Well, I’m back again with the master of the early AFL years, Rick Pearson, who is here today to present you the 1961 and 1962 AFL uniforms as they should appear. You will recall the OUTSTANDING post Ricko and Timmy Brulia assisted me with a few weeks ago (if you haven’t read it … stop what you’re doing now and please do so). Even if you did, there’s nothing wrong with a quick refresher course.
Anyway, Ricko has spent countless hours pouring over his “kid cards” and old photos, and now he’s created uniform templates for 1961 and 1962 (and he even went back and reworked his original genius 1960 templates, because he noticed some errors). So, what I’m proud to present to you below is Rick’s fantastic work. The man continues to amaze me with his attention to detail (detail the NFL surely didn’t care about, for the most part), and his efforts are a blessing and a godsend for us all. So, without further ado, here’s Ricko:
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First, a general observation.
I stopped at ’62, because there was a kind of confluence of elements in 1963.
To begin, the under-financed Titans became the financially strong Jets and New York (more importantly the New York media) started taking the AFL a little more seriously. That meant more photos in more places, thereby no longer leaving AFL uni details unrecorded for posterity.
Photography, or film speed, or lenses, or lighter camera bodies, or better TV cameras…I dunno, I’m no photographer …but all seemed to contribute to not only more images, but better images.
I think that’s why I stopped making by Kid Cards that year. It didn’t seem like so much was unknown anymore. It looked like there’d be source material now, where little or none had existed before.
Even the football cards started getting better. Still weren’t great, but they were vastly improved.
Okay, regarding the TEMPLATES…
I didn’t finish a few things, largely because I wanted to get this done for the final true “Legacy” Weekend.
I still haven’t thoroughly gone over all the numeral fonts, but any exotic ones are correct. Terry Proctor, our resident expert on such things, sent Paul a long and thorough analysis of my 1960 templates’ numbers, and I thank him for that. Paul forwarded it on to me, but I’m not an accomplished enough computer artist to attack it precisely. But I will when Tim Brulia and I get to working with FUPP. Promise.
I think the New York Titans had TV numbers on their home navy jerseys in 1962. Perhaps even late in 1961.
The Boston Patriots messed around with two different style crew socks there for a while. Some were the two striped babies shown on the 1961 and 1962 templates. Some were the wide reds shown on 1960. And it wasn’t even consistent from player to player, or from game to game. By ’63 the mostly were gone, but cropped up again from time to time over the succeeding seasons.
I believe the L.A. Chargers wore a darker royal, perhaps a Dodger Blue compared to Cubs blue. I just know that the first time I saw their unis after the move to San Diego they were lighter (“Same color as Colts now,” I remember thinking). Numbers were less ornate, too. They didn’t go to Air Force Blue until ’64, I believe, because ’63 unis were clearly still royal. The true Powder Blue didn’t come along until they were well into wearing gold pants (which first appeared in ’66). Before that it was that blue between royal and powder. I’d say first powder was ’68 or ’69. Know it wasn’t ’67 for sure. That year the jerseys were so dark I think they may have been close to navy. But the high socks in ’67 were powder. And I think the bolt on the pants was royal. Three blues? I believe so.
We see on some web sites that the one-year-wonder 1962 Oakland Raiders helmet stripe was white. It was not. It was athletic gold, like their home jersey numbers and sleeve stripes. I watched them play several times on TV. Even on black and white TV you can tell a white stripe from a gold stripe…because it’s darker than the white pants or white road jerseys. Ask yourself this…if you watch the Steelers or Iowa some weekend in their white jerseys — and knock all the color out of your TV so it becomes black and white — would you be able to tell if the helmet stripe is gold and not white? Of course you would. We’re uni geeks, we’d study such a thing, and get it right.
So, there you go. After 50 years, I have finally passed on my childlike, meticulous recording of early AFL uniforms to the world.
Sure hope someone gives a damn. LOL.
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Wow, Ricko, once again, you’ve knocked one out of the park gone deep for six. Awesome. But the templates above are only part of Ricko’s efforts. Below are all the uniforms for 1961 and 1962, for your viewing pleasure:
** As most of you know by now, but I’ll still repeat — tomorrow is the much anticipated UW “Gathering” at Sheep Station in beautiful Brooklyn. 2:30 till whenever. Hope to see you NYC-area UWers there.
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** Uni Watcher Matt Englander needs YOUR HELP. While not quite along the lines of the “Design-A-Cap” or “Design-A-Uniform” contests, he still has a modest proposal for the readership. Here’s Matt:
I know this comes on the heels of the controversial topic of devaluing logo/uniform design work, but I am hoping that you’d be willing to help me in a somewhat related area: picking a team name. I am starting a 30+ baseball team that will be based in Cambridge MA, so I am looking to pick a name based on something that is historically appropriate for Cambridge. I hope that in considering this as something to open up to readers that I don’t simultaneously devalue the naming process.
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** Speaking of the Clarksville High School “Design-A-Uniform” Contest, I am hoping to begin running the contest entries next weekend. It’s going to be an enormous undertaking, as I’ve received more than forty entries. I thank everyone who’s sent in their submissions so far, and I’ll try to get them all up for viewing over the next week or so. This is probably going to be a two-weekend event.
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** And finally, the WORST. UNI. EVER. contest is now closed. Thanks to SI.com’s “Hot Clicks” mention the other day, we smashed all previous polling numbers. JTH and I will have the results tomorrow. Be sure to check back then.
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OK, last Sunday I began running some NFL uniform tweaks/concepts/redesigns, and today, we’re going to take a look at the next batch.
First up is Dan Martell:
Hey Phil,
I noticed on the blog that you mentioned if anyone had some tweaks to NFL unis to send them along. Attached are a bunch I’ve been working on. And below is the explanation for each redesign.
The Giants: I began doing this last week after sitting for several hours looking at excel spreadsheets in the office I randomly was hit with a thought about the Giants uniform. I’ve always loved the look of the Patriots throwback jersey with the stripes on the shoulders similar to the Colts but with more color. I thought to myself, I wonder how the Giants would look with this. That got my mind going and I created the updated Giants Home Jersey. With the help of Chris Creamer’s SportsLogos.net I was able to get premade models of the jerseys to edit. I decided not to edit the road jersey as I felt the design had enough there and did not need shoulder stripes but felt the home jersey could use a little more color.
The Bengals (home, road): After the Giants mock up I felt that the Bengals uniforms were in some need of a new look. It started out thinking why don’t the Bengals use the “Tiger Head” logo (as I like to call it). So I decided to add the logo to the sleeves of the uniform and added the logo to the helmet. I’ve always felt the tiger striped helmet was too much so I instead made it an all white helmet with the Tiger Head logo and a simple Bengal stripe. I feel it gives it a more throw back look to something that may have come out in the ‘70s or ‘60s. Additionally on the Home uniform I made sure to get rid of the orange sides of the jersey (it’s just too much orange in my opinion).
Now the road uniform is a whole different monster. After I finished the home mockup I was trying to think of a good change for the road. One of my favorite animals is the White Bengal Tiger which led me to think how great would it be to have a White Bengal themed road. In this jersey I once again added the updated Tiger Head logo this time in all white but made sure to leave the helmet alone. I thought this came out way better than their current uniform set.
The Cowboys: Let me preface the upcoming redesign with this, like all true Giants fans I despise everything about the Cowboys. That being said, I felt the Cowboy’s road uniforms (which you almost never see) needed some change because quite frankly they suck. Being someone who really loves vintage and throwback looks I felt that it would be a good idea to take the current jersey but to give it an old school twist. I changed most of the grey to white to make it look much like the Cowboys throwbacks but keep the same basic design. At least the Cowboys would look good as I boo them at Giants Stadium.
The Saints (home, road) Another team I haven’t been a big fan of (especially after the thrashing a few weeks ago on Big Blue) but I wanted to see how they would look with a little different twist. For the home uniform I left the black pretty much as is however I decided to change the gold to a little darker shade to make it seem more vintage. This color was based off an alternate logo from the 1960’s according to Sorts Logos.net. I took that alternate logo and added it to the helmet while making the helmet color black. It kind of reminds me of a hybrid between the 49ers and the Raiders. I ended up doing the same to the road uniform but instead of the helmet being black it’s a darker gold similar to the uniform.
The Seahawks (home,road): Last but not least the Seahawks. The first thing I did was figure out a way to get rid of that God awful neon green. I decided to go with a lighter blue to offset the dark blue in most of the home uniform. I updated both the sleeves with this new light blue and added the light blue to the logo on the helmet itself. I think it makes the jersey have a little pop without it being offensive. Additionally, on the shoulders I added the Seahawks alternate logo from Sports Logos.net you mentioned a few weeks back as never seeing. Very simple changes that I think make the uniform a little better.
After finishing the home uniform I couldn’t help but change the road uniform. For this jersey I again changed the sleeves to the lighter blue and added a little bit to the helmet logo. I decided to keep the old sleeve patches for the road to keep things different. Additionally, I decided to add the light blue to the numbers themselves.
