opposition and even squaring up against the likes of Tim “Dr. Hook” McCracken and the fearsome Ogie Oglethorpe.

The Hansons are some of the greatest inspirations in the history of corrective athletic optometry. It could even be argued by some that their presence helped to keep the Chiefs from relocating to Florida.

The Hanson Brothers: absolute legends of both the rink and the optometrist’s office.

Horace Grant

NBA legend Horace Grant played 17 seasons in the NBA, retiring in 2004 with four titles. He started wearing goggles in 19901 and stuck with the look throughout his career.

Chicago Bulls ophthalmologist Dr. David Orth famously said that Grant’s eyes were “barely good enough to drive in Illinois.” Orth prescribed rec specs for Grant, who wore them off and on. Charles Oakley knocked them off a couple of times during the 1991 NBA playoffs, causing Grant to not wear them for a couple games. He initial told reporters he was fine and that his “peripheral vision is better without the goggles.” But noticed that his play was worse so he put them back on.

During a 2016 Reddit AMA, the retired lgend answered an inquiry about the specs with a heartwarming story about why.

“I got them because I was legally blind. I wore em because of that for a few years. After a few years I got Lasik surgery, but I kept wearing them without the prescription lenses because I had grandparents and parents come up to me and thank me for wearing them. Their kids and grandkids would get made fun of by wearing protective eyewear playing sports, so I kept wearing them to help make it cool to wear goggles for the kids.”

Truly the coolest to ever do it.