By Phil Hecken
What you see above is just a taste of what’s to come today with Paul’s latest ESPN column — the much-anticipated 2016 NCAA Football Uniform Preview. That will go live later this morning — and when it does we’ll include the link below. Lots and lots to discuss with this one, so be sure to check back here, read the column when it’s posted, and then come on back to chat. Here’s Paul:
Paul here, making a rare August appearance. One reason I take a break from the site each August is to recharge my batteries, travel, and pursue a few non-uni projects. Another reason is so I can concentrate on two of my biggest ESPN columns of the year — the college football and NFL season previews. The first of those — the college football piece — is up now. As usual, it’s a lulu, jam-packed with oodles of info about what you can expect to see on the gridiron this season. Link coming soon.
The NFL preview will run next Tuesday. Meanwhile, Phil and the rest of the Uni Watch team will continue to run the site today, tomorrow, and Thursday (and man am I grateful to them for all they’ve done this month). I’ll be back in the saddle on Friday. See you then.
Collectors Corner
By Brinke Guthrie
“We are the Giants! We are San Francisco! We are the World Champions!”
Leading off this week with brand new bobbleheads of Giants announcer Mike Krukow. This one was given out two days ago at AT&T Park. They had two versions — this one has a sound chip in the base, and you click a button to hear him say ‘We are the Giants! We are San Francisco! We are the World Champions!” I haven’t got my yet — it’s in transit from the eBay seller in Petaluma as you read this. This look is from the 2012 World Series celebration (above), and celebrates his 20 win season in 1986. You had to have a special ticket for this bobble — here’s the other one the rest of the crowd got. I don’t mind saying Kruk and his broadcast buddy Duane Kuiper are revered here in the Bay Area, and I’m one of their biggest fans. They sold these in 2003 and I didn’t get one due to the cost- I thought $25 was a bit high. They currently go for hundreds, so I messed up on that one. Now for the rest of the week;
• Staying in the Bay Area, check out this vintage Niners helmet plaque.
• No frills on this Lombardi-era Packers team-issued gear bag.
• Here are a pair of 1970s official Philadelphia Eagles wristbands, still in the package. I can see Harold Carmichael wearing these, rolling the dice/football in the end zone. (The seller has a few other teams, too.)
• Here’s a vintage Steelers seat cushion– guess the budget didn’t allow for any other colors.
• Luv Ya, Blue! How about a deck of Derrick Dolls (Oilers) playing cards?
• Still in the Lone Star State- the Oilers were succeeded in Houston by the Texans. Once upon a time (and they made great stuff) adidas was an NFL supplier. Here’s a tee/polo Texans set.
• Here’s a rather ‘spensive set of four L.A. Rams bobbles from the 1960s.
• Still in the box, Mariners fans! Get all cleaned up with this Soapy Slider soap from the 1970s.
• Nice looking 1960s NFL Alumni tie.
• This NBA branded Lionel boxcar train from the 1970s comes complete with logo stickers of the period.
• Here’s one from Will Scheibler: Check out this Vintage Montreal Alouettes CFL t-shirt!
Clint Richardson’s Auburn Uniform Database (& NCAA Uni News)
Hey boys and girls, in addition to Paul’s mega-uni preview/review over on ESPN, I’m pleased to pass along a project by reader (and pal) the Clint Richardson, who compiles the “Auburn Uniform Database.”
Here’s your link to the 2016 NCAA Uniform Recap, which takes a look at EVERY uniform change that happened during the summer.
In addition, Clint is the proprietor of the Auburn Uniform Database, which you can check out here, and which features a number of articles and resources (not necessarily on all things Auburn-related either). Make sure to scroll down and check out the menus for some great stuff!
T-Shirt Club reminder: Paul here. In case you missed it earlier this week, we’ve launched our latest Uni Watch T-Shirt Club design.
My creative partner on the T-Shirt Club project, Bryan Molloy, no longer works at Teespring, so we’re doing this shirt with his new employer, Represent, which operates almost exactly like Teespring does. From your standpoint, the customer experience should be virtually identical.
Now then: Our latest shirt is devoted to soccer. Here’s the design (for all of these images, you can click to enlarge):
We’re offering this design in four different shirt colors — maroon, black, dark green, and heather grey:
The shirt is available here. It’s available for a slightly longer period than most of our previous shirts, in part because I want to build in some extra time because of the Labor Day weekend, and also because traffic here on the site is a bit lower during my August break. Basically, I just want to make sure everyone has a chance to see and order the shirt.
