The fighting Gonads of Ball State

As you may have noticed we're freaks for details around here. One logo change that has developed into a trend over the past few years is making your teams mascot slightly meaner, slightly angrier looking. My first real notice of it years ago was the Bills changing from the static cud chewing, standing Buffalo to the streaking ton of buffalo meat horn bone and sinew that we know and love today. The Falcon is now more swept wing than just a few years ago, the Eagle more threatening etc, etc. My personal favorite is the redesign that consists of little more than changing the angle of attack on the eyebrow of the mascot to indicate more anger or determination.
First it was the slightly angrier Cardinal and now its the slightly angrier Dolphin. Unfortunately in their first year of switching from the happy flipper/Snowflake model to the angry attack mode aquatic mammal, they proceeded to go out and have one of the most horrific seasons in franchise history. Apparently their opponents were less than intimidated by flipper having a bad day and threatening to take it out on someone. The Cardinals? Well God bless 'em, I wish 'em well but they've always just been the Cardinals and even though they often look like they're on the verge of doing something, their bird in a snit also failed to intimidate.
Still I just love the idea that by increasing the angle of attack on the eyebrow of the animal, one increases ones chance of winning. Someone should send a memo to the association of league logo designers reminding them that the Browns had an ungodly decade long streak of dominating the leaugue somewhere in or around the 50's and did it with no mascot or logo at all. And while they're at it they could point out the Steelers dominance of the 70' was accomplished with one side of their helmet blank and the other sporting a non angry eyed semi corpoate logo on the other and no mascot at all. I'm just saying. Detroit should perhaps consider some change of their Lion logo. Perhaps the addition of an angry eye might help them... or maybe a streaking lion. How about a streaking Lion about to sink its teeth into the ass of a Gazelle? God knows the pose that's somewhere between the one on the Lowenbrau label and the "just escaped from the enclosure and about to disembowel a zookeeper" pose, hasn't done anything for them... ever. The Chargers have never won a Super Bowl but they won AFC championships and have a winning tradition and they're named after electricity. You don't argue with it. It works. I'm not a fan of they're recent redesign but their uniforms used to rock. Thankfully I think we don't ever have to worry about them trying to add an angry eye to the bolt.
Seahawks, Ravens, angry eye. Panthers, Broncos, Jaguars, angry eyes. Raiders... one eye and an eye patch. Bucs... empty eye socket. I love the Redskins uniform but if you look real close at the Redskin of the logo he has the sad eye of that crying roadside litter lamenting Indian from the old commercial. Him, I would actually recommend some kind of update for. They should go with Geronimo or Crazy horse or some Redskin who actually did instil some fear in opponents. Now there's a group of guys who had a reason to have an angry eye! Ram, Viking, Panther, all angry eyes. The Patriot is something of an exception looking more stoic than angry. I salute their refusing to jump on the irritated ocular bandwagon.
Which brings me back to my title. One day while vegging on the couch watching TV with Johnny O we heard a college score from a game involving Ball State. Doing our usual Beavis and Butthead riffing we began to wonder what kind of mascot ball state might have. We eventually settled on the Fighting Gonads. Not satisfied with the excellent name we began to envision the helmet side logo and it seemed perfect that the gonad is shaped just like a prolate spheroid... or football. So we sketched out a helmet complete with side logo gonad and trailing squiggly vas deferens tube. Then we modified the vas deferens stretching it out a bit and adding motion lines to make it a streaking gonad.
It still seemed to be missing something so we gave it an eye to add some personality. Of course we laughed like hyenas throughout the whole process but still it didn't feel finished. After the latest round of laughter subsided we sighed and sat back. Then in a moment of inspired genius that presaged the helmet designers of today John leaned forward without a word and with one stroke of his pencil added ... yep, you guessed it... the angry eyebrow. We exploded in laughter, tears rolling down our cheeks till our faces hurt and till the day I die I'll never hear a score involving that college without seeing the image of the Fighting Gonad of Ball state.... and his angry eyebrow.
Uniform designers around the league take note. Johnny O and I are available for free lance work.

Duke 2008

Too gaudy, don't you think? Give me the one with the Wilson gold lettering and the tastefull NFL on the other panel anyday.

Update on game ball logo

Well, that was a short mystery. I went to the Wilson website and the new logo is on the new ball. Not only that but Wilson is jumping on the branding overkill bandwagon, stamping tiny W's into the pebble grain. Sheesh.
Check it out for yourself
http://www.wilson.com/wilson/football/balls.jsp?CONTENT<>cnt_id=10134198673972134&FOLDER<>folder_id=2534374302755750

New logo on game balls?

