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Rare sight yesterday in Dallas, as the Cowboys wore blue at home against Washington. This has become something of a Turkey Day tradition for the Cowboys: They also wore the blue jerseys on Thanksgiving in 2014 and 2013, plus they’ve also worn blue Thanksgiving throwbacks at various points over the years.
Terry Proctor, 1947-2016: Got some sad news on Wednesday, as word came down that longtime Uni Watch reader and sporting goods maven Terry Proctor had passed away. I knew he’d had some heart trouble in the past but hadn’t realized he’d recently taken a turn for the worse. His loss is a huge blow to the uni-verse, as he had a vast knowledge of old-school uniforms that simply cannot be replaced.
Terry discovered Uni Watch and began sending me all sorts of contributions back in 2008. In 2009 I ran an interview with him, and he also provided a good primer on uniform fabrics, among many other contributions.
Terry was retired but had spent many years working at Ruby’s Sporting Goods in Rochester, where he helped outfit the area’s many minor league, high school, college, and recreational teams. Nothing made him happier than talking about his days at Ruby’s, and he could usually remember exactly which color, fabric, and uniform style a given team had worn in a given year. A few years back I came across a small batch of old Ruby’s labels and sent some of them to Terry. He really liked that.
Terry loved it when I wrote about old sporting goods catalogs. At one point I wrote about a late-1960s Russell Athletic catalog that I had scored on eBay, and Terry wrote to tell me that he remembered filling orders from a copy of that same catalog. He said he was crying as he was writing the email and asked if I would consider giving the catalog to him, which I happily did. I hope it gave him some pleasure.
Terry had some quirks that made him, well, Terry. When referring to colors, he always capitalized them. When referring to Ruby’s, he always spelled out the full name — Ruby’s Sporting Goods. He could also be crotchety, which I never minded. He’d earned the right.
I never met Terry in person, which I regret. He knew more about uniforms than I ever will, and I’m sorry I won’t get to learn from him anymore. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and friendship, Terry. RIP.
The Ticker
By Paul
’Skins Watch: The American Sociological Association has sent a letter to MLB commish Rob Manfred, telling him that it’s time for Chief Wahoo to get the heave-ho (thanks, Phil). … A Canadian man wants the town of Mississauga to cut funding for five local hockey teams with Native-inspired names and mascots (from Ted Arnold). … Pretty odd that an Icelandic restaurant in Berlin would have a Chief Wahoo sign out front . “I inquired inside and the staff said it was an ‘art’ piece purchased by the owner of the restaurant company,” says Matt Wolfram. “So then I checked with the restaurant’s ownership, and they said it was done by an artist name Cyprien Gaillard. Wahoo is apparently a common motif for him.” … California’s last school to use the name “Redskins” for its sports teams will change the name on Jan. 1.
Baseball News: New uniforms for the Lynchburg Hillcats (thanks, Phil). … 1953 throwbacks for the Yomiuri Giants. … An addition to our list of MLB All-Stars wearing the wrong helmet: In 1980, Yankees pitcher Tommy John wore a Tigers helmet (from Ferdinand Cesarano). … The Pirates’ 2017 promo schedule includes a Bob Walk “bobblechair” giveaway (from @milkchug5).
NFL News: The Colts sent team-branded potholders for their season ticket holders to use on Thanksgiving. The Jags did something similar (thanks, Phil). … The Titans are adding a “W.E.S.” memorial decal for the victims of the recent Woodmere Elementary School bus accident in Chattanooga (from Ernad Selimagić). … A kid at yesterday’s Lions/Vikings game had a typo on her cheek (from Jason Hillyer).
College and High School Football News: New gold-trimmed helmets today for Baylor. … UCF players will wear their home area codes on their nose bumpers tomorrow. Florida outline added to the helmet logo, too (from @TheKMill). … Weber State and Chatanooga will wear memorial ribbon decals for the victims of the recent Chatanooga school bus crash (from Brett Hein). … Here’s the best Thanksgiving NOB of the day.
Hockey News: Big news out of L.A., where L.A. Times sports columnist Helene Elliott is reporting that the Kings will wear Burger King throwbacks on Jan. 14 (from GKG_77). … Wait, an update on that Kings item, from reader/commenter Brian Rowland: “Per LA Kings Insider Jon Rosen, the Kings will only wear the Burger King throwbacks during warmups on January 14th, after which they will be auctioned off.” … The Wild wore pregame jerseys on Wednesday to benefit a wildlife conservation group. … Albany River Rats throwbacks on Saturday for the Albany Devils (from Jason Lewis).
