And Then There Were Two

By Phil Hecken

And now we’re down to our two finalists in the Seahawks Uniform Redesign Contest. Thanks again to all the participants, congratulations to the ten finalists, and…drumroll please — here are our two final-finalists:

Coming in with 484 votes, our runner up moving onto the one on one: Travis Ness…

And our top vote getter, with 495 votes, and the other final-finalist: Matt Robida.

How close was the voting? Out of a total of almost 4,000 votes, a grand total of 234 separated the highest vote getter from the lowest. This really speaks to the quality of ALL the finalists’ designs. In fact, the number one vote getter didn’t even double the total of the lowest vote getter — again, showing just how close the voting was. Great job by all.

You can view the Final Vote Totals here.

So now it’s down to Mr. Ness vs. Mr. Robida and we’re going to ask you to vote one last time to pick your favorite Seahawks Redesign.

Ready? Here’s the poll:

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Thanks again to everyone who participated (and huge thanks to my pollster, James Huening). I’m sure there will be another contest soon — so if you guys have any suggestions, be sure to post them in the comments below. We’ll keep the poll open until next Friday, and announce the winner over the weekend.

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Oops!

Allow me a modicum of schadenfreude.

UnderArmour, who was all poised to outfit the South Carolina Gamecocks in this Wounded Warrior costume, actually made a jersey with numbers so hard to read, the Cocks were forced to wear their alternate black jersey. They were still able to wear the rest of the outfit, however.

Paul, who should be enjoying himself on vacation, sent me the following “explanation” of the snafu:

Below is a statement from Under Armour regarding the jersey issue that happened prior to the game this afternoon. South Carolina was supposed to be outfitted in custom head to toe uniforms in honor of the US Armed Forces in a partnership with the Wounded Warrior Project. But due to visibility issues of the numbers on the jerseys, the team had to change their jerseys to their regular game day jerseys. Not sure if you plan to discuss this in any of your weekend game recaps, but below is the official statement from UA, in the event you would like to use it.

“Under Armour and the University of South Carolina are proud to support the Wounded Warrior Project. As part of this annual tradition to honor the men and women who sacrifice for our nation, the Gamecocks were outfitted in special jerseys, shoes, pants, gloves, helmets and wrist bands paying tribute to our troops. During pre-game warm-ups, SEC officials expressed some concern about the visibility of the numerals on the jerseys. As a result, the Gamecocks will be wearing the special jerseys in warm-ups only and will wear their standard home jerseys during the game.” — Matt Mirchin, SVP, Global Sports Marketing, Under Armour.

So even something so well intentioned as the Wounded Warrior Project gets screwed because the designers couldn’t just produce a uniform with numbers that could actually be read by the refs and spotters. I’m sorry, but this serves them right.

Uniforms should be functional first — then the form can follow the function — not the other way around. It may have been a great looking design on a 27″ iMac, but on a players’ back? Not so much.

Better luck next time, UA.

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New NCAA Rundown

In what is now a regular Sunday feature during the NCAA season, my buddy Terry Duroncelet is here to give us the uni machinations and assorted athletic aesthetics for Week IV of the college football season. Here’s Terry:

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• We kick things off with some high school action: Nike Pro Combat hits (I believe) its second and third high schools with Servite High School (Anaheim, CA) and Bishop Gorman High School (Las Vegas, NV). Couple of observations from Friday night’s game:

>> Given that I HATE Athletic Block and screenprinted numbers, Servite’s Pro Combat uni is a huge upgrade over their normal road uniform, and even though they lost in them 31-28 (sucks, because I’m a SoCal guy), I hope that this becomes their full-time road uni. Additional pics here and here (pants are solid black).

>> Bishop Gorman’s colors are blue and orange and are known for using *a variation of* a certain college team’s helmet logo. As of this season (and maybe parts of last season), they’ve been experimenting with a little Grey For Grey’s Sake (tell me they don’t look like a high school version of Boise State), and have been using the logo of another certain college team (or two) and a certain pro team. Their stealth and orange getup from Friday would’ve looked great… if and only if stealth was one of their actual colors.

>> The Pro Combat pant looks great when worn with no graphics.

>> Both teams had matte helmets (Servite in black, Bishop Gorman in stealth with a shiny black helmet stripe). [What the hell is ‘stealth’? — PH]

Although I love watching high school football, this is called the NCAA Rundown for a reason, let’s get to the college unis:

• The team with the best color scheme of all time faced off against the only FBS team left that still knows how to wear their uniform from the waist down. It looks like Tulane added an outline of the State of Louisiana to their pants (another example here and one from a previous game against UAB).

• Mississippi State (a.k.a the worst-dressed team in the SEC) wore special matte-finish helmets against Georgia.