Next up is Ben Traxel, and these two designs for the Broncos you’ve actually seen before, since Paul posted them in the ticker a few weeks ago. But since they’re part of the “uni tweaks” folder I’ve been keeping, they’ll get their due below:
After all the Broncos vertical stripe talk I decided we needed to see what they’d look like on their current unis. This also gave me a chance to tweek their not so hot set of today too. I had to get rid of the spike thing that shot into the neck from the side panel and also the way it ended on the pants so I went with a more traditional double stripe. To carry on the blue/orange socks I dashed in some trim on the shoulder. I then changed the sleeve color like they did for a brief time in the 60’s and brought back the Big D logo. The socks definately need to be half white after seeing what the players looked like this year. Finally, I had to get rid of the center stripe spikes and go with something more traditional. This is my first run at tweeking the NFL but I’m sure not the last. We’ll see what team needs it next.
Next up is Stephen Brookman who’s a big fan of the Washington, D.C. team. Here’s Stephen:
Hey Phil…a while back I made some tweak to the Redskins uni set. (I think I sent them in to you a few months ago, so I apologize if this is redundant!) Some of my examples are below.
I am a huge Redskins fan and generally like the current uni set. I just wish they just had some additional options, like gold pants.
The gold pants I’ve designed, use the current Redskins template with the stripes side by side. I’ve also added the old school striped socks, that we saw a few years ago with the throwbacks.
The one thing I’ve always been iffy on about the Skins uni over the years is the yellow facemask. I personally think it makes the helmet look like a toy or kids helmet. Because of this, I’ve added a grey facemask.
So in a nutshell, what I’ve tried to do with my design is keep the current set mostly intact, but with some nods to some of the finer uni moments of the teams’ past. I’d also like if they’d go back to having the stripes on the elastic sleeves go all the way around. About half way around the sleeves, the striping goes from yellow and red, to just solid yellow. To me, that looks totally tacky and flat out lazy on Reebok’s part. I guess if I had my choice of fixing that or having Dan Snyder sell the team, I’d choose the latter.
Thanks Phil…I really love all the work you guys do on the site. It is one of my favorite simple pleasures.
Moving along, we have Scott Lukacs, who’s modified the Cowboys uniforms:
Phil,
Love the blog. Reading it has become a morning ritual. I’ve been thinking about this tweak for a while and when I saw your note about running some football uni tweaks I thought I’d get this off to you.
First for the home white uni. Not much of a change here…more of a look back to the past. The helmet and pants remain as is. The numbers revert to the serif type used during the ’60’s & ’70’s and current throwbacks. TV numbers remain sans serif. NOB goes sans serif as well. Of course the striped socks need to return.
Now for the blue uni. I have never been that fond of the current blue double star jersey so let’s just retire it. I do however, like the current throwbacks and would like to see the team adopt them as their primary blue (away) uni…with some tweaks. The stars on the helmet and jersey shoulders switch to the current design (blue star with white and blue border). Helmet would also be updated to a metallic white. Primary pants would be white with blue stripes. Alt blue pants would also be available with white stripes.
Finally an alt white uni for use on Thanksgiving or other special occasion games. Metallic white helmet would be used for this kit also. Same number and NOB treatments as on the other jerseys. Shoulder stars colors are reversed to white-blue-white. Primary pants would be white with blue stripes. Again alt blue pants with white stripes would be available.
That’s it for now. Keep up the good work!
OK. That will do it for this edition of the NFL uniform upgrades/redesigns/tweaks, etc. There’s still more to come, and (space permitting) I’ll put them in my next post. Thanks to everyone who sent these in, and for those we’ve seen before as well as those still to come. Feel free to continue to send me your submissions!
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Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: Another gridiron challenge today. Shouldn’t be all that difficult, but then again you never know. As always, date, location and final score are required. Don’t forget to link to your answer by using Pro Football Reference. Ready? Guess The Game. And if you want to keep this going through the fall, please send me some new scoreboards! Drop me a line. Thanks!
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Who says Mick isn’t one suave character? Certainly not Mick. But, what happens when he meets the woman of his dreams in Bub’s Pub? And they say opposites don’t attract.
Wow…almost to the finish line. If you didn’t check out Paul’s latest ESPN column, make sure ya do. Aside from the fascinating bit on tailgating, the third item, “Meanwhile, over on the gridiron” remarks at length about Nike’s new “pro combat” uniforms (yeah, that’s the ticket), three of which are supposed to be debuting today. Make sure to set your DVR’s for those games. I’m still not certain on the third team, but two of the games are definitely confirmed: TCU vs. Utah and VaTech vs. Maryland (the latter of which will feature camo-tinged unis for Maryland and VaTech decked out in their “good guys wear white” duds). Oh baby. Thanks to Paul and UW Sneakerhead Matt Powers for confirming those games. — Only one of those games can make the “worst dressed list,” and I’d wager ahead of time, one of them will.
At press time, Matt still hadn’t confirmed the third team, but I put his super-nike-sleuthing abilities to the test, and here are his thoughts:
My guess is OU because they are playing A&M, a former Nike school who is now Adidas, due to a famous Nike story.
*Doesn’t look like Mizzou cuz they’re playing K-State, another Nike school. Next week they are doing a blackout against Iowa State, another Nike school. They end up with Kansas.
*LSU is playing LaTech…not a big enough stage. It’s gotta be against Arkansas with “Cochon de Lait.”
*Florida is playing the UA clad gamecocks, coached by Spurrier…good possibility considering they only have FIU and FSU left on the schedule.
*The Canes are at UNC and Butch Davis, but both are Nike schools. They are left with Duke, too small, and USF…big game and UA unis…I’m going with USF on the 28th.
*Texas vs. Baylor, both Nike…they are left with Kansas and A&M. Either one is a good candidate although I would love it to be Kansas, a former Nike school who might get wacked twice by Pro Combat.
*FSU had Wake..both Nike. Next week is Maryland. Fear the Spear vs. Fear the Turtle. If this is true, then the Terps are getting smacked twice in the Pro Combat games.
*TOSU has Iowa…both Nike…and Michigan…its gotta be Michigan
Thank you Inspector Powers. I don’t know what we’d do without you.
That’s gonna do it for today, people. Everyone have a great Saturday.
I wrote pretty regularly for Fast Company magazine from 2004 through 2007. But I guess they must not have me in their Rolodex anymore, because nobody told me about this article, which they just posted on their web site (not sure if it’s also in the printed mag, but I don’t think so).
Anyway: The author — an NFL fan named Ken Carbone, who also happens to be a graphic designer — posits that too many of today’s helmet designs are bland and formulaic. He heaps particular scorn on the Redskins, Bucs, and Pats:
Among the weakest designs are the Washington Redskins and Tampa Bay Buccaneers , whose visually complicated logos become a graphic mess when televised and, I imagine, even if you’re sitting on the fifty-yard line. At the very the bottom of the list are the New England Patriots. The Patriots’ helmet is plastered with their logo, which comes dangerously close to looking like a wind-swept John Kerry dressed up like a Minute Man. If there was ever a time to go with the obvious this is it. Why not really play the patriotic card and star and stripe the helmet?
These certainly aren’t the three NFL helmets at the top of my “Please revise now!” list (I’d probably pick some subset of the Bengals, Panthers, Titans, Lions, and Bills). I’d also quibble with the notion that the Washington and Tampa Bay logos are “complicated” or “a graphic mess when televised,” and I’d love to know what Carbone thought of Pat Patriot compared to Flying Elvis.
But whatever — unlike most critics, Carbone is willing to propose his own alternatives, and that’s where things get interesting. He prepared these sketches and gave them to a graphics guy who created more polished digital versions — voila!
The Pats design is laughably bad (unless the rest of your uniform looks like this), and the Bucs execution is obviously way too Raiders-ish (bad rookie mistake there, Ken — don’t create a design that looks a lot like another team’s design). Gotta admit, though I’m totally digging the Redskins treatment. Never would’ve guessed that the headdress motif would translate so well to a helmet shell.
All in all, a silly article that’s mostly a lark, but that ’Skins design is like the nibble on the end of the line that’s gonna keep me fishing all day. Are there other teams that could be revamped as effectively as Carbone’s done with the ’Skins? Hmmmmm….
