Sakima Walker hated wearing pants designed for boys.
As the only daughter in a family with four sons, she constantly heard how much she resembled her older brother, how they looked like twins despite their 3-year age gap. She didn’t want the comparisons to extend to their outfits too. But Walker was always tall for her age — she wore a size 9 in women’s shoes as a fifth grader and hit 6 feet entering her sophomore year of high school — so it was either wear pants like her brother’s or don an ankle-exposing style that might be considered a fashion faux pas.
Walker, now a 6-foot-6 senior playing for No. 1 South Carolina, grew to embrace the latter.
“Still to this day, I love my high waters,” she said. “I learned to love my high waters because I knew that’s as good as it’s gonna get for me.”
When Walker takes the court with the Gamecocks in the Women’s NCAA Tournament, she’ll stand out for her height — a natural advantage that can make the game look easy.
But the players who tower a few inches over their tall teammates and competitors, who are already well above average height, face a different challenge outside of the gym: finding clothes that fit their exceptional height or extraordinary wingspan.
Just ask Alec Puffenberger, an associate director of…
