Word: planking
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Kevin Plank didn't set out to create a cult around athletic underwear. He just wanted a comfortable T shirt to wear under his football pads, though he admits he was a bit obsessive about it. The result is a line of sweat-shedding sports clothing that more than doubled its annual sales in 2002, to $55 million. It's called Under Armour, and athletes from pro football linebackers to kids who play in rec hockey leagues regard the skintight garments as cool--in every sense of the word...
...Plank got the idea for Under Armour after eight of his football teammates at the University of Maryland landed in the hospital with heat exhaustion over a weekend of practice sessions in August 1995. Plank, a senior running back and business major, managed to avoid collapse but was bothered by his soggy cotton undershirt. The thing bunched and chafed under his pads, and when soaked with sweat, it added to the load on his back. "Being short and slow," he says, "I was looking for every ounce I could spare...
...football pants. High-end specialists who sold gear for mountaineering and skiing offered pricey garments made with an inner layer of fabric that wicked perspiration away from the skin to an outer layer where it would evaporate. These clothes helped prevent hypothermia in extreme cold. But nobody made what Plank wanted: an affordable, featherweight, moisture-wicking T shirt--one that would fit skintight so it would lie flat under straps and pads...
...just past six on the cold morning of Sept. 29 when the dark green Mitsubishi Pajero off-roader pulled up at the back of Russborough House, a Palladian mansion outside the town of Blessington in County Wicklow, Ireland. At least three men wearing balaclavas and hooded sweatshirts affixed a plank to the back of the vehicle to turn it into a makeshift battering ram, then ran it in reverse up some steps and into one of the great windows of the 250-year-old house, shattering the glass and the shutters behind. Eleven paintings were hanging on the walls...
...everyone goes home happy. You could - if you had to - enjoy the Star even if you didn't try the food. A 14th century stone building, the pub was originally a hostelry for Cistercian monks. These days, a more luxurious mood is created by a dark bowed-beam and plank ceiling, stone flagstones, and locally-made dark wood furniture around a fine log fire. In keeping with the pub's rustic feel, Pern serves food that's in season: fish in the summer and game birds and venison in the winter. And like publicans of old, he sources his produce...