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Uni Watch

Monday Morning Uni Watch

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I spent most of yesterday in New Jersey, much of it in a bar just a few miles from where the Giants were playing the Bucs. I was amused by this woman’s T-shirt (probably common in NJ, but I’d never seen it before), so I asked if I could take her picture. She happily obliged.

Other notes from around the NFL yesterday:

• The Chargers had lots of tributes to Junior Seau yesterday. First, they added a memorial helmet decal. They also included the decal on their midfield logo. And they retired Seau’s number. (Meanwhile, the Chargers wore solid white.)

• In an unusual move, the Ravens moved their Art Modell memorial from their helmet to their jersey. I’m not sure I can recall a memorial being upgraded like that before.

• Someone on the Ravens sideline was wearing a Reebok shirt.

• Cam Newton suffered a serious tear in his jersey.

• The Seahawks are really taking the neon snot thing a bit too far.

• Carlos Rogers of the 49ers had his pant legs rotated so that his stripes faced backwards.

• The 49ers’ grounds crew neglected to include the black outline on the edge of the center stem of the “E” in one of the end zones.

• The saga of Jim Harbaugh’s black pullover continues: Instead of a Stanford shirt with a cover-up patch, he now appears to have gotten a legit 49ers shirt.

Turning to Saturday’s college action, you should start with yesterday’s post from Phil and his crew. Once you’re done with that, here are some additional tidbits:

• An Alabama helmet that ABC used as a studio prop including a trademark symbol next to the TV number. Odd.

• Georgia Tech quarterback Tevin Washington normally wears No. 13, but he wore No. 40 on Saturday to honor injured linebacker Julian Burnett. When’s the last time we saw a QB wearing such a high number?

• Kansas defensive end John Williams played several series without a helmet logo.

• Michael Birdsong of James Madison really needs to trim those chinstrap tails.

• For the first two games of the season, Wisconsin’s nose bumper read, “Leaders.” But on Saturday, they changed it to the Big 10 logo.

• West Virginia and Marshall both added a memorial decal for two West Virginia state troopers who were recently killed in the line of duty.

• Clemson President James Barker, who’s 65 years old, wore the Tiger mascot suit on Saturday (and did 27 pushups after a touchdown!).

• Yale’s helmet logo is no longer outlined.

• Portland State’s jumble of helmet decals now includes an I-5 shield. Wasn’t there last year. Anyone know what that’s for?

(My thanks to all contributors, including Rhett Dubiel, Brinke Guthrie, Omar Jalife, Dustin Kalis, Scott Kelly, Kyle Mackie, Dave Mann, Coleman Mullins, Austin Pendergist, Joshua Robertson, Dave Sizer, Douglas Waddington, Duncan Wilson, and William Yurasko.)

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Too good for the Ticker: A high school in Florida has come up with the craziest football uniform ever (at least this week). Take a look:

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Yowza! Well, that should up the ante in the Nikegon sweepstakes, eh? But hey, where’s the two-tone helmet? Further info here.

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Show & Tell update: The latest installment of my monthly Show & Tell storytelling series took place last Wednesday. The participants, their objects, and their stories are featured in the latest post on the Show & Tell web site.

