BROKEN ARROW, Okla. — It's a story as American as apple pie and ice cream. Except it's about baseball and mullets. Both are very popular at Broken Arrow High School.
"Yeah, it's pretty great," Tyler Billingsley said. "Like maybe 10 or 12 people with it."
As a sign of unity, several baseball players decided to bring back the hairstyle of the 80's. But what Tyler Billingsley rocks on top, puts his hair in a league of his own.
"I got that mask on, it's flowing out through the back, and makes it look even better," Billingsley exclaimed while he described what the mullet looks like when he's wearing his catcher's mask.
This is also the story of Robert Cherry, a barber who for years was looking for the perfect mullet to enter in a national competition.
"I had started cutting mullets before his, but I just didn't really see any that were competition worthy," said Robert Cherry, owner of Eleven-01 Barber Lounge.
Cherry says when Billingsley walked through the door at Eleven-01 Barber Lounge and sat in his chair, two worlds collided.
"It was just like everything that you knew that you already knew was going to happen," Cherry said. "It's like man, this guy has some great hair."
Cherry says he took a little Billy Ray Cyrus and a little Joe Exotic, and created this masterpiece. Then he convinced Billingsley and his mother to let him enter it in the USA Mullet Championship - Teen Division.
A picture was taken and a star was born.
"It's the majestic, red, Kentucky waterfall," Billingsley said while referring to his hair.
Turns out, the majestic, red, Kentucky waterfall was everything voters wanted to see in a mullet, starting with a perfect comb-over up front.
"And then as he walks by you, you're like Oh my gosh, this guy has a whole club in the back of his head," Cherry laughed.
"We won," Billingsley said. "I didn't expect to win but we won!"
Billingsley and his waterfall of curls, all natural with no perm required, won one thousand dollars, a t-shirt, bragging rights and lots of attention from the girls in school.
"They complement it like wow, it's so soft!"
It's giving Billingsley so much confidence he's decided to try for a repeat next year. But this time, he has a new name. "It's like the Swirley-Nader," he said. "Because you know there's always tornadoes in Oklahoma!"
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