Basketball News: The Spurs and Hornets went black vs. teal on Wednesday night (from Mike Engle). … Auburn and Purdue went color vs. color two nights ago (from Jeff Demerly).
Soccer News: Asheville City FC has introduced a replica jersey that’s designed to function as a season ticket (from The Boot Room). … The logo for the four Euro2020 games taking place in Dublin (from Charlie Kranz).
Grab Bag: A bill that would allow high school students who are also serving in the military to wear their military uniforms to their graduation cememonies is moving through the New Jersey state legislature. … Interesting article about outgoing first lady Michelle Obama’s clothing.
I miss the cowboys wearing the throwbacks with the star on the shoudlers.
Kings to wear Burger King throw back, is it April 1st?
RIP Terry Proctor. He was gracious enough to take the time to help me with a number of historical team colors over the years…I was always very grateful for the assist.
Sorry to hear about the loss of Terry Proctor.
Typo in College and High Schoo Football News: “UCF players will wear their home area codes will wear memorial ribbon decals”
Coding glitch now fixed.
RIP Terry Proctor.
I always loved that photo of him.
I saw that typo “Lios” a few times yesterday on facebook, but I mean not that little girl… just typed in comments and posts… made me wonder if they were were using it like “Leos” like the British Columbia Lions sometimes do… now I see the little girl pic in the ticker and I’m really confused.
Terry Proctor also had a love of vintage motor vehicles. I was a friend of his on Facebook and he posted tons of pictures and details on cars, trucks, motorcycles, tanks, you name it. While we cannot glean anymore info from Terry, he certainly left a rich legacy of his knowledge of all things unis and cars. RIP to a true UW Hall-of-Famer.
Mr. Proctor
A definate first ballot unanimous, uni-versal hall- o-famer.
RIP
Love seeing the Loyola – Calvert Hall pic (carver nob). It is a 97 year old traditional matchup of two catholic schools and bitter rivals (think Army Navy or Auburn Alabama) in Baltimore held on Thanksgiving day every year. Used to be played in the old Memorial Stadium and now played at the Ravens stadium. One of the great traditions in all of high school football.
Per LA Kings Insider Jon Rosen, the Kings will only wear the Burger King throwbacks during warmups on January 14th, after which they will be auctioned off.
Ah, good info. I’ll adjust the text accordingly.
On mobile the remainder of the first paragraph “plus they’ve also worn” ends abruptly. Looks like there was a hyperlink “a” tag in the HTML that wasn’t closed.
I never got to know Terry well but he was definitely a wealth of information. I remember he was a bit crotchety (to use your word) about the Yankees and their insistence on using pinstripes embroidered into the fabric. He seemed to prefer sublimated pinstripes better and always called the Yankees’ preference dated, out of style, old-fashioned, etc. I don’t know if he had a grudge against them but I guess we’ll never know.
Fixed.
Am I the only one who sees the lede story on the Cowboys never finished and an awkward transition to the Terry Proctor tribute? Surprised nobody else mentioned it.
Random reader saw it too above…I see the same on Firefox on my laptop.
Fixed here too
RIP Terry…I still remember this exchange I had with him a few years ago:
Terry Proctor | December 9, 2013 at 9:13 am |
To Jeff Moulden- The reason for the different fonts on the Browns’ numbers is this. The manufacturer was using the font from Sand-Knit. S-K’s 4″ block number 2s did not have the serif on the bottom horizontal bar. The smallest sized “2” that had that serif was the 6″ size. Check out a vintage picture of Ken Stabler’s Raiders jersey and you’ll find the same style.
This was an issue that we S-K dealers mentioned to the factory all the time. Our complaints went nowhere.
Steve D | December 9, 2013 at 11:25 am |
OMG…why would you complain about the missing serif on the 2? That is my favorite font quirk of all-time…it was immortalized by the Steelers of the 70s, the Raiders, Packers, Cowboys, even UNC basketball and more. Bring it back!
Terry Proctor | December 9, 2013 at 11:52 am |
Consistency. Believe it or not in those days we’d get the occasional complaint from a high school or college coach. We’d merely pass them on to Sand-Knit.