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Uni Watch News Ticker: The NCAA has issued a memo reminding schools that advertising is not allowed on end zone pylons. “I think we should have the NCAA talk to the NBA about keeping ads off of places where they don’t belong,” says Ryan Burns. … Kyle Allebach wrote a piece for his local Patch site about the looming threat of NBA uniform ads. Well done. … In a related item, the sports advocacy group known as League of Fans has sent a sharply worded letter to David Stern regarding the uni advertising plan. #NoUniAds. ”¦ Canadian college football has its own version of Oregon: the Guelph Gryphons. “In contrast to Guelph is the Queen’s Gaels,” says Blair Hough. “Despite being one of the oldest and best-funded universities and football programs in the country, dating back over 100 years, Queen’s University only wears one uniform, gold, for both home and road.” … South Carolina offers license plates honoring lots of colleges — many of which are not located in South Carolina. Seems odd, no? Do other states do this? (From Eric Schultz.) … I’ve written several times about the wonderful sports artwork by Mark Penxa. Eric Westover recently commissioned him to make this great Mickey Mantle piece — nice. … The Orioles logo that I’ve been referring to as “the angry bird” is actually called the cuckoo bird (from Scott Stoddard). … Big rebranding in the works for Oregon State (from Mark Snider). … Cool photo gallery of old BYU football photos here (from Josh Sorensen). … St. Francis High, near Buffalo, sure takes a lot of 49ers-style liberties (from Adam Same). … Providence College’s live mascot, named Dom, is sponsored by Coke. Lame (from Erik Sundermann). … Here’s something I didn’t remember: After Eric Davis was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1997, his teammates on the Orioles wore his uni number on their batting helmets (screen shots by Tim Donovan). … Jerry Kulig was getting a tour of the new USF basketball facility and spotted this uni mock-up sheet posted on a wall. “There were three others posted, but this one has ‘Approved for Production’ below the guy in all green, while the yellow warm-up has ‘Final Wearing Season 2012’ below it,” says Jerry. … The anti-American riots in Sydney over the weekend revealed that Australian police wear very interesting baseball caps. ”¦ Florida Tech, which will begin its football program in 2013, has unveiled its inaugural uniforms. ”¦ UNLV tight end Aaron Reed wears an award where his NOB would normally go. Explanation here (from Dave Sizer). ”¦ New basketball uniforms for Wake Forest (from Greg Seltzer). … Blake Pass was at Friday night’s Braves game and noticed a security guard wearing football cleats. … FNOBs are rare in baseball, but one of the few examples is Ron Jackson from the early 1980s. Here’s a (supposedly) game-used jersey of his up for auction (from Eric Stangel). ”¦ John English found some old newspaper shots of Joe DiMaggio as an A’s coach. ”¦ Lakeridge High in Oregon has resurrected the uniforms of the old USFL Boston/New Orleans/Portland Breakers (from Paul Quirk). ”¦ Someone needs to tell Shin-Soo Choo that his undersleeves should match his socks (from Alec Jokubaitis). ”¦ Interesting game in Arizona on Saturday night, as the Diamondback wore purple throwbacks and the Giants wore their Sunday road alts. Additional photos here. ”¦ The following day (i.e., yesterday), the D-backs did the “Los” thing. ”¦ And speaking of the Giants, it’s good to see Sergio Romo wearing the striped socks. ”¦ Good story about the small Nebraska company that created the digital communication system for NFL helmets. “Some interesting things in there, such as the fact that the rules prohibit communicating with under 15 seconds on the play clock,” says Brian Hansen. ”¦ Stoke goalkeeper Asmir Begovic had some NOB issues the other day (from Eric Davis).

 
  
 
Comments (185)

    Watch youth football, You’ll see plenty of QB’s with very high numbers. RB’s with numbers in the 60’s et al.

    About 20 years ago Baylor played an early season game at Nebraska, nationally televised (I believe ESPN), and because of injuries their 3rd string QB started the game and played the whole way, wearing #25. I believe at some pint the broadcasters pointed out the odd uni numeral and explaned that he was originally a walk-on, and kept the #25 even as he rose up the depth chart.

    There’s always Doug Flutie with #22, and Bernie Kosar with #20. But you’re right, #20 and #21 (during the John Hadl-to-the-Rams boomlet) were as high as it usually got. …

    Did see a Joe Kapp mid 1960s CFL AllStar jersey recently (I believe at Grey Flannel Auctions) with #62! – and with photos and letter of authenticity to go with it. Sorry, can’t do the screen grabs ….

    I knew about Freddie Solomon in final game of 1978 SF season against DET and the Brian Mitchell body bag game, but never heard about Payton playing QB.

    Walter Payton played QB for the Ditka Bears for a couple of games, in the late 1980s – He perhaps was not the starter, but he played many, many entire series as QB – sort of an extended Wildcat. He actually threw TWO TD passes against the Saints in the same game to beat a pretty good Saints team in the Superdome, during the best of the Jim Mora Saints’ years ….

    In the early 1970’s Geogia Tech’s full time QB Danny Myers wore number 21. In the late 70’s running back Bucky Shamburger played a few games at QB.