• The Houston Oilers Second String Team Kansas Jaykawks wore 1961-inspired “throwbacks” against Texas Tech. I think that they were trying to honor the ’61 Bluebonnet Bowl champs. If so, the jersey and helmet colors should be switched. Even with the inaccuracy, and Adidas’s TechFit jersey top being as suffocating on the eyes of us here at Uni Watch as they are on the players’ bodies, they still looked really good (I’m pretty sure you can tell by now that I love light blue). Too bad Texas Tech’s ugly selves ruined any chance of Kansas being in the 5 &1.

• Quick, how many helmet stylings has Michigan worn in one season prior to this year? Yeah. The Wolverines wore their third helmet styling (current helmet with throwback number) in Saturday’s game against Minnesota. Can we count different decals on one shell on a game-to-game basis as part of the Hydra-Effect? If so, put scUM (no shade) in the 3-headed category. It is also reported that the helmet numbers were a big hit with the players, and could remain (if not guaranteed) on the lids for the rest of the season.

• Crappy photo, but something was up with one of the aTm Player’s NOB. You can see the letters, but they’re, like, light-grey. Maybe those TechFit letters are heat-sealed NBA Revo 30-style?

• Air Force wore new uniforms consisting of grey jerseys, blue pants, and matte-grey helmets. Except for those ugly athletic-block numbers, this is actually a pretty sweet look for the Falcons.

• Illinois wore their orange jerseys against Northwestern.

• Indiana University wasted no time in thinking pink for October Yesterday (complete with a Save The Ta-Tas helmet logo [not to make light of a serious issue, of course]), and neither did LSU (here’s a better look).

• As reported in Friday’s column, UTEP wore a special helmet decal celebrating the 75th anniversary of their 1936 squad, which was the first bowl team in school history.

• The Clemson/Virginia Tech game had a lot of potential to load up on a lot of this and cause Movi’s head to explode from sheer glee, but it ended up being pretty tame.

• Yesterday’s Tempe Cocktail consisted of white helmets, maroon jerseys, and white pants.

• The Nebraska Badgers played in their first B1G game ever against the Wisconsin Cornhuskers.

• The Stormtroopers sent forces to Los Angeles, CA, Pittsburgh, PA, and Manhattan, KS.

• The UCLA Bruins faced off against the Stanford Black.

• Last but not least (depending on who’s reading this), East Carolina wore mono purple against UNC, who wore a very well put together white-over-Carolina Blue look. Who knew Grimace loved football enough to fund his own team?

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Thanks, Terry!

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Tracking The Playoffs

Last year, Alex Rocklein showed off a really neat playoff tracker, in which he tracked playoff teams wins & losses, not only by their wins and losses, but also by uniform!

He’s back again this year, and here is how the 2011 MLB Playoffs look so far.

There was no uni-shenanigans yesterday, as all the home teams wore white (as God intended) and all the road clubs wore gray (also, as God intended).

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MLB Uni Tracking – 2011 Final Results

Now that the MLB regular season has ended (mercifully for some of us fans), all those who spent the season keeping track of your teams uniform machinations should now feel free to send in your final results.

Today we have Steve Mandich, who tracked the M’s this year:

Hey Phil —

Greetings from Seattle!

Like Eric Smallman in today’s Uni Watch post, I too tracked Mariners uniforms this season, as well as Ichiro’s performance in various M’s jerseys.

Here’s a summary I posted on my Ichiro blog.

Attached is my Mariner/Ichiro uni tracking spreadsheet — feel free to share it on Google Docs.

Best — Steve

Thanks, Steve. OK uni trackers — get me your tracking information and I’ll post it next weekend.

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2011 Duck Tracker

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, Jake Hurley has stepped up to the plate and taken over the “Duck Tracker” for 2011. What is the Duck Tracker? Quite simply, it tracks each and every uniform combination the Ducks have worn for the 2011 season. He steps in for former tracker Mike Princip, whose non-Uni Watch activities will preclude him from tracking for 2011.

I’m please to announce that Jake is all caught up to speed on this week’s DT — of course Oregon had a bye week, so there is no result for 10/1.

But here’s the 2011 Duck Tracker for today.

If anyone would like to add content (such as history, uniform history, tweaks or mock-ups), Jake will gladly add it to the site. Shoot me an E-mail if you’re interested.

Back next week with the next set of UO costumes!

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Colorize This!

Occasionally, I will be featuring wonderful, high-quality black and white photographs that are just begging to be colorized.

Only two submissons this week, and of course, that means it’s one each from George and Gary. So, lets see what they have in store for us:

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First up is George Chilvers, who’s got a bit of a different “sport” photo for us today:

Hi Phil

Something slightly different (but as always with a story).

My football team, Wigan Athletic, used to play at Springfield Park, with was originally Springfield Park Cycling & Athletics Ground.