The best video you’ll see this year (or at least today): No Mas has produced a super-cool animation about Dock Ellis and his fabled no-hitter on acid, narrated by Ellis himself. The full vid will be available tomorrow, but here’s a short excerpt:
Uni Watch News Ticker: Ladies and gentlemen, you Nike riflery uniforms, all in one place. … Remember the football sweater knitting guide I scanned and posted last week? Ricko found a baseball version on eBay (yes, those “jackets” are actually knitted sweaters) and sent it to me to scan. You can access the full publication here. … Whoa, who would’ve thought the Broncos had a throwback helmet cart (big thanks to Jason Krause). … “I was briefly following this VW bug through Columbus this morning and couldn’t help but laugh,” writes Jason Lawrence. “As you probably know, OSU applies buckeye leaf decal to the left side of the helmet first, then eventually to the right side only after the left side is full. The funniest part about this guy’s error is that if he’d applied the stickers correctly to the left side, he wouldn’t have had to bother custom-cutting a sticker around his gas-cap door.” … Lots of Fort Hood memorial decals on tap for this weekend (big thanks to decal maven Chris Willis). … Further evidence of Troy Polamalu’s cross habit. That shot was taken by Steve Harrison two weeks ago. … Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: Separated at birth? (As spotted by eagle-eyed Jim Vilk.) … Way back in late September I asked about these Arkansas merit decals. Not sure if we ever got a good answer, but here’s one from Sean Patton: “They are not crosses — they are supposed to be sledgehammers. Back in the summer, the strength coaches started a reward for players during two-a-days. They would pick the players, four or five a day, who showed the greatest effort during practice, and those players would be given a sledgehammer (a real one, not a decal) and would get to hit a huge flat boulder that was set up at the outdoor practice fields. Each player would try to take a chunk of the rock off with their allotted number of swings. So the decals are sledgehammers.” In other words, your reward for working hard at practice is being put on a prison-style chain gang. … Tyler Kepner notes that Padres GM Jed Hoyer needs to update some logos on his wall. … The Hornets are going to unveil a Mardi Gras-themed uniform a week from today. I’ve seen the design, and it’s the bomb. … Arkansas has signed an outfitting deal with Nike. … Remember Craig Anders(s)on and the extra “S” that appeared and then disappeared from his NOB? Turns out it’s still on his stick (great catch by Michael Putlack). … Chris Cocuzza had an authentic Randy Moss Raiders jersey and wanted to convert it to a Louis Murphy jersey (same uni number). So he got himself a $15 lettering kit, had his sewing-skilled grandma remove the “Moss” nameplate from the jersey and then had her remove the letters from the nameplate. Then he sewed the new letters onto the ’plate and sewed the ’plate back onto the jersey — presto! … Here’s a craigslist listing you don’t see every day: football pumpkins (amazing find by Steven Brown). … The Florida Panthers will finally unveil their alternate jersey on November 23rd. If you believe the folks on the Chris Creamer site, it will look something like this. … More World Cup kits, for Greece, Germany, Mexico, and South Africa (with thanks to Stephen Wong).
Back with my wingman, and UW pollster, James Huening again today, to bring you our nine finalists in the “Worst. Uni. Ever.” poll. You selected the nominees, and you voted (oh, boy did you vote), and now we’ve narrowed it down to the nine worst. One last round of voting will decide the winner of perhaps the most inauspicious title in all uniformity: Worst Ever.
Not much else for me to say, so I’ll turn it over to James who’ll take you through the final piece of the process. Here’s James:
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Last weekend, we presented our candidates for worst uniform in the history of ever (or at least in the history of North American team sports). We asked you to vote in a survey to determine the finalists. More than 2,600 responses were received, which means this was our most successful survey to date.
The field has been narrowed down. We’ve got our nine finalists. Now it’s up to you to decide what is the worst (North American) uniform ever.
So without further ado, let’s meet the finalists.
In the Major League Baseball category: the 1978 San Diego Padres.
From the National Basketball Association, the expansion Toronto Raptors.
The National Hockey League gave us our only truly close race. Only a handful of votes separated our top vote-getter from the second place finisher. And that top vote-getter is the “Flying V” of the Vancouver Canucks.
Now that you’ve met the contestants, please tell us which is the worst of the worst. There are more pictures in the poll. You can click on them to see the full-size versions.
Awesome work, James. Big round of applause to Mr. Huening for undertaking the monumental task of tallying more than 2,600 votes. But our work here is not quite done. We still need to pick a “winner.” So follow the link provided above and cast your final vote for the “Worst. Uni. Ever.” The future of the world is depending on you We’ll have the results next week. And may the worst uniform win.
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OK, I’ve been receiving a LOT of NFL uniform tweaks from you guys (thanks!)…so many that if I don’t start running a few with each post, well…there will be a couple of weekends of JUST uniform tweaks (and we really don’t want that, do we?). I kid, I kid. But many of these are really good, and so, today I will begin to mete out the first buhch I received.
Our first set of tweaks comes from John Mattson, who writes:
It am not a graphic designer and it is done on the simple Paint application on all windows PCs.
Thanks for all your great work. Let me know your thoughts.
Next up is Andrew Greenwood (”Greenie”), who sent me the following just as we were beginning our polling:
Phil,
In anticipation of the news that the Buffalo Bills were the lowest scoring team in UniWatch’s first ever jersey poll ranking, I’ve come up with this new design. Simply put, the Bills need yellow. There is no yellow in the AFC East, and there are already enough teams that wear red and blue. Since the Rams dumped this color pairing when they switched to the metallic gold, it’s a team identity up for grabs. Also, this color scheme compliments the only other Big 4 team that Buffalo has, the Sabres. Simple helmet logo (someone on UniWatch had the idea to get rid of the red line on the logo, and I believe you did your quick and dirty best to show it), classic NFL helmet striping blue-fat white-blue, two fat shoulder stripes for contrast, and a UNIFORM stripe pattern on all three pants. Two more fat stripes on the sack finishes the look. Can’t wait for the poll results.
(I actually voted the Jags and Cards lowest, but I think the Bills will edge them out. Go Pack!)
Next up is Shaun Tunick, who sent me a few different concepts, in a couple of different e-mails (so this may sound somewhat ‘cut and pastish’). We’ll look his tweaks for the Broncos, Patriots, Falcons and Giants now:
Tweaks for the Broncos and Pats, for the Broncos i took out the weird side to chest stripe/panel, and changed the color scheme back to the royal blue and orange, and then switched the jersey back to orange… i mean they have never had a blue jersey before, so why should they? i also replaced the horn stripe thing on the pants with the striping from the 1977 orange crush uniforms. also, i got rid of the weird helmet stripe. for the patriots, all i really wanted to do was get rid of the really frickin annoying blue side panel on the away jersey, and i ended up taking it off and also the piping from the home jersey. edited the pants stripes a little.
[PH here - Shaun did two Falcons mockups -- an original and a revised edition, which he describes below -- his first version is here]
i wanted to change the pants piping, i hate how it flares out at the bottom but i just didnt want it to look like complete garbage. i really like the striping that you guys did on the bengals, cant remember what it is called… but i meant to get rid of the piping on the pants. something like what they wore 97-02 would look great too. and on the jerseys the one thing i was thinking about was getting rid of the black, i dont really mind the piping there.
And about the helmets, i just wanted to see what a red mockup of the current helmet would look like, and i just threw the mid 80s helmet in there for kicks because that is IMO the best set theyve had… the one with the logo resting on the shoulder stripes, something that would never work today.. On the pants, it is silver, something that they started in 78 and then decided to ditch with the new uniforms.
Hey sorry forgot to throw in the giants, i edited the away jersey just a bit… anyway thanks a bunch for checking this out!
Moving on, we have a submission from Ed Westfield, Jr. (”Eddie Atari”), who wanted to fix the Giants. Here’s Ed:
I liked Phil & Ricks’ NFL uni tweaks, and I have another one for the
Giants. I’ve said before that there is not enough blue in the road
kit, so how about… BLUE PANTS?!
I’m usually a Giants purist, but I actually like this, especially with
the red/grey/blue stripe in tact. Note: It should ONLY be worn with
white jerseys…
Last up for today is a first batch from Uni Watch’s #1 Broncos fan, a man who simply goes by Denver Gregg. He first sent me a batch, of (surprisingly) Denver Broncos mockups. We’ll look at those today. Here’s Gregg:
Hiya Phil
You do a great job with the weekend site!
I’ve been a Broncos fan as long as I can remember, and there has always been something that’s bothered me about the unis. I remember doing a copper and silver redesign in 1973 (long since mercifully lost). Anyway I decided to do a 2010 re-design, incorporating elements of current and past unis. I’ve kept the elements I like in the current set – especially the number and letter typefaces, the colors and matching the helmet color to the principal jersey color. I know my MS paint skills aren’t that great, so there are a few things that look a bit off (like the hue of the orange). There’s something in this set from each of the five generations of Bronco uniforms.
I did four variations on the socks. Denver2010 is probably a bit too out there. Denver2010a may look too similar to another team’s 75th anniversary throwback attire. I don’t really like Denver2010c, but it’s needed to balance out Denver2010b.
I also took the liberty of changing the helmet logo. The first one I remember is the horse coming through the ‘D’. I thought that was too busy and had the drawback of a horse facing the wrong way on one side of the helmet. When I saw the “amoeba horse” of the 1960s in old pictures, I was horrified – regardless of its eye color. I don’t like all the swooshes on the cyberhorse. So I took the best past element and isolated it. It probably needs work, but the idea could be worth pursuing.
I fully understand if (1) you have other stuff on deck; and (2) this isn’t up to snuff from a craftsmanship standpoint. If you have time to give me feedback, though, that would be great.
That’s gonna do it for today on the NFL tweaks. I’ve got LOTS more in store for you in the coming weeks, so if you sent me something and it’s not in this batch — don’t despair — it’s coming. For anyone else interested in sending in mockups, gimme a shout.