    I kinda woke up with an odd feeling today that the NBA probably already voted on uniform ads, and they just haven’t told anybody yet…

    But still, we gotta keep the pressure on. This is probably the one thing all of Uni Watch can agree on. #NoUniAds

    In any kind of competent management environment – so caveat: may not apply to the NBA! – you would never make any kind of public announcement like the NBA has unless you already had a reliable commitment on the outcome of any formal vote. Things can change, of course, until the vote actually happens, but no reasonably competent executive would go public on something like this without having pretty firm informal commitments from the relevant stakeholders.

    “In contrast to Guelph is the Queen’s Gaels,” says Blair Hough. “Despite being one of the oldest and best-funded universities and football programs in the country, dating back over 100 years, Queen’s University only wears one uniform, gold, for both home and road.””

    A couple of points on this:

    1. Its true today, but for a while in the 1990s-2000s they went to blue at home and white on the road.

    2. The uniform set they had prior to the change was outstanding – all gold, pretty simple, USC stripes on the shoulders. They used to have just the uniform number on the helmet, they added the logos sometime in the 1990s.

    link

    3. The current set, while they’re in the traditional all-gold, are atrocious. Random stripes everywhere and an idiotic wordmark

    link

    Finally, some footage of the 1923 Grey Cup between the Queen’s Golden Gaels and the Regina Rugby Club (the last year before they changed their name to the Roughriders).

    link

    It is common for a state to offer schools not located within the state. Here in Tennessee you can get a plate for a college as long as there are enough preorders. I don’t recall the exact number but it is pretty substantial.

    I’m not sure if the same rules apply to collegiate/alumni plates as to others, but the basic rule for these plates in VA is that it takes a preorder of 3,000 to get a state made.

    In Texas you can’t get out-of-state school plates, but you can get alumni association plates for schools in other states.

    link

    The state of Georgia offers many out-of-state logos on plates, including the University of Florida!

    The only one Connecticut offers that’s out-of-state is Penn State. (There’s a sizable PSU alumni base here, apparently.)

    The other college plates are the standard: UConn, University of Hartford, Central CT State University, and University of New Haven. (I guess that other school in New Haven thinks it’s above such things.)

    In Missouri, the “(almost) anything goes, as long as there are enough preorders” approach is used, with the additional steps of requiring a passing a state law the authorize the plate. A full listing of plates created thus far is in this PDF:

    link

    The only out-of-state alumni group that has created its own specialty plate thus far is Arkansas. However, this entire process may be scrapped for the sole purpose of preventing Kansas fans/alumni from ever getting their own specialty plate:

    link

    link There are the NC collegiate options. Interesting thing is they update the school logos. When Charlotte went from the old cursive UNCC logo to the new Niners C, they updated the plates at some point. During my commute I occasionally see the old style, will snap a pic if I’m able next time. Go Niners!

    We just went through this about a year ago on this very site. It started off with somebody pointing out Pennsylvania plates with out-of-state schools (if memory serves), and the ticker snowballed from there with examples until it was decided this was no big deal.

    Arizona has only in-state schools offered.
    Although, I’d rather see an out of state school’s plate than that embarrassment called ASU.

    For Georgia and I’m fairly certain several other states they only allow plates from other states if those states offer theirs.

    Basically in order for fans in GA to get Auburn or Alabama plates Alabama had to offer Georgia Tech and Georgia plates to their citizens. I’m pretty sure it was based off of preorders as well not just certain schools (i.e. there is a chance Georgia State could also get a plate in Alabama as long as there was enough demand and vice versa with a school like Alabama A&M).

    I realized I have to go to Palm Beach Atlantic H.S. for an event next April, I’ll have to wear my shades in the locker room to protect myself from those unis…

    He’s making sure that what happened to Thurmun Thomas in SB XXVI does not happen to him?

    To cop a phrase from The Old Man in “A Christmas Story”…..

    “He looks like a green nightmare!”

    Maybe wasn’t 90 or 99 at all for Faloney. Was working from memory, and didn’t do a search right then.

    In fairness, all that was before the CFL went to a numbering system. After they did, Etcheverry changed to #14, I think. Faloney changed to #10, I believe. Similar to Otto Graham changing from #60 to #14, or Norm Van Brocklin from #25 to #11.