This picture dates from turn of the 20th century and shows participants of both sports at Springfield Park. Many months ago I think I set a challenge to see how many sports we could colourise – I don’t think we had cycling OR athletics :)

George

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And the second half of the G&G boys, Gary Chanko, checks in with this:

This week I was looking through the Smithsonian’s Conlon collection and stumbled across a Phillies pitcher practically no one ever knew existed (except for immediate relatives!), Pete Sivess. He played three forgettable seasons in the Majors, 1936-38. I’ve read that Charles Conlon attempted to photograph every major league player which explains how this obscure pitcher landed in The Smithsonian’s Conlon Collection.

Too often research for a Colorize This! project leads to unexpected discoveries. As it turns out, Pete Sivess has a direct connection to Francis Gary Powers, the U-2 spy plane pilot shot down by the Soviet Union in 1960. So what is the connection between an unknown 1930s era MLB pitcher and a Cold War spy? You can find out here.

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Fantastic job as always, gentlemen. And I love how you both always give a nice background/story to your research and efforts too!

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Uni Tweaks

We have another new set of tweaks today.

If you have a tweak, change or concept for any sport, send them my way.

Remember, if possible, try to keep your descriptions to ~50 words (give or take) per tweak. You guys have been great at keeping to that, and it’s much appreciated!

And so, lets begin:

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We start with Justin Kline, who has a tweak for the new Bills unis:

Phil,

I was curious to see how the old (late ’90s) Buffalo Sabres logo would look on the old (early ’90s) Bills, so I messed around with both things, and here’s the end result. I love the charging buffalo, but this is a little more intimidating.

-Justin Kline

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In the two-spot today is Michael Craig with a bunch of NFL concepts:

Gday, Paul Phil.

Thought id throw some uni tweaks your way. hope you enjoy.

Observe how the lions unis are instantly fixed just by removing the black.

I’ve always found the new gold on the rams unis to be cold and ugly. I’ve kept the current blue, but brought back the old yellow. Much better I think.

Old and new come together to make this patriots concept.

I really dislike the Texans uniforms and the how they cant decide if they’re a red team or a blue team. I’ve come up with these. the patriots-esque side stripes flare out at the top to create a the look of horns on the jersey. Fits in nicely with the helmet, I think. and I always wished they used a white helmet.

Here’s my take on the panthers. Ditched panther blue for something closer to carolina blue, removed those weird helmet stripes and made them full stripes. Not a fan of the current pant stripe, so I wanted to put more traditional looking stripes on there, but with a modern twist that somewhat recalls the former stripes. Also added a panther logo below the pant stripes, because they looked a little bare.

–Michael Craig

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And our last tweaker is Tim Wharton, who learned the hard way you can’t stay away from Uni Watch…

Phil,

I’ve been away from uniwatch. Here’s my take on the Seahawks although it’s too late for your contest.

Thanks,
Tim Wharton

There ya have it kids. Thanks to today’s tweakers — back with more next weekend.

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Benchies

by Rick Pearson

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“Say hello to my little friend…”

And, as always, the full-size.

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Jim Vilk’s 5 & 1

And now for the part of the post that I wait up all night for you’ve all been waiting for…

‘Twas a pretty good uni matchup day yesterday (at least IMHO), so Jim will probably get them all wrong:

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Terp Tracker — Least favorite look so far, especially with the white/black numbers.

Honorable Mentions to North Carolina/East Carolina and Holy Cross/New Hampshire — Paul’s out of town, so bring on the purple!

5. Tulane/Army — Don’t know whether to salute or wave to this matchup.

4. Alabama/Florida — After seeing Holy Cross’ unis, I’m wondering if ‘Bama’s should try crimson road pants?

3. Kentucky/LSU — Normally I penalize teams with a tramp stamp, but UK still looks gooooood.

2. Clemson/Virginia Tech — This was my lock for #1, until…

1. Air Force/Navy — Keep those new unis, Falcons!

And the bad one: Nesconsin/Wisbraska Nebraska/Wisconsin — Same reason I sometimes pick Navy/Notre Dame: nice unis, but way too similar.

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I will never understand you Jimmer…never. I’m guessing Monday’s NFL 5 & 1 will feature a lot of pink gloves and shoes.

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Aaaaaaaaannnnnnndddddd that’s a wrap. Sports fans wet dream fantasy today — MLB Playoff Games and the pink show in the NFL. I’ll be filling in for Paul for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, and Johnny Ek will be handling the Ticker. If you have any NFL news for tomorrow’s MMUW, send them to the usual uniwatching at g-mail address, drop me a direct line, or post pics/observations down below. See you tomorrow.

And don’t forget to vote for your favorite Seahawks Redesign final-finalist!

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“Gophers playing a little like a team from that new football league in India.” — Rick Pearson