Collector's Edition: The SI King and a Q&A with Kevin Luyster
Tracking down Wayne Gretzky at a hotel bar, finding 124 Starting Lineup action figures, and other stories about collecting.
Hi everyone. Welcome to my newsletter companion to “Cover Story,” a basketball book I wrote which is set for release on October 19th and is available for pre-order here. If you want to tell your followers about my book, feel free to share this tweet or this Instagram post. If you’re not a newsletter subscriber, click here to make sure you get every post in your inbox.
In 1989, Sports Illustrated put the story of Kentucky’s basketball program and their violations of NCAA rules on their cover. But I’m not here to talk about the cover story today. Instead, I’m here to tell you about the player on the cover. Well, that’s not true either. The cover subject above wasn’t an actual player; he was model hired to pose for the cover photo. His name?
That’s a question Scott Smith has been trying to answer for years.
Scott Smith is better known as THE SI KING. He has been collecting Sports Illustrated magazines for several decades, tracking down cover subjects including Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan for autographs. It all started in 1982 when Smith found out Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers were in town. A Pompton Plains, New Jersey native, Smith was tipped off to the team’s hotel location and arrived to find Gretzky hanging out with teammates Kevin Lowe, Mark Messier, and Craig MacTavish. They were playing Pac-Man on the video machine at the hotel bar. Gretzky agreed to autograph a Sports Illustrated cover for Smith. A lifetime hobby was born.
Smith, who makes a brief cameo in “Cover Story,” has his own website, which has a page featuring his biggest Sports Illustrated cover mysteries, including the Kentucky basketball cover model, who Smith has been unable to identify or track down over the years. It is a wanted list for a collector hoping to complete his set.
If you’ve read my feature writing over the years, you might have picked up on a certain obsession of mine with profiling collectors, from those who love vintage Raptors jerseys to lifelong Hot Wheels fans.
For today’s newsletter, I decided to hit up another collector: Complex associate creative director Kevin Luyster, who is also one of my favorite Instagram follows (FOLLOW KEVIN ON INSTAGRAM @KEVONMYLEVEL!).
“It sounds like an exaggeration,” he told me via email, “but I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t obsessively collecting something.”
Kevin’s Instagram page is a time capsule to a period of time that is also reflected in “Cover Story.” It is a wonderfully curated list of coveted (and sometimes forgotten) items:
He grew up in a household of six siblings (including three brothers), which meant a childhood defined by Ghostbusters, Masters of the Universe, GI Joe, Ninja Turtles, and WWF figures. In awe of the toy collections of his older brothers, Kevin decided to start his own. Throw in some sneakers, sportswear, and a general interest in fashion, and you have the origin story of a lifetime collector.
One of my favorite things about Kevin’s collection is how focused it feels. As someone who has wandered down tons of rabbit holes on eBay and Etsy over the years (and certainly during the early part of the pandemic when shopping for stupid things at two in the morning was my version of having an absolute blast on a Friday night), I have respect for anyone who approaches collecting with a specific goal in mind.
Kevin has a complete set of 1988 MLB Starting Lineup action figures, which he tracked down from flea markets and sorting through eBay lots. “It was not an easy task,” he said. Collecting the entire 124 figure set required a lot of digging, especially when Kevin realized some of the figures were regional exclusives.
Kevin also has what he describes as a two decade side-quest to purchase every Nike Andre Agassi headband on eBay. A fan growing up, he has doubles (and triples, and quadruples, and, you get the point) of these headbands at this point but admits the hunt is still ongoing for a complete set.
“I constantly find myself seeking to relive memories, stories, and experiences through collecting,” he explained to me. “It’s crazy because I collect such an eclectic mix of things, but they all feel like they’re from the same universe, if that makes sense.”
Kevin describes his universe as 80s (and 90s) sports, pop culture, fashion, wrestling, and toy lines. The Starting Lineup figures isn’t the only complete set in his collection. He has every single WWF Hasbro wrestling action figure and every Ken Griffey Jr. All-Star batting practice jersey from 1997 to 2000, among other things, including a complete set of Nike’s 2005 Be True To Your School Dunk SB set.
“I love hunting down complete colorway sets of sneaker models as well as getting every retro version of a particular model to pick apart the details and differences from the different production years,” he explained.
So what are Kevin’s favorite items from his collection?
He is very proud of his complete set of 1985 Garbage Pail Kids Series 1 cards. For sneakers, Kevin chose the original 1989 Nike Air Tech Challenge Lava. The complete WWF Hasbro figure set was his third pick.
Kevin admits his collecting might actually be better defined as hoarding, but adds: “As long as you’re passionate about what you collect and have the room to store it, then I say go for it.”
Kevin also has an affinity for magazines. Well, kind of. “I've always been enamored with catalogs,” he said, “from the photography, to the product descriptions and the details they provide.”
He does appreciate the giant stash of WWF magazines in his collection and remembers how cheesy and over the top their covers were in the 90s. “They were perfect,” he said. Kevin picked a 1995 cover featuring Lex Luger and Michael Jordan as his favorite:
As for his advice for other collectors?
“Buy what you love and you can never go wrong,” Kevin told me. “If you keep chasing the waves as they come and go you’ll wind up broke, unfulfilled, and with a bunch of stuff you don’t connect with or care about.”
I’ll be back on Tuesday to talk about the SLAM Dome and tell you about Tony Gervino’s favorite (and least favorite) magazine covers.
Thanks for reading the newsletter. Feel free to subscribe if it’s your first time reading. You can pre-order “Cover Story” here and find me on Twitter and Instagram. Email me if you want to chat.