    Pretty sure those number changes are accurate, Ricko.

    After the numbering system, Ron Lancaster still wore #23 for the Roughriders and Flutie wore #22 for the Lions and #20 for the Stampeders.

    Regarding the Ron Jackson FNOB, I assume the reason was that Reggie Jackson was on the team at this time. Can anyone confirm if Reggie had a FNOB? I seem to vaguely recall “Reg Jackson” but I can’t confirm that.

    More college license plates featuring out of state schools:

    West Virginia (VT)
    link

    And Pennsylvania (WVU, Marshall and others)

    link

    Paul, we brought this up in the pressbox on Saturday and wondered what you would think. Kenyon College’s football team has ditched their purple helmet in favor of a BFBS lid. The Lords lost 23 straight in the purple helmet but have started this season 2-1 in the black. So which is worse:

    Purple: link

    or BFBS: link

    How is it BFBS if they already have black on their unis? As much as I like purple, I think the black lids look better. Paul Newman must be rolling over in his grave!

    And next to the number 14? The number of national championships they have, which could change in any year?

    Dumb.

    Paul, regarding the picture of the NJ Giants woman, have you spotted the guy at the bar looking back saying “Hey putz, what you doing taking a picture of my wife?”

    I’ve seen several variations on the “nj” for the “New Jersey Giants” over the years. I think something like 62% of the season ticket holders come from Jersey.

    The security guard wearing football cleats is by design in case he has to chase down a DAD (drunk and disorderly).

    That’s what I assumed. He was pretty darned quick sprinting back to his spot in the seats after every inning change.

    I see Deion Sanders is sporting those frontal hangy-down things (can’t remember what they’re called) in the Direct TV commercials.

    link

    “This is probably the one thing all of Uni Watch can agree on. #NoUniAds”

    Not necessarily.

    I’m a big fan of bright colors. I feel that in this case, the green does a FANTASTIC job of “undoing” the leotard look of a blue on blue. They’re not the best NFL uniforms, but as shown in the picture, I don’t even know that I’d put them in the bottom half.

    By the way, the Count Floyd from SCTV collars are bad enough, but the Nike fashion streaks on the collar fronts truly cheapen the look on many of the new NFL jerseys. They should not exist, period, on an NFL uniform.

    They are less offensive when placed upon a team with metalic colors (Gold or Silver).

    They have absolutely NO BUSINESS on a classic NFL uniform teams with two casic colors such as the Colts or Jets. Total abomination on the Colts jerseys.

    And buy the way, The Bengals look 1000% better sans the sidewal stripes, while the Seahawks have gone 50000% backwards with those messes they wore to beat the Cowboys. Maybe Dalas simply gor crosseyed looking at them line up across the ball ….

    By referring to Drew Storen as “Nat’s call-up”, you suggest Storen hasn’t been a major piece of their bullpen for the past two years. The Washington Post article to which you linked was two years old, published in 2010. I would suggest you, at least, start that item with, “When Drew Storen was called up to the Nats two years ago . . .”

    My single HUGE uni-fear ….

    The Saints wear their Black leotards next week and beat the hapless Chiefs, and we get stuck looking at them pretend to dress up as Jackass Junior Colege for the next 14 weeks.

    Let us hope not. Let’s double up on burning those candles at the mid week masses ….

    Question for the UW Community – Northwest Faction.

    Some time ago I saw the Neil Lomax Portland State team play on national TV – I believe it was the playoffs. I could of sworn that they were wearing Green and Blue, similar to Tulane’s real, original, unique color combination.

    I know now that Portland state has pretty much adopted Green and lots of Black as the recent uniform (that comes with hiring Jerry Glanville, along with the BFBS cult that actually preceded him ….), but did Portland State ever wear Blue and Green as a regular uniform?

    Did I imagine this, or am I remembering it right?

    Please help – greatly appreciated …

    I just added 10/10 “Show & Tell” to my calendar as I’ll be in NYC for 2 days on business. Paul how hard is it to get to Freddy’s via train from Manhattan? I’m an out of towner.

    Welcome aboard, Pete. Freddy’s is very subway-able. Take the “R” to the Prospect Ave station, which will leave you at 4th Ave and Prospect. Then walk one block east (uphill) to 5th Ave, hang a right, and walk 1.5 blocks.