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Our man in the street, Jim Vilk (taken at the Kent State/Akron game) brings you his “Top 5″ Best and one WORST college football uni matchup from yesterday:
5. Oklahoma/Nebraska: I miss seeing this every Thanksgiving weekend.
4. Furman/Auburn: Tigers are back, and bringing some snazzy Paladins with them.
3. LSU/Alabama: Best conference with another of the best uni-matchups.
2. Washington/UCLA: Even without the Bruins throwing back, this is a Top-Fiver.
And the worst matchup: Navy/Notre Dame: It’s like going to a dance with your twin – it just ain’t right.
And as a special bonus pick, Jim awards “UW Honorable Mention to” Tulsa/Houston: Now Leon’s not the only one seeing red when it comes to Tulsa unis
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Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: OK — back to football today. Not sure if you guys like these, but this one may be interesting. You should be able to determine the location and the teams with ease. So it’s just a date and a final score that’s needed. Ready? Guess The Game From The Scoreboard. Place a link to the answer from pro football reference. And if you want to keep this going through the fall, please send me some new scoreboards! Drop me a line and help a fella out, k? Thanks!
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UW #1 Seahawks Fan Michael Princip has been tracking the Oregon Ducks and all of their 2,456 possible uniform combinations this season. He’ll be updating it after each game. Unfortunately, the Ducks winning streak came to a screaching halt yesterday, as they were upset down in Palo Alto by the Cardinal. In their second loss of the season (a possible derailment of their bullet train to the Rose Bowl), one stark fact emerges: White unis=bad. Might be safe to say this is the last time they’ll be outfitted in both white pants and jerseys in 2009. Here’s Your Updated Ducktracker.
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You knew the Boys of Benchies liked football and baseball, but today we find they also have an affinity for a non-major sport. They’re up to their usual hilarity and hijinx when one of the Original Six makes an appearance in their hometown. That Mick…he kills me. On that note, Enjoy Your Benchies for today.
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Couple last things: Pacific Rim Correspondent Jeremy Brahm reports that even Japan is doing the Olde Tyme Baseball thing — check out that catchers’ mask! … Yesterday, both Oregon/Stanford and USC/ASU featured games where the officials were wearing one blue sleeve (sorry, no screen grabs) — it could best be described as a “long” blue sleeve worn on the right arm, underneath their regular official’s jersey (sort of like Jacoby Ellsbury in reverse). Anyone know what was up with that? … No Legacy Games today in the NFL, but we can all look forward to the Buccaneers busting out Bucco Bruce and the creamsicles in the Battle of the Bays (and that’s the early FOX game).
That’ll do it for today. Everyone have a great Sunday, and don’t forget to cast your vote for the WORST UNIFORM EVER.
Uni Watch sage in the “venerable veteran” category Rick Pearson posed a semi-question/semi-statement in the comments section this past Thursday, which begat a few responses, but which really raised an excellent point or three, and perhaps something we could and should explore in greater detail. His ponderance remarked on a uniform phenomenon (both in college and the pros) whereby it seems we can readily classify most, if not all, uniforms into two distinct categories: “old school” and “new school.” Let me take you back to Ricko’s exact quote for further explanation/clarification/exploration:
I was thinking…(always a dangerous thing)…
Football unis have split decidedly into two camps
1. Traditional
2. Innovative
And that’s fine. I don’t love or hate all the unis in either category.
Maybe what we need is pick the five best looking football unis (college or pro) that DON’T have striped pants (don’t mean plain like Notre Dame, mean those with panels, piping or designs that AREN’T plain ol’ straight stripes).
Me, I think I’d vote for the Broncos home (navy jersey) version as number one. But not the navy pants. No sir, not their best look. Good colors, good design, didn’t go overboard.
A few comments followed, including some by yours truly, but we never really followed through on this idea. Nor did we ever try to rank (not that we could or should) say, the five best (and five worst) of the uniforms from each camp. While we did take a look at a very few colleges, for the purposes of this exercise, let’s focus on the NFL.
A quick look at the 32 teams in the NFL tells us that close to half fall into the category of “Old School” (or to use Ricko’s phraseology, “traditional”). We can safely list the Bears, Browns, Cowboys, Packers, Colts, Chiefs, Dolphins, Saints, Giants, Jets, Raiders, Steelers, 49ers, Eagles and Redskins in the “Old School” category. But that’s only 15 teams. And that’s only when they (some of them) don’t wear monochrome and/or leotards.
In the “New School” (or, in Ricko’s parlance, “innovative”) camp, we find eight teams (for sure): the Cardinals, Falcons, Bills, Bengals, Broncos, Panthers, Jaguars, and Vikings. One could argue that the Bills don’t really belong in the “new school” category — although they are so awful, they probably deserve a category of their own.
Anyway, that leaves us with 9 teams which I personally find somewhat difficult to place into either category. To wit, the Lions, Ravens, Texans, Patriots, Chargers, Seahawks, Rams, Buccaneers, and Titans all have some elements of a “traditional” uniform, but also some elements of an “innovative” one.
[I should note that I ran my list by Ricko, who really felt the uniforms I identified should be put into two camps: Ricko would move the Patriots, Seahawks, Rams and Titans to the “innovative” category, since
all have either non-linear helmet stripes, non-linear pants stripes, side panels or wear dark monochrome as pretty much their standard home uni…or a combination of those elements. The same could be said for the Bills. Rick would also put the Ravens, Chargers, Lions, Texans and Bucs into old school, since in his eyes, their logos and such are in standard postions, and they have normal striping or longstanding style trim (i.e. Chargers) on all of them.]
But really that’s neither here nor there — you can feel free to argue with our classifications — I don’t believe there’s any hard and fast rule that places one squarely into one category or the other, but certainly teams who have held onto (or permanently returned to) a “classic” uniform over the years, who have “standard” (linear) helmet, sleeve (what is left of them anyway) and pants striping would likely fall into the “traditional” category, while teams like the Cardinals or Falcons, who have opted to “modernize” their uniform with lots of jersey side panels, piping, striping, angles (also known as “bumperstickers”) and such fall into the “innovative” category.
Then we have teams that have elements of both. For example, the Patriots have side panels and a more “modern” helmet, but fairly traditional pants stripes, and they never opt for the “leotard” look. Likewise, the Chargers could probably just as easily be placed in the “traditional” category, yet whenever they wear their dark pants, they are always paired with dark blue socks, giving them an almost ballet dancer type of look. On the flip side of the coin, you have teams like the Saints who will, on occasion, breakout the monochrome leotards.
A good point to also ponder is what, really, does qualify for a “traditional” uniform? And can we limit our definition of “innovative” to the eight teams I have identified … should we include all 17 that don’t fall squarely into the “traditional” category? In the end, my categorizations don’t really matter, since even some of the traditional teams have sported some non-traditional uniform looks from time to time.
I’ve been criticized (sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly) for hating all non-traditional uniforms — while I would say as a general rule of thumb I do prefer traditional striping and combinations, I can certainly appreciate the “innovative” uniforms in their own way. But there are also uniforms out there that are simply bad — bad design is bad design — but I will try to keep an open mind when discussing the ‘newer’ uniforms and will express my love for a few of those here, following Ricko’s lead.
Let’s see what you guys think as well. Pick any football uniform, pro or college (I limited my list to the pros because it kept the list to 32 — but the colleges have literally hundreds to choose from) that would fall into the “innovative” (or “new school” or “modern”) category and show it some love. Ricko picked the Broncos, and for the home or road, I can see how this uniform is kind of cool (though no longer unique) in its own way. I sorta blame Nike and the Broncos for leading us down this new design path, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
If I had to pick one of the newer designs, I think I could grow to like the Cardinals — sure, I could do without the piping and non-linear striping, but it does kinda work. And the colors are gorgeous. And I’ve always said that this version of the Titans uniform is one of my all time favorites. Yeah — the fonts are kinda funky, the helmet has weird striping, it’s got an odd yoke and that logo probably leaves something to be desired — but the colors are fantastic and it really does look great. Powder blue and navy, (with just a tiny hint of red) work well together, and the white cleats and helmets just work.
So what about you? What are some of the really GOOD new and innovative designs out there, college or pro? Let’s build a list and see if we can’t look at the nu skool unis (because they certainly aren’t going away) and see if we can’t find some new classics. What designs can we look at today that will stand the test of time in 10, 20, even 30 years? I’m sure there are more than a few out there.
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As many of you know, UCLA is going to be wearing throwbacks today. According to the UCLA Bruins Blog, “1967 Heisman Trophy winner (Gary Beban) was at the Morgan Center today (Friday) for a luncheon with former teammates and donors. He spoke with the Bruin football team later in the day and will be the honorary captain for Saturday’s Homecoming contest vs. Washington.
Nice! Thanks to Erkki Corpuz (via Paul) for the tip.
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FEAR THE SPEAR! Really? How about “The U Knows”? Are these movie taglines? Catchy phrases with which to insult your friends? How about “Good Guys Wear White” or “Don’t Back Down”? Maybe they’re song titles? Nope, nope, nope and nope.