One more time, the soccer shirt is available here. My thanks, as always, for your consideration.
The Ticker
By Mike Chamernik
Baseball News: Adrian Beltre wore his helmet backwards as he stepped to the box to face switch-pitcher Pat Venditte yesterday. Larry Walker famously did something similar when facing fireballer Randy Johnson in the 1997 All-Star Game. … The Cardinals grounds crew keeps a small patch of the dirt dry so that infielder Greg Garcia has a place to dry his sweaty hands (from Phil). … Musician Jack White wore a nifty Pirates-esque uniform in a recent celebrity baseball game (from Marc-Louis Paprzyca). … New American flag and camo hats for Youngstown State (from Robert Hayes, via Phil). … The New Hampshire Fisher Cats will wear either blue donkey or red elephant hats on Saturday. The polls are still open for the fan vote (from Phil). … The Frisco RoughRiders will wear Texas State Fair jerseys on Friday (from OT Sports, via Phil). … Also from OT: The Aberdeen IronBirds will wear purple-and-yellow camo for Outdoorsman Night on Friday. … Looks like Carlos Beltran filled out his hairline the other day. … There’s a Dodgers themed coffee shop in Los Angeles. The name is even a homophone of the best pitcher in team history. The shop used to sell this spectacular shirt, but it’s no longer in production. I actually emailed the shop to check (from Matt Shevin, via Phil).
NFL News: In an early-1970s episode of This Week In Pro Football, Gene Sanny spotted an Eagle with a shredded jersey. … Gene also finished early-1980s Oilers home and away electric football sets. … Nice Rams soda display in Los Angeles (from Matt Shevin).
College Football News: Virginia Tech announced today that the Hokies will have a special teams player wear No. 25 to honor Frank Beamer every week. It will be worn on a rotating basis and announced each Thursday. Beamer wore No. 25 as a player (thanks, Andrew Cosentino). … Miami revealed its jersey schedule (from Jason Lefkowitz, via Phil). … Florida State will wear home uniforms for their opener against Ole Miss next Monday in Orlando (from Phil). … I believe we’ve seen other teams and conferences this past week, but here’s marching band football uniform concepts for the Pac-12 (from Nathan J. Gruber). … Here’s a Pitt-themed soda display. “H2P” stands for Hail to Pitt (from Jason Glantz. … Alabama forced a T-shirt company to stop producing an insensitive shirt that took a jab at USC. The Crimson Tide and the Trojans play on Saturday (from Phil). … New uniforms for Coast Guard (from John FitzGerald).
Hockey News: Many different considerations are taken into the graphics of a Warrior hockey stick. The company draws design inspiration from snow skis and snowboards (from Marc-Louis Paprzyca). … The Flyers have a cool team history display in their practice facility. Here’s another look (from @THOMPUCKS, via Phil). … Team Europe goalie Jaroslav Halak will wear these pads for the upcoming World Cup of Hockey (from John Muir).
NBA News: Here’s a wonderful collection of NBA players in “wrong” jerseys. Stuff like Dominique Wilkins in a Magic jersey, Dikembe Mutombo with the Knicks, and Glen Rice on the Clippers, Knicks, and Rockets.
Soccer News: New uniforms for Syracuse. … The MLS uniform tracker has been updated through 25 weeks (from Kyle Burkholder). … Here’s a ranking of the 10 worst new kits for this year.
Grab Bag: Virginia Tech will be upgrading some of its athletics facilities, including the baseball and softball fields. … Good piece here on the truck drivers that haul golf equipment during the PGA Tour season (from Tommy Turner). … This NHRA video details all the safety features in a typical funny car driver helmet (from David Firestone).
And that’s it for today. Thanks to Paul (and welcome back, sort of) for the NCAA Football Preview (remember to check back here, and once it goes live, post your comments below!), Brinke for the CC, and Clint for sharing his own work over at the Auburn Uni Database, and of course Mike for the Ticker!
Tomorrow, I’ll be announcing the winners (yes, there are TWO) of the Griffins Alternate Jersey Design contest, plus Leo’s World and more. Until then,
Follow me on Twitter @PhilHecken.
Peace.
“I secretly root against the teams of my friends, family and exes. I’m a sports schaudenfreuder at it’s finest/worst.”
— Willard
Pumped for the preview, although I’m sure I got most of the information already
The college football preview is up:
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Awesome work Paul! Is Nebraska really back in the Big 12?!