    See you then!

    Iirc, in virginia, they claimed if you did a petition or such with x amount of signatures, they would do your college.

    But i recall IU meeting the threshiold for years and then never making the plate (in the mid 2000s).

    As mentioned above, here in Tennessee we have plenty of out-of-state plates. I have one myself for Alabama. I have personally also seen Auburn, Ole Miss, Virginia Tech, Florida, and Clemson. The most surprising? I’ve seen a couple of Purdue plates. Border states can be understandable, but Indiana? Definitely unexpected.

    The geek in me would love to know what university has a “state plate” the farthest away.

    At first I thought maybe the school had a ‘no cleats indoors’ policy and that this was done to protect the floor, but if that was the case I doubt the player would have taken the time to put 2 different color socks over them.

    I mentioned that in the comments whenever that photo first surfaced here about a week ago. That was one of the dumbest things about the uni in my opinion.

    “Georgia Tech quarterback Tevin Washington normally wears No. 13, but he wore No. 40 on Saturday to honor injured linebacker Julian Burnett.”

    Somebody’s hurt? Wow, best give him a Get Well Tribute.
    C’mon, people, shit happens. Live with it.

    Here my reference art for designing a universal patch all teams could wear all the time…
    link

    You mock, but how else is an injured player supposed to know that his teammates are pulling for his recovery?

    Kidding aside, I’ve been kind of looking for a new NFL team to root for. First team to award BFH helmet decals to players who return from same-season injuries will be my new favorite. Even if it is the Bears, Cowboys, or, shudder, Redskins.

    Burnett wasn’t just hurt. He can’t ever play football again. Fortunately, he isn’t wheelchair bound. Georgia Tech isn’t the first team to honor a player in this way.

    I do understand where you are coming from, Ricko. It does seem like athletes today go out of their way to draw attention to themselves. Like adding “III” to their NOB.

    The guy was the heart and soul of our defense the past 2 seasons, he was undersized by pro standards but was an excellent LB, last year he suffered a neck injury that ended his playing career.

    The Seniors on the team are passing around his number this year in honor of what he meant and still means to the program. Week 1 TJ Barnes wore it (normally 92), week 2 Rod Sweeting (normally #6), in week 3 Tevin Washington wore it (normally #13). Orwin Smith (Normally #17) and Izaan Cross will wear it eventually and then they will start circulating it among non-seniors.

    They wear a #40 jersey with no NOB.

    The state of Virginia offers myriad license plates, including schools outside of VA. Why? Simple answer is revenue.

    link

    Chris Relf wore #36 in the Gator Bowl on January 1, 2011 for teammate Nick Bell who passed away earlier that season. After his death, several Mississippi State players wore #36 (a different player each week) to honor him.

    There’s an article on Yahoo! that says the NFL is upset with RGIII over the fact that he managed to avoid the swoosh during warm-ups for the 2nd straight week. Last week he black it out with “HEART”, yesterday he wore a plain gray t-shirt over his Nike compression shirt.

    Rumor has it that I am a big Nike guy!

    However, my disdain for RG3 pulling his antics is more a product of the “look at me” or “I have to do this BECAUSE people are looking at me” mentality.

    This goes back to the Jordan Dream Team antics of 1992.

    Or even during the 90’s when players would spat their turfs and draw a swoosh or whatever logo on the tape.

    C’mon!!!

    I don’t know one way or the other, but he does have a deal with Adidas, maybe he’s showing loyalty to the company that pays him.

    Same bugaboo as basketball.

    Kobe works for Nike.
    He plays for the Lakers.

    Semantics? Maybe.
    Then again, maybe not.

    Are you talking Bills? If so, then yes, whatever they are doing now is 100x better than what they were doing three years ago.
    Now if they would just fix their face masks to blue, they’d be set.

    Lee

    The Redskins need to pick a striping style that is consistent from helmet to shirt to pants to socks.

    The neeeeeed to.

    Lee

    really liked the Chargers in all white…still wishing they would put the numbers on the helmets.

    In the last 10 years or so I have seen high school quarterbacks wearing 40 and 42. Both games were towards the end of the year, my guess is that they were running backs that had to fill in for injured QBs.