Those are all Nike generated slogans (mouse over the models for a great laugh) they’re “giving” to the 10 schools they’ll be outfitting with “Pro Combat” uniforms and gear [late edit: as of yesterday afternoon, all ten models had some form of "slogan" associated with them -- but as of late last evening, only two did]. Paul already showed us some of the uniforms in yesterday’s article (if you didn’t see it, it’s a great read). Those slogans are (I’m pretty certain) going to appear on those super hero “special gloves” the players will be wearing, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it were sewn into the crotch area as well. Just so, ya know, they don’t forget who they’re playing for. This whole “super hero” mentality is just so ridiculous. As Paul said to me, “Nike seems to have no idea how to market anything except by turning it into a comic book. Aside from being silly, it’s also *soooo* generationally exclusive — like, how is any fan older than, say, 28 yrs old supposed to take slogans like Fear the Spear and The U Knows seriously?”
I’m guessing fans over the age of 28 aren’t in this Nike demographic.
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And you thought baseball season had ended…not for the boys from Bub’s Pub. They’re still going strong — or so they think. I guess this is to be expected when you play fall softball in some midwestern state, right? Enjoy your Saturday Benchies. Seems like the Twins may have this to look forward to come spring, eh?
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Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: Gonna try something a little different today. This is likely one you’ll not find by going to Retrosheet or Baseball Almanac or any of the likely sources. In fact, you’re not likely to find it anywhere. But you can still solve it. And you can probably find a link to it too. Date and location are all we’re gonna be looking for on this one. Have fun. Guess The Game From The Scoreboard. And if you want to keep this going through the fall, please send me some new scoreboards! Drop me a line and help a fella out, k? Thanks!
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Guess that’s gonna do it for today. Still trying to get used to this new fangled software Johnny Ek installed here on UW (hopefully this will self-load at 7:00 am EST), and I apologize, but I was under the weather for most of the week. Lots of good college games today, plus the usual assortment of other sports as well. And make sure you give our man on the street, Jim Vilk, a hand by choosing those top college football matchups and posting pics down below.
Tomorrow I hope to begin featuring some of the MANY NFL uniform tweaks, upgrades and concepts you folks have been sending my way for the past several weeks. Plus we’ll have the finalists in the “Worst. Uni. Ever.” poll for your voting pleasure. And the usual assortment of goodies.
The long awaited “Worst. Uni. Ever.” nominees were submitted (both in last weeks comments as well as dozens of e-mails) and now, James is ready to bring you your selections in a knock-down, drag-out poll format. After receiving literally hundreds of nominees (many of them the “usual suspects” but some we never expected), James has devised the following poll, the link to which appears below. We’ve broken them down into nine categories, the winners of which will “face-off” shortly thereafter in a cage death match to find the absolute worst of the worst, as voted by you. Sounds complicated? Not really.
Simply read James’ descriptions and the pictures of your worst uniform nominees below, as broken down by category. We’ll take the top vote-getters in each category and have them all go up against one another. So with that, lets take a look at each of the nine categories, followed by the poll. James takes it from here:
2. Staying in California, but going back farther in time, the California Golden Seals had a look that seemed as though it was inspired by UCLA football.
9. And rounding out this category, the Phoenix Coyotes alternate some refer to as the “Picasso” sweater.
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Our next category is for Short-lived Uniforms, whether they were intended to be permanent and scrapped after a handful of wearings or they were intended only to be worn once.
1. We’ll lead things off with the Baltimore Orioles and the orange jerseys and pants they wore for two games in 1971.
2. Joining them are the Chicago White Sox “short pajamas” that were worn in 1976. Nobody really seems to be able to agree on how many times they were worn. Most accounts have them being mothballed after a single wearing, but some say they were worn as many as four times.
2. The El Paso Diablos wore yellow, pinstriped uniforms with red pillbox caps in the early 1980s.
3. Our final nominee here is the 1980 Tuscon Toros According to an account I read, the back of the jersey was turquoise.
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There are way too many college teams out there to really pinpoint the worst one, so we limited things to the “big two” — NCAA Divison I football and men’s basketball:
3. And we’ll wrap things up with another nominee from Orlando, the 1991-92 Orlando Thunder.
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Whew. There you have it. YOUR nominees for the category of “Worst. Uni. Ever.” Only one can win, but you can help narrow it down by voting in the poll below for your worst uniform in the nine categories. Once we have those nine, we’ll resubmit them to you so that we can, once and for all, determine what is the Worst. Uni. Ever.
Thanks again to James Huening for working on this and for coming up with the poll format. We’ll keep the nomination poll open for a week, and have the “playoffs” for the worst ever uni shortly after that. Thanks in advance for your participation!!!
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Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: Hokie dokie. Got a football scoreboard today, which comes from reader Billy Duss. Not sure about the difficulty level on this one — kinda one of those “you had to be there” or have seen the game to get it. But we like that here. Definitely one to make you think about it. As always, please find a LINK to the game, which you can post down below in the comments, and not the game itself. As always, date, location and final score, if possible. Ready? Sure. Guess The Game From The Scoreboard.
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Our man in the street, Jim Vilk brings you his “Top 5″ Best and one WORST college football uni matchup from yesterday:
UW #1 Seahawks Fan Michael Princip has been tracking the Oregon Ducks and all of their 2,456 possible uniform combinations this season. He’ll be updating it after each game. And what a game it was yesterday. Your #10 Ducks took the #5 Trojans behind the woodshed (are we sensing a pattern here?) and basically put a lock on the PAC-10 and punched their ticket to Pasadena…for the Rose Bowl. Look for them to really move up in the rankings now. Only disappointment was the Ducks outfits — no new carbon-steel helmets, nor black and orange (what — they’d look too much like another Oregon school?) for Hallowe’en. Anyway, Here’s Your Updated Ducktracker. Thanks Mike!
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Ah…yesterday we got to meet Mike’s cousin, Mongo. Well, today, the big guy is back with more of his unique brand of humor. Mongo’s humor that is:
Bit of a “special” treat for you, since yesterday was Hallowe’en. Our man on the street, Jim Vilk, put together a special assemblage of Hallowe’en-inspired college football games for us that took place. Here ya go:
Good stuff there. Thanks to Jim & Rick & James & Mike and everyone else along the way. Don’t forget to vote for the WORST UNI EVER nominees. You can even post your guesses as to who you think the nine finalists will be in the comments, if you want.
And for all you uniform designers, and wanna-be designers, if you missed yesterday’s column, be sure to check it out — a chance for you to design a baseball uniform, logo and cap!
One legacy game today: Titans (Jets) versus Dolphins — should be cool to see the fish in something other than dropshadow for a change — you’ll be reminded how good they once looked, and could look again, if they wanted to make that look permanent. Game IV of the World Series tonight. Don’t forget to push your clocks back, if you haven’t already! That extra hour of sleep is so awesome, no? Of course it is.
It struck Ricko and me at about the same time. We were trading E-mails before the Denver Broncos played the San Diego Chargers in their throwbacks this past Monday, and exchanging some barbs about the uniforms as depicted on the 1960 AFL section of the Football Uniforms Past and Present website — that website is an invaluable tool, and the amount of incredible research that has gone into it cannot be undervalued — and Ricko asked me, “you don’t think the Broncos are gonna wear brown pants with white stripes, do you?” Now, I wasn’t born when the Broncos played that first season, but I did know they only had one pair of pants. Yet, on the 1960 section of FUPP, those pants are depicted as having white stripes (which would have made infinitely more sense, only it didn’t happen).
Then we looked more closely at some of the other uniforms — and Ricko informed me they were wrong too. In fact, it occurred to him (and it hit me at about the same time): “Did the NFL actually use the FUPP site to base a good number of their AFL throwback uniform upon?” Could they have been that lazy? Were they relying on a (very good, but not infallible) website to dictate the look of their throwbacks? Certainly, the Houston Oilers, who are depicted as having blue numbers and blue stripes on their socks (for their road uniform) — which is also wrong — could have been the NFL’s model. When the Titans came out wearing their road throwbacks, sure enough they were wrong. In fact, they really butchered the socks, (those are the home socks).
Anyway, this got us (and by us, I mean Ricko) to thinking … just how many of those 1960 uniforms depicted on FUPP were not correct? As it turns out — EVERY SINGLE ONE had something that is incorrect — some mistakes are minor, some are major — but every single one of them is incorrect. And that is a shame, because FUPP is such a great site, but really, accuracy is of paramount importance. As it turned out, the Broncos did wear the correct pants for their game, but many believed they screwed up. Had FUPP correctly depicted the gold pants stripes, perhaps no one would have even noticed. But the fact that many felt the Broncos were actually “wearing the wrong pants” speaks volumes about the importance of making sure the historical record is correct.