The bad news is that the new Lynchburg Hillcats script is unreadable. The good news is that “Hillcats” is a terrible name, so an unreadable script is an upgrade.
RIP Mr. Proctor. I challenge anyone to find a better looking NFL game this year than Cowboys vs. Washington yesterday. Navy Blue and silver is just beautiful, as was the burgundy. Cowboys need to pair their double star “color rush” jersey with those silver pants and navy socks and wear that combo next year.
The Spurs and Hornets really DID go black vs. teal. I thought I was ODing from too much cold medicine . . .
Sorry to hear about Terry Proctor.
His was one of the names here that when you saw it at the top of a post, or at the top of a comment, you knew that quality content was coming.
This perfectly sums up how I thought about Terry Proctor and his contributions to this website and community. Just the thought that he was only two years younger than my father really hits it close to home for me. I’m sorry for this loss.
Memphis is wearing chrome Cincinnati Bengals-like helmets today.
Based on what I found in the GUD, yesterday’s 3 Thanksgiving match-ups were the first since 2007 when all 6 teams straight-up wore a ‘regular’ uniform (no throwbacks, alternates, etc…).
Lee
Was surprised the Cowboys actually wore blue yesterday. There was a time back in the 60-80s that they hardly ever wore blue. In fact, by January 1981, their record in blue was something like 4 – 20. Someone pointed it out to Eagles coach Dick Vermeil prior to the NFC championship game in 1981. Being the superstitious type, Vermeil had the Eagles wear white to force the Cowboys to wear blue. May have been the first time the Eagles wore white at home. Anyway, the Eagles went on to win the NFC championship & played in the Super Bowl against Oakland.
Cowboys wore blue, but not the “Unlucky” shade from the past.
The Cowboys are “forced” to wear blue a few times each season. According to GUD 1972 was the only season they went entirely white. What’s strange is wearing blue at home on Thanksgiving. I believe back in the star-shoulder days the team wore blue at home like everyone else. So when turkey-day became a throwback (or fauxback in 95 & 01-03) they went with the period appropriate blue. Now it seems that Thanksgiving will stay ‘blue at home’ day.
It’s still quite a rarity. Of 16 games this season, the Cowboys wore their blue jerseys twice and will wear the double star color rush this Thursday against the Vikings. The other 13 games they wore/will wear the standard white jersey uniform.
I think they should make it a point to wear the blue jerseys more and win in them like they have been so it erases any stigma from years past.
If anyone’s interested, the Flyers are wearing their gold-trimmed white anniversary unis at home today, against the Rangers in blue on the road.
Looks like the Tar Heels wore all black today. So the person who thought it was last week wasn’t completely wrong, just had the wrong week.
I think Paul has written about when Dallas started wearing white at home and I believe it’s true they originally wore blue at home way back in the old Cotton Bowl. I think the white started as a combination of wearing the cooler jerseys in the early Fall Texas heat and Cowboys exec “Tex” Shramm saying he wanted the fans to see different colors on the visiting teams.
Then they lost some big games wearing blue–Super Bowl V notably. Then other teams started wearing white at home to force the ‘Boys into blue jerseys. Usually their division rivals the Redskins, Eagles and Giants did this and usually blue clad Dallas would lose.
I actually despise the Cowboys and hate to see them succeed this year. Their recent history of mediocrity has been very enjoyable to me. But I think their uniforms have the potential to be the best in NFL . Instead, they are a garbled mess. They could do so much more with a theme for what they wear when. And there is royal blue here, navy blue there, and the blue shades mismatch on the same uniform. Why? There is black outline on the sleeve stripes. Why? Then there are the green shaded pants, but silver pants worn with the blue jerseys. Why? And now they’re going to wear blue at home on Thanksgiving? Why? None of this follows tradition or consistency or a throwback theme. Their whole uniform situation just seems like a disaster to me.
I was watching the 1985 MLB All-Star Game from Minnesota the other day, and that was the infamous game were Lou Whitaker wore a replica Tigers jersey because he forgot his uniform and they had to draw his name on the back. It was also the game where Dave Parker and Pete Rose wore red alternate Reds jerseys, and Nolan Ryan went to the plate to hit wearing a Padres batting helmet.