    All of North Carolina’s college license plate options: Includes most, if not all, ACC teams, but my favorite is the Campbell University Camels. Not every day you see a camel on a license plate…

    OK, I lied. Not most ACC teams. The out of state teams are a mix of ACC and SEC, and are chosen, I believe, simply by demand.

    What I find most interesting about the high school uniform is the “booties” that are both in the picture (though don’t appear to be on properly) and the ones in the article linked. It appears to slide over the shows to make them look more “uniform”. I have never seen anything like that before.

    Lakeridge High in Oregon has resurrected the uniforms helmets of the old USFL Boston/New Orleans/Portland Breakers

    Fixed.

    Up until last season McNary HS football (also in Oregon) used to use the Breakers decal on their helments but with blue facemasks.

    They went from this:

    link

    …to this for 2012:

    link

    BTW, nice Nationals concept the other day!

    Thanks. It was fun to make.

    So McNary wanted to be just like that collegiate powerhouse…Mercyhurst?
    link
    I would have stuck with the Breakers look.

    At first glance, the “Breakers” high school looked like they were playing the Oakland Invaders…

    Can someone please explain the NFL policy regarding shoes (cleats, etc.)?

    Besides having teams like the Steelers and Giants who seem to be wearing 4 different versions of NIKE designed shoes, you’ll see teams like the Jets and 49ers who seem to wear all black (or mostly black) shoes.

    What is the deal here? The Steelers look like S#!t. The Giants seem to be all over the freakin’ place. Yet, you’ll find a (somewhat) traditional look on the Jets and 49ers.

    I’m confused about this.

    Please make them stop.

    In terms of league regulations, players can now wear black, white, or any team color, in any combination. Judging by the visual evidence, some teams appear to have imposed more stringent rules of their own, while others haven’t.

    The reason for this, of course, has nothing to do with giving players greater freedom of personal choice.

    It’s because Nike makes cleats in all sorts of color combinations, and that look needs to be seen…
    link

    thank you Paul.

    It just looks terrible (see: Steelers).

    I’m surprised given the “strict and regimented uniform policy” approach that Nike and the NFL have strived for — that they would think this looks good.

    But then again, the item I’m complaining about is there bread and butter.

    Ten years too late for Peyton Manning… remember when he wanted to wear black shoes to honor Johnny Unitas, but was denied permission because the Colts had gone with white for the season?

    YEP. And Jake Plummer couldn’t keep his Pat Tillman sticker either. (Former teammate at ASU and with the Cardinals, and very close friends.) That heartless Paul Tagliabue…how dare he control players’ outward grieving and tribute stickers? Clearly, Roger Goodell got it right with the Sean Taylor tribute-palooza.
    ;-)

    1) I know Harbaugh wore this latest shirt in pre-season..before he switched to his ‘patch’ version.

    2) which brand shoes are allowed on field? I’ve seen Rivers and Peyton wear the same shoe–it’s Reebok–but it looks strangely anonymous.

    I know Harbaugh wore Sunday’s current short in the pre-season before he switched to the patch.

    What are the league approved field shoes? Peyton and Rivers both wear rather anonymous looking Reeboks.

    I don’t mind letting NFL players wear whatever team-color shoes they want so long as that would mean a cut down on hosiery chicanery, but that doesn’t seem to be the case thus far.

    Team color shoes look far better than black on any team that doesn’t wear black. The Raiders, Steelers, Bengals, Saints & Ravens should all have black shoes. The rest of the league should be using white or team colors.

    Not the same thing.
    As I understand it, humans have very little control over clouds.
    They are, however, fully in charge of their decision to wear socks from the Sheldon Cooper Dork Collection.

    As Sheldon said upon being shown a classy navy blue suit, “That’s a lot of money for one color.” He then found black & white checkered and teal rhinestone-adorned suits far more attractive.

    But, for a generation that grew up thinking football players should look like the Power Rangers…

    I get RG3 is adidas, and I get adidas and Nike hate each other, but covering up your swoosh before the game is just a childish act. No one’s going to say “Hey, RG3 is wearing a swoosh! I guess he likes Nike!”