One of UW’s outstanding research historians, Tim Brulia, who has compiled two historical columns for the UW archives (”White At Home in the NFL” and “Pro Football Uniform History” — both of which can be found on the right hand side of the UW main page, under “Research Projects”), is actually planning on working with and expanding upon the efforts begun by the FUPP website. I will now turn the column over to Tim, who will explain a bit about that and more. Here’s Tim:
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“What is my stake in all of this? I am trying to extend the great work the FUPP site did when it was first launched. But in order for a site to have teeth, it must be accurate, as close to 100% accurate as possible. With a site like FUPP, every little nuance, and detail (colors, stripes, numeral fonts, patches, logos, etc.) has to be accurate.
“In my research, I have used the Proquest archives of the New York Times that are available online. When I was a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), they made available the Proquest archives of the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. I utilize the Pennsylvania State Library in Harrisburg, PA and their vast microfilm collection of PA newspapers, including the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia papers. When I get a rare chance to make it to Washington, I also use the microfilm newspaper collection from the Library of Congress. As well as various historical football pictorial books. Not to mention various contributions from others along the way. I thank all the facilities and generous people for the help.
“Currently, I am working with a contributor who is doing the graphic work on the pre-1959 uniforms. The aim is to complete these sets of unis. From here, we hope to revise the corrections that need to be made that is currently shown on FUPP and bring the uni combos that have been worn since 2003 up to date. When will all of this see the light of day on a website? Frankly, it is too early to tell. But even after our dream becomes reality, our work will never be done. There will always be something that we missed or we need to fix.”
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Thanks Tim. I will now turn the remainder of this section over to Rick Pearson, who will explain the importance of “getting it right” when it comes to stuff like this. Through Ricko’s tireless efforts this past week, he has reworked every single AFL uniform template for the 1960 season. This has come about by using his personal recollections, the study of numerous photos and clippings from “The Ricko Files” and the experience of being a “uni watcher” from birth. I’m often impressed, usually wowed, suitably satiated, and never bored by what we as a Uni Watch community bring to the table. But what you’re about to read and see, which is the culmination of that lifetime of paying attention to the little things that really DO matter, is one of the most amazing efforts I have ever seen, and not just on UW. If he and Tim (and others) collaborating now and into the future produce results like those below, then the historical record will have found in Tim and Ricko an equal to Marc Okkonen.
And with that, here’s Ricko:
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I’d just turned 14, with six or seven years of serious uni watching (lower case) already under my belt. It was a black and white world, except for Sports Illustrated, SPORT magazine, baseball and football cards (the latter being almost worthless) and Preview Annuals. One NFL game a week on TV and only a half-hour weekly highlight show on Saturday mornings. So if you didn’t see it on Sunday, you pretty much weren’t gonna see it.
And then along game this new American Football League. Lots of ink, mostly about how stupid and lame-brained the idea was. Precious little detail. Hard to know who the players were, much less anything about team colors or unis. Such things were of little or no concern to most people. No “gamers” on sale anywhere. No fan hats. Nuthin’.
Anyway, here comes this loopy new league, with lots of new names and faces, and plenty of familiar old ones.
I parked myself in front of the TV every Sunday. Actually had one in my bedroom, a bit of novelty for a kid back then, and I watched the AFL, making sketches of their unis. What color were they? Well, that required something of a science in itself. Scarlet and royal look almost alike on b&w TV…unless they’re on the field at the same time. If you knew “A” was red, then you could figure “B” (although when together, royal generally did look a bit darker).
You needed to be around for the beginning of the telecast. That was the time, if ever, the announcers would “set the scene. “ Maybe half the time, though, they didn’t bother to describe the unis at all.
Gradually, I figured them out. Logic indicated the Oilers were in powder blue (though yellow gold was something of a possibility). Eventually, announcers confirmed the blue. The Titans certainly wore old gold pants. One announcer said they were in “maize and blue, like Michigan.” My ass, they were. Those pants were WAY too dark to be “maize” as Wolverines knew it. And so it went. And sometimes you’d guess. Educated guesses, but still guesses. And look for details. Is there a feathered edge on those stripes? Especially on socks. That could be a tough one. Not a ton of close-ups back then.
Wasn’t until maybe the third time I saw the Broncos that someone said they were in brown and gold. Until then, I was thinking maybe navy and gold. Or navy and the light orange we now call “Tennessee Orange.” I had reckoned the Patriots were in royal (not wanting to be the “Redcoats,” as many of you have mentioned) and that the Bills had chosen red and silver. Why not, it was a great look at Georgia at the time, and had served the 49ers well the season before. Then I learned it was just the opposite, probably when they played each other and I could compare the “grays”. Or when an announcer bothered to tell us what the hell the teams were wearing.
After a full season of carefully watching all or part of probably every ABC telecast, I had everything pretty much down. Then it was just a case of waiting until the end of the following summer to check preseason magazines (and hope for SOME quality in football cards) to check my findings … even though the magazines would all be black and white, too (it wasn’t until SI’s pro football preview in ’62 that I finally saw a color photo an AFL game).
And somewhere along the line it occurred to me that maybe no one else what recording the things I was recording … and that maybe someday it all would mean something to someone. Guess maybe now it finally does.
So that’s it. The photos I’ve supplied Phil all are from 1961 publications (unless noted), so they have to be 1960 games. Tough to find a camera that will photographs next year’s games.
And I have nothing but respect for FUPP. When I first saw the site, the mistakes irritated me. Then I came to realize they had taken on an outrageous task and very probably just hadn’t had the time to search for everything. I wish I’d know of them sooner, I’d have been glad to help.
What DOES irritate me is that it almost appears that the NFL simply went to FUPP for a lot of its input for the Legacy project. You like to think they’d have bothered to, oh, I dunno, look through their own photo files…or send someone to probe the local newspaper archives.
When Paul visited me a year ago, I kidded about being available to consult with the NFL on the AFL’s 1960 unis for the 50th celebration “for a reasonable fee.” We both laughed, and then he said, matter-of-factly, “They don’t care.”
He was right. The league doesn’t. The Broncos, though, put some extra effort into it. And whether we liked the ’60 duds or not, they got it right. All things considered, that’s exceptional. Also unusual, unfortunately.
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Phil here. Before we return to Rick’s write up, I want to show you what Rick did to fix the FUPP 1960 AFL team graphics. So, here, for the first time, are all Eight Original AFL teams, properly rendered by color, stripe, helmet, etc. OUTSTANDING effort Rick! And here are each of those eight teams individually:
Raiders wore the same as the Bears at the time. Titans wore something different altogether. It might have been MacGregor, but I don’t remember any other teams wearing it (and I probably should have made theirs a darker blue, because they were). That blue-helmets-darker-than-blue-jerseys thing.
You can see on my “Kids Cards” that I had the Raiders’ gold wrong. It had a bit of sheen to it, and I thought it was metallic old gold, like UCLA or Notre Dame. It wasn’t until I saw the 1962 cards (’61 Raider cards all were hand-tinted black & white PR photos and pretty useless) that I learned positively that it was yellow-gold.
6. One-year wonders.
Only Bills and Raiders were unchanged for second season.
In 1961…
* Titans went to white-added loop unis used for the Legacy games.
* Patriots changed loops to royal around white, and lost the white road socks. And, of course, the three-corner hat was gone.
* Chargers changed all bolts to yellow-gold edged in blue.
* Texans ditched white high road socks.
* Oilers changed to block numbers with no contrasting edge on numbers or sock stripes, either home or road.
*Broncos had no TV numbers on home jerseys.
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Well, that’s it for the history lesson. All I can say is “WOW”. Outstanding effort Mr. Richard Pearson. It’s clear to me that the once and future FUPP website will be getting an outstanding resource in you, and when combined with Tim Brulia’s yeoman research and a quality graphic artist, we can look forward to an historical record that will rival that of Marc Okkonen. (And maybe even surpass it). Tip of the cap to you gentlemen, for this first salvo. I’m sure the project, when it finally does come to fruition, will be well worth the wait for those uni watchers (and non-uni watchers) who have been waiting for something like this since … well — forever.
What say YOU, Uni Watch community? How freakin’ great was this? Big round of applause for both Ricko and Timmy B!
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UW #1 Seahawks Fan Michael Princip has been tracking the Oregon Ducks and all of their 2,456 possible uniform combinations this season. He’ll be updating it after each game. Oregon continued on its winning streak, remaining unbeaten in PAC-10 play and taking Washington behind the woodshed this week, with a 43-19 buttwhoopin’. Look for Oregon to move up from the 11-spot in the rankings and into to the Top 10. The Ducktracker is now updated.
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Our man in the street, Jim Vilk brings you his “Top 5″ Best and one WORST college football uni matchup from yesterday:
5. USF/Pitt: Bulls are growing on me, while Pitt is a script away from being awesome-looking.
4. Indiana/Northwestern: A lack of Northwestern striping kept this from being rated higher.
3. Tennessee/Alabama: Oh, Bama…if you would have let the Vols wear orange you could have been #1.
2. Auburn/LSU: Tigers win this battle of the unis…
1. Iowa State/Nebraska: Cyclones blew me away with this look, while the Huskers remain classic.
OK that’s all for today. Apologize for the lack of “extras” but needed to get this loaded early. Everyone have a great Sunday. Don’t forgot to nominate your Worst Uni Ever (see yesterday’s post for details). Two legacy games today, plus the ALCS resumes, following the rainout yesterday.