The Nov. 6th game for NIU vs Toledo will/should have a name change for the field as Guaranteed Bank Rate takes over naming rights for ‘Sox Park’ on Nov. 1st. Wonder how this will affect special merch already produced??
The Trojans band uni looks better as a football uni!!
Doesn’t matter, it’s still an aesthetic massacre if they get remotely close to wearing it. After a span of biblical proportions, they just now allowed different colored face masks. You’re trying to single-handedly slaughter the school athletic program.
Glad I ordered that Alabama OJ shirt when they were first available. That much sweeter that they will no longer be available.
Saw the ESPN work Paul, now we know what you did on vacation! That took a lot of work and effort. Good job!
Nice college football piece, but Nebraska’s been in the Big 10 for a few years now (not the Big 12).
Yes, we fucked up on Nebraska’s conference placement. Now fixed (or at least *being* fixed — might take a few mins to show up).
Has anyone been able to actually view the CFB preview? I have tried three different browsers (Chrome, IE, Safari) on two different devices (laptop, iPhone) and it has crashed them all before I got through the Boston College segment.
Phil alerted me to this comment. Possible solution: If you’re using an ad-blocker, try turning it off and see if that helps.
I’m wondering if all the Twitter embeds in the article may have been affecting performance. That has to be the largest collection of tweets I’ve ever seen on one page without actually being on Twitter.
On Safari on my Mac, Flash Player (Safari Internet Plug-in) will hog giant amounts of CPU/real memory after opening Uni-watch on some days. Not every day, but enough on days when, I guess, some video ad is running on the page. I check Activity Monitor and kill the sucker. Then things run smoothly. It may be happening on the ESPN page, but killing Flash blocks vids that are part of the story. I don’t know what you’d do similarly on a PC. And I have no problem in other browsers – I’m just like Safari as my main one. Glutton for pain, I guess.
@Mike — think you may want replace “moonlight” with a different verb, it implies, unless I’m mistaken, that Rice played for more then one NBA team simultaneously.
You’re right – I cleaned that up.
THAN, not then, says the guy making quibling grammatical corrections.
I try and stay away from social commentary, but this is sports-related (Australian rules football) and (somewhat) uniform-related (the child was dressing up as his favorite footy player), so I wanted to bring attention to it because this is becoming a huge issue these days and people who attack others on social media for every little thing they deem offensive seem reluctant to see outside the box and realize that at times they are doing more harm than good. The player who was idolized by the child in this instance, Nic Naitanui, responded, “our children should be nurtured, not tortured…”
In Perth, Australia, a young, “pasty white” boy, with assistance from his mother, darkened his skin and dressed up as his footy idol, AFL West Coast Eagles ruck, Nic Naitanui, who is of Fijian Indian background. The BBC reports that at least one minority mother in Australia understands that SJWs calling people “racist” are using a “double standard” because no one minded when she used white face on her Aboriginal daughter for a school event.
Herald Sun report says “Anti-racism, once a noble cause, has instead become a licence to humiliate even children” and “Is this not exactly how we’d wish our children to be: so far from despising a darker skin colour that they’d wish to share it to be closer to someone they admire?”
That little boy who only wanted to honor his idol, Nic Nat, is now too traumatized by SJWs to go to school and the family are too scared to leave their home.
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Wow! Only 17 comments as of 3:45 EDT. Are people growing weary/bored with all the constant college uni changes (yet again this year)?
CFB ain’t my thing so *I* don’t give a flying fish about it, but I’d’ve thought there’d be a lot more chatter today.
???
Here’s the thing for me: College football markets itself on the basis of tradition and heritage. Rivalries dating to the Grant administration! Trophies older than dirt! Legacies of fan loyalty passed down across the centuries! And so on.
But if the college game is even a little tiny bit about heritage and tradition and respect and all that, then the annual uni preview would consist of little more than, “Once again, your team will look just like it did when you first watched games on your grandpop’s knee.” College football can be about novelty and flash and pizzazz and disruption, or it can be about heritage and tradition and respect and continuity. The uniform thing reveals the true heart and values of the sport, and they’re not what college football says they are. Which is fine, college football is allowed to have whatever values it want. It’s the tradition and heritage angle that would interest me in the sport, if they were true. The kind of uni preview Paul has to write perfectly explains why I feel no interest whatsoever in watching the games, except maybe Army-Navy, where the tradition and heritage are actually real even though both are now donning clown suits like everyone else for the game.
I have to admit, I really like Tulane’s new “angry wave” logo. That thing is so cool!