    You’d be surprised what the average consumer considers an endorsement. While I’m not invested either way, I can see why Adidas wouldn’t want him to sport a rival product. Uniform is one thing, you can’t control that, but if Adidas is paying him to endorse their products, I’m sure they’d prefer he not wear a visable swoosh. Didn’t Reggie Bush have this same issue when he came in the league and was sporting Adidas cleats?

    I’d like to rewind back to Friday a saw how nice it was to learn about the bread bag clips vs. twist ties. My experience is I don’t care for the clips. And to answer a question from Paul, I’ve broken clips many times. Either through operator error, when I force it to go on, or from the fact that sometimes we’ll freeze bread, and those clips don’t do well when you force a frozen one back over the bag. But I’ve also given myself some major pricks (I said it) from those metal twist ties, once the paper? begins to wear off of them. Admittedly, I feel a kinship to this uni blog community. And as such I’m hurting. I know it’s just a cat, but my wife and I had to euthanize our cat last Friday. She (Sassy) was 20, which is remarkable. Our first cat passed last November at 19, so we have been lucky to have had so much time together. Our hearts are crushed, but we got through the weekend. Diversions help, so sorting through the uniform minutiae of last weekend, was helpful. Our hearts are heavy. I apologize for slobbering around here today. It’s sort of a cathartic exercise.

    Very sorry to hear it–20 years is a long time, but it’s never really long enough. Best wishes to you & yours.

    I have dogs and cats, but I tend to stand up more for kitties.
    I been in your shoes more than a few times and I know it sucks. Fortunately, it does get better.

    Add New Jersey to the list of out of state colleges.

    link

    The Alumni Organization has to have 500 members in good standing to apply. So the plate is technically not a university plate, but it might as well be.

    Florida offers plates for 36 different universities… but all of them are in-state. The website is completely silent on the subject of out-of-state schools, so I can only assume they don’t have any.

    link

    I think the Orioles may be a bit mis-informed about their bird designers. According to the sign, the Walsh bird was designed by Stan Walsh, who the sign claims created Snap, Crackle, and Pop. Those characters were actually created by an artist named Vernon Grant, who lived in my home town of Rock Hill, SC and actually attended church with my in-laws. We’ve got his art all over the city, with a special exhibit at the local museum.

    Considering the misuse of similar colors, I think the Guelph Gryphons look more like University of Maryland’s Under Armor shit show design.

    The license plate issues seems a bit silly. Once you’ve allowed one commercial design, the flood gates are open to any other commercial design, regardless of either’s location.

    Many moons ago I remember seeing a very good looking bootleg t-shirt of the “New Jersey Giants” somewhere along the Jersey Shore. I keep hoping I’ll run across a similarly well-done shirt for the “New Jersey Jets”. I would be all over that to thumb my nose at the geographicly challenged.

    The Green Bay Press-Gazette has a little note celebrating a wonderful little anniversary in Packers history – link.

    Except – link? link? Not to mention 1950 and ’51?

    At first, I thought the unattributed article might be making some point about the gorgeous metallic-gold helmets in that photo. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. This seems instead to be another example of the misinformation that’s out there about the early decades of pro football. So frustrating if that’s the case.

    Ugh – my kingdom for an edit button. That 50 or ’51 should refer to 37 and 39, for which I have no color photos.

    Sorry about that, but at least we can document the green and gold in 35 and 36.

    Chance is correct. I overlooked that detail from the Packers media guide when I wrote the story. It’s been revised, and is at link

    Jeff Ash, Green Bay Press-Gazette

    Ugh, police officers should never wear baseball caps. Looks like something they purchased from Cafepress using clipart wordmark.

    I’m guessing that the I-5 decal on Portland State’s helmets has to do with them playing UW, which is a trip up I-5.

    Even the staged world of professional wrestling is now doing pink for breast cancer awareness. Look at John Cena and the middle ring rope.

    link

    C’mon now WWE. It’s still September!

    Sorry, but unless its the Hart family, pink doesn’t belong in wrestling.

    1. Sid Luckman played for the Bears in the 40’s, and wore #42.

    2. The Commownealth of Virginia does this, too: link

    Texas has a variety of out-of-state schools available through myplates.com, including Mizzou – link Definitely thought it was weird when I first saw that.

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