Back again with UW pollster James Huening, who is here to tell us the results of our second Uni Watch poll, in which we asked you to rate the NFL road uniforms. At the conclusion of this piece, we’re going to describing our next poll, and it’s one that requires the ultimate in reader participation. Be sure to keep reading after the road uni review. With that, I give you James, who has his write up on the last poll. Here’s James:
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The results are in for the second part of our NFL uniform survey. The turnout wasn’t quite as good this time around, but we still got a respectable number of responses (1,535). That was to be expected, though. I mean, the NFL road uniforms are pretty dull compared to their home counterparts, right? Of course I’m right. The numbers bear that out. We’ll get to that in a bit.
OK, let’s get to it. Here are our top ten and bottom five.
and the worst road uniform in the NFL, as decided by you, the reader:
1) Bills
When we compare the previous lists, the bottom 5 is virtually unchanged. The only difference is that the Vikings and Seahawks swapped places. The top 10, on the other hand, had quite a few changes. Most notably, the Bears plummeted all the way from the top spot down to #7. The Colts jumped from #4 all the way to the top. The Chargers dropped out completely and the Redskins move in to the ninth spot. The last major change is the Giants dropping from #7 to #10.
Again, no really big surprises here. I’m certainly not surprised the Bears fell from the top spot. However, I wasn’t expecting the drop to be quite so drastic. Are their road unis really that much worse than their home ones? As you may recall, when we asked for your choices for best and worst, we also asked for a brief explanation why you chose them. Perhaps this comment can partially explain this phenomenon: “I think they didn’t deserve the top spot early so I’m voting them last now. Revenge.” Hmmmm …
Anyway, I mentioned that the numbers will show that the road unis are far less interesting than the home versions. What I mean by that is in the home survey, we had four teams (Bears, Packers, Steelers and Colts) that averaged more than four points per response. This time around, NOBODY averaged more than four. The Colts came the closest at 3.988. Interestingly enough, the Bills road unis were actually rated a bit higher, but they still failed to average better than a full point (0.983).
And speaking of the Bills, let’s take a look at some of the reasons why you chose them as the worst once again.
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* They look like the Montreal Alouettes, which is french for ‘If it looks like crap and plays like crap, its probably crap.’
* again … it looks like a differet committee did each part — pants, jersey, helmet, etc. — in the dark.
* The only good thing I can say about it is that it would make an okay minor league hockey uniform.
* I cannot help but wonder if the person who created the design for the modern jersey bet his friends that he could create the worst jersey in the history of mankind and still convince the Bills ownership to give it the OK.
* Look like a semi-pro team sponsored by a used car lot.
* Jim Kelly is turning in his grave at these eyesores.
* They resemble toddlers’ pajamas
* This could be the worst uniform in ALL OF SPORTS.
* My roommate is a bills fan, and I honestly think the uniform alone makes him cry himself to sleep every night
* They aren’t modern; they aren’t classic; they can’t even figure out how to be bad correctly.
* They suck out loud. I think they let my mom design those uniforms, and she has a habit of wearing homemade bedazzled sweatpants.
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OK, bottom line: what’s the lesson here? We need color-on-color in the NFL. Bears in their navy jerseys vs. the Packers in green? Not enough contrast you say? Take a look. Plenty of contrast, I say.
Again, thanks to all of you for responding. And an extra thanks goes to Adam Walter again. He’s the man behind the curtain. Take a look at the fantastic PowerPoint and PDF files he put together from the data we collected.
Oh, one other thing that I found interesting. When Paul wrote the Page 2 Column with his own version of the NFL survey, he linked back to our post with the results of the home survey where we introduced the road survey. At that point, the responses picked up. All of the top 10 teams on this list got lower scores in the responses submitted after the ESPN column went up than in the responses that came in beforehand and all of the bottom 10 teams got higher scores.
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Thanks James and Adam. Awesome stuff, as usual. And now, on to the next poll: Worst. Uni. Ever.
OK, much has been made recently, on the UW boards, about these “Worst Uniform Ever” polls. We’ve rightly mocked them as incomplete, lame, or just not good — in fact, it was Ricko’s sending me one of those very same “Worst Uniform Ever” pieces that got us started on this whole polling thing.
So, it’s time to put our money where our mouths are. Here’s how we’re going to do this, and it requires YOUR help.
We want to come up with a “Worst. Uni. Ever.” poll/survey that will once and for all put the eternal question of “what’s the worst uniform ever?” to rest. What do we want from you?
Please post, in the comments below, your nominee(s) for what you consider to be the worst uniform in the history of uniforms. There aren’t too many guidelines here (as our crack staff will narrow these down for next week’s poll), but there are a few:
(1) Professional teams (with the exception of NCAA Division I — or whatever it’s called these days — football or basketball) only. No high school teams. Sorry — we have to draw the line somewhere
(2) The uniform you are nominating MUST have been worn at least once and in a regular season game. This means you can nominate a “one and done” uniform, but it had to appear in a regular season game.
(3) Team sports only (so, no tennis or golf outfits, please).
(4) North American sports only. We apologize, but if a Zimbabwe rugby squad has a really awful kit, we can’t consider it. I know there’s a few french football (soccer) kits that are really terrible, but for the purposes of this survey, we can’t include them.
That’s pretty much it. The rest is up to you. We haven’t quite decided upon the parameters of the survey yet, but we will before we ask you to actually vote. For now, we want YOU to provide us with your nominee in the category of WORST UNI EVER. If you don’t know how to post a link, all you need to do is find a picture of what you consider to be the worst uniform, then “right click” your mouse on the address bar. Simply copy the address (you’ll be prompted with options — simply hit copy) and paste it into your post.
It’s that simple. We’ll keep this particular thread open all week, so if you’re reading this (or were directed to it through a link), please post your nomination IN THIS THREAD. If you don’t want to post in the comments, or if you have a question about this request, you can send me an email — simply put “WORST UNI NOMINEE” in the subject line.
OK? OK!
Let the “Worst Uniform Ever” nominations begin.
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Well, with two amazing polls already completed, and a third in the works (don’t forget to nominate your worst uni ever below), and we still haven’t “officially” met the man behind all this, James Huening, who is one of the stalwart posters on Uni Watch. But I couldn’t go any longer without giving “JTH” his Q & A due. So, let’s meet James in a little more intimate detail:
Phil Hecken: So James, what led you to UW?
James T. Huening: I don’t specifically remember what led me to the Page 2 column. I’m pretty sure I was doing an image search. Maybe something related to a throwback uni someone was wearing and I was looking for pics of the originals in action. I do remember how I ended up at uniwatchblog.com, though. It was the e-mail from Paul announcing the launch of the blog. I didn’t check my messages that day, though. So I can’t say I’ve been reading since Day One. It’s actually Day Two. I did submit one of the very first ticker items (before it was called the ticker) and I’m happy to report that the link I sent in is not dead yet.
PH: So how long would you say that you’ve been into athletics aesthetics?
JTH: Pretty much as long as I can remember. Most of the sports disappointments I had as a kid had nothing to do with things like tough losses, being on bad teams or favorite players being traded, but rather being on poorly-dressed teams, getting bad replica merchandise, etc. I remember my parents took me to a Cubs game when I was about 5 or so and they bought me a cap. The underbill was green plaid. When I complained about it, my mom assured me that it was exactly like what the players wore. But I knew better.
Then there were my little league teams. One year we were the Padres. We had replica jerseys of the previous year’s style. That was bad enough, but to make matters worse, the caps had the “swinging friar” logo instead of the interlocking SD. A few years later, it was the Tigers — replica road jersey with a white D on the cap instead of orange. In football, I was on the Redskins one year. Our jerseys looked like the real thing — almost. They were burgundy with the correct stripe pattern on the sleeves. But they had yellow numbers and we wore yellow pants with them. Such a letdown.
PH: I know you made some “specialized” Bears shorts — are you into the DIY scene?
JTH: Not so much. Other than the shorts, I doctored up a White Sox jersey to make it kinda look like a 1959 throwback. I helped my wife make a Hallowe’en costume for one of the kids tonight, does that count?
I did a fair amount of DIY stuff as a kid. The first one I remember was that I made a Cubs “jersey” out of one of my dad’s t-shirts using a marker. My dad was not pleased. I don’t know if he was more mad that I ruined his shirt or that I did a terrible job. It was supposed to be a Bobby Murcer jersey and he gave me a hard time for putting a serif on the 7 because “that’s not what the Cubs’ 7s look like.” Oh, and because I used a black marker, too.
A really cool DIY thing that I did with and a couple of my friends was a “baseball stadium” in the vacant lot across the street from my house. The lot was just about the perfect shape for a baseball diamond and my front yard had a chain link fence that faced it. We measured the distance from home plate to the fence at various spots — down the line, the power alley and as close to center field as we could get. Then we painted signs with the distances on them and hung them on the fence every time we would play. We also would mow basepaths into the grass.
PH: OK, last question. A lot of the folks who read and post on UW are jersey/uniform collectors, or cap collectors, or memorabilia collectors. What about you?
JTH: I don’t really consider myself a collector, but I do have quite a few jerseys and caps. You’ve seen the pic of my Bears jerseys. I have 7 of them. I also have some other random NFL teams’ jerseys. There are some baseball, basketball and hockey as well. Also, for some reason, I have quite a few soccer jerseys even though I never watch or play the sport. I played it for half a season in kindergarten and it wasn’t my thing (also, incidentally, that was another one of my uni-disappointments as a kid).
PH: Awesome, James. Thanks again for all your help with these UW polls. Really looking forward to seeing the nominations for the “Worst. Uni. Ever.” We should have some fun with that.
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Design-A-Cap Winner! If you folks remember the Design-A-Cap Contest which resulted in over 20 OUTSTANDING nominees held a few weeks ago, I’m pleased to announce that Coach Jerome Nemanich and his Sartell Sabres have selected a winner. After careful deliberation and consideration (and really, they were all outstanding), Coach has chosen Dan Grieve as the winner! Here’s The Cap that Dan designed. All the nominees were great, but only one could be the chosen one.
Next week, I hope to announce the next contest, and this one should be a full-blown “Design A Uniform” contest for a baseball team. Prize(s) to be announced as well, so be sure to check back for that. Based on the outstanding submissions we received for the Design-A-Cap contest, I’m sure we can expect more great stuff when we move on to a complete uni overhaul! Thanks again to Coach Nemanich and all who participated.
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Got a great E-Mail this week from Fred Strohm — you remember Fred, he’s the one who gave us this Seahawks mockup (plus some other great stuff I’ve used in the past). Fred sent me this, which is so awesome, I need to share it with you:
Hey Phil – I was at my parent’s house over the weekend and found a book that might be interesting to the Uniwatch community. It’s Richard Kaplan’s “Great Linebackers of the NFL” from 1970. I’ve scanned and uploaded the pictures from the book to here. Captions are added where provided, and they’re named in order how they are in the book, plus by the name of the person being discussed.
Man those are some purdy pictures, Fred. Thanks for sharing!
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Ricko’s got a double header worth of Benchies today, since tomorrow we’re gonna have something really special from the man, the myth the legend. So, without further ado enjoy:
Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: As the baseball season winds down, and the baseball winds are blowing towards the World Series every Mets fan absolutely dreams of (hint…hint), comes today’s Guess the Scoreboard game. Sure, the actual scoreboard might be a little difficult to make out, but all the clues you need are right there in front of you. And what a be-youtiful picture this is. The stadium and teams will be instantly recognizable. All that’s left if for you to figure out the date, and the final score. Please post the LINK to the answer, rather than the answer itself, in the comments. Good luck. Guess The Game From The Scoreboard.
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That will do it for today. You have your assignment. Now, go out and find a pic of what you consider that “Worst Uniform Ever” and post it in the comments below. We’ll consider all the nominations and narrow it down for our next poll next weekend. C’mon Uni Watchers — give us your best worst!
Got an interesting note the other day from reader Matthew Strauss, who attended last Sunday’s Pats/Titans game. I’ll let him explain:
I was lucky enough to get field-level seats right next to the tunnel where the Patriots ran in and out of. After the game, when the team was running off the field, I felt something go splat next to my foot. When I looked down, it was a game-worn glove from one of the players. Naturally I scooped it right up. The only catch is that I have no idea whose it is.
This is the glove model in question. The two players I could immediately recognize running off the field around the time I grabbed it were Julian Edelman and Junior Seau, but it wasn’t from either of them. I didn’t see any RBs, LBs, or WRs wearing anything quite like it. It’s a size 5XL, so I’m assuming it came of a pretty big dude.
I’d be curious to see if we can narrow down where it came from. Perhaps the collective power of Uni Watch can solve the mystery of the glove’s owner, given the size, style, color, etc.
Now, I could cheat by asking a few people at Reebok, who could probably give me the answer in 20 seconds. But where’s the fun in that? Get crackin’, people — I’ll give a free membership card to the first person who can solve the mystery of the Matthew’s glove.
Membership Update: Speaking of memberships, new batch of cards mailed out yesterday, including Alan Borock’s Dolphins treatment, shown at right. Somewhat incredibly, this is the first card we’ve done with Miami’s current aqua design. Surprised it hasn’t been requested more often.
As always, you can see the full gallery of card designs here, and you can sign up to get your own card here.
Uni Watch News Ticker: Some patent applications are more interesting than others (big thanks to my buddy Jon Hammer). … Want to vote on the best hockey mask in the NHL? Do it here (with thanks to Tim O’Connor). … Major historical find by Dan McCue, who sent along this item about the first football game west of the Mississippi, played in 1889 between Grinnell and the University of Iowa. Look at those hats! … Oh. My. God. Further info on the Trail Smoke Eaters here (big thanks to Ryan Connelly). … Very odd two-tone shoes being worn by Kevin Durant the other night (with thanks to Matt Mitchell). … Titans coach Jeff Fisher wore a Peyton Manning jersey while introducing Tony Dungy at a function. … Congrats to webmaster John Ekdahl and his wife Amy, who just got back from their honeymoon in Ireland. Lots of pics here. … The Cowboys have added a practice jersey sponsor (with thanks to Mitchell Goodman). … Craig Dodge wore his vertically striped socks to the Broncos/Pats game two Sundays ago. That photo is from his full-on game report. … Powerful article about the Redskins’ sideline mascot here — recommended reading. … Here’s a Halloween costume idea worth stealing: You can go as the ghost of Ted Williams. Note the throat scar and icicles (as modeled by Adam Fritzen). … Oregon will reportedly be going with this look on Saturday. … Pacific will wear a special “Stockton” jersey on December 9th. “As a Pacific alum, I’m not a fan of this,” says Aaron Davis. “It seems like a desperate attempt at fixing a rift between a community and the university it houses, a relationship that’s always been strained in Stockton.” … Check out this photo — simple but gorgeous. “My buddy took the photo during Expos spring training West Plam Beach in 1982,” says Joel Kirstein. “Pretty funny seeing a very young Terry Francona and a very young Cal Ripken Jr., both with full heads or hair!” … Phillies prospect Dominick Brown has been playing for the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League, and boy does he Get It™ (with thanks to Josh Miller). … Wow, look at that gorgeous sea of green gridiron. That’s from Vince Lombardi’s first game as Packers head coach in 1959. … What does this helmet logo stand for? Jacob Reed explains: “This is the helmet for Cherokee High School in Cherokee, North Carolina. The school system is operated by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, a sovereign governing nation (susceptible to Federal Laws, and some state laws). On their helmets, they use the Cherokee syllabary. The letters on the helmet are pronounced tsa-la-gi (roll the t and s together), so it sounds like sssa-la-gee. It means Cherokee.”
Weekend Update: Uni Watch will be closed on Friday in memory of my friend Charlie, whose funeral I’ll be attending tomorrow afternoon. As soon as the services are over, I’m off to Louisiana, where I’ll be spending the rest of the weekend reporting an ESPN story that I think you’ll all enjoy once it’s finished. Phil will be running things over the weekend, as usual, and I should be back by Monday (which, incidentally, is when my annual NBA season-preview column will be running on ESPN). See you then.
Couple of annoucements for you now:
OK, last Sunday I began running some NFL uniform tweaks/concepts/redesigns, and today, we’re going to take a look at the next batch.
Guess The Game From The Scoreboard: Another gridiron challenge today. Shouldn’t be all that difficult, but then again you never know. As always, date, location and final score are required. Don’t forget to link to your answer by using Pro Football Reference. Ready? Guess The Game. And if you want to keep this going through the fall, please send me some new scoreboards! Drop me a line. Thanks!
Who says Mick isn’t one suave character? Certainly not Mick. But, what happens when he meets the woman of his dreams in Bub’s Pub? And they say opposites don’t attract.
Our man in the street, 
UW #1 Seahawks Fan Michael Princip has been tracking the Oregon Ducks and all of their 2,456 possible uniform combinations this season. He’ll be updating it after each game. Unfortunately, the Ducks winning streak came to a screaching halt yesterday, as they were upset down in Palo Alto by the Cardinal. In their second loss of the season (a possible derailment of their bullet train to the Rose Bowl), one stark fact emerges: White unis=bad. Might be safe to say this is the last time they’ll be outfitted in both white pants and jerseys in 2009. 
Bit of a “special” treat for you, since yesterday was Hallowe’en. Our man on the street, Jim Vilk, put together a special assemblage of Hallowe’en-inspired college football games for us that took place. Here ya go:
Thanks James and Adam. Awesome stuff, as usual. And now, on to the next poll: Worst. Uni. Ever.
Well, with two amazing polls already completed, and a third in the works (don’t forget to nominate your worst uni ever below), and we still haven’t “officially” met the man behind all this, 
Design-A-Cap Winner! If you folks remember the 
Got a great E-Mail this week from Fred Strohm — you remember Fred, he’s the one who gave us 