I was absentmindedly looking at my new Duke which was sitting on my piano due to the chaos in my apt. which is being painted. Suddenly the proverbial light bulb went on... another pointless detail to discuss !
I think we've all noticed the re-design of the NFL logo. Now comes the question. Is the new logo on this years game balls? I put this question to our vast readership of Stiener and Chris from Philly.
If I get a break from my 3 week old kid puking on my shoulder I'll check out the Wilson website for clues. More on this breaking story later ; )

Cutback

Ok I'm reversing field here. Oh, what the hell, lets call it wahat it is, a total flip flop. After some input from Stiener and reading comments from the big green message board, I have to admit something. Even though I love sock stripes, something about the Jets white uni this week disturbed me. Just got a feeling of "too much stripes". After thinking about that uni with a solid green sock I could imagine that would actually be better. The sock stripes would work better if and when they use the green pants.
Stiener also made a point that was echoed by some others about the black shoes with that uniform. Gotta agree on that point as well even though it didn't strike me at first. God damn you guys are good.

Charlie Brown lives !

I was perusing some of the photo galleries on NFL dot com the other day and it struck me. It was a gallery of players from the 60’s and 70’s. I forget the theme but there was something almost all of the players pictured had in common: The spikes. The gridiron footwear of the day was notable by the white collar or belt or whatever the hell you’d call it around the opening of the shoe. It was such a cool look and it made me wonder why or when it faded away. I can’t recall any other sport having footwear sporting that look. That distinctive feature, to me then and now, just says “football”. Simple, macho, functional, and just a perfect match to the any uniform look as well as the game. In just this one instance, and to a much lesser degree I’m sure, I think I can understand chicks and their relationship to shoes. There’s a little man love there.I recently purchased a square toed kicking shoe from one of the online kicking sites and I’m thrilled with it. I only get out to the field once a month or so to kick a few but it’s a vast improvement over the black construction boot I’d been using. I used a grinder to make the front of that more or less square but the real deal is well… the real deal. It’s plain black, the only marking being the “Strider” brand name in white at the top of the long tongue but you don’t even really see that as its long and made to fold over when in use. It’s cool in a simple Mark Mosely, Jerry Kramer kind of way but after looking at the old shoe pictures, I know I’m going to have to paint an imitation white collar around the opening of the shoe.I started going out to kick a few years back because all my football friends are so old and lazy that while I can get them to show up to watch a game and stuff their faces with boatloads of artery clogging snack foods it’s almost impossible to get them to go out and throw the ball around. So I had to find something football related I could do alone. And kicking dovetailed nicely with my other obsession in that it puts my collection of footballs to some practical use. I tried soccer style but I’m from a generation that didn’t grow up with soccer and when I tried my knee joint got loose so I decided to go with throwback Tom Dempsey technique. Only without the stump foot and steel plate.What I hadn’t anticipated was the raw joy. No I’m not talking about making a 47-yarder. I can’t do that. Making shorter ones is fun for sure but I’m not talking about that either. Allow me to explain. My friend Doug is a sports fanatic. He’s also a hermit and is almost impossible to get him out of his house. Crowbars, threats, promises of hookers and booze have all been tried to no avail. However he will inexplicably show up once in a blue at the field when I tell him I’m going out to kick a few. The field we kick at is the only place in town with goalposts but it’s in a bit of a valley with poor drainage so more often than not the field is more like a swamp. This is ok by me since mud and dirt is a favored part of the whole nostalgic experience. About a week ago Doug defied the Vegas odds-makers by leaving his apartment and showing up at the field. My heart was warmed when he arrived sporting his latest Jersey which he proudly showed off to me. It was a Staubach jersey from Roger’s college days at the Naval academy. Authentic, top of the line, beautiful in every detail. I was both happy for him, thrilled at the rarity and insanely jealous. I was a Cowboy fan during the Staubach era and loved Roger the Dodger as much as I loved scrambling Viking/Giant, Fran Tarkenton. The scramblers were my favorites. Any way we got down to business and I put the first kick through the uprights warming up from extra point distance. Doug claimed he could hear a more distinctive thud from the power of my fancy new kicking shoe. I was duly proud. He then lined up on the swampy turf, focused and started his approach. He then proceeded to pull the most beautiful, form perfect Charlie Brown you ever saw. There was no Lucy yanking the ball away and the kick may even have been good but I can’t remember because I was doubled over in laughter a nanosecond after watching his plant foot slip, then seeing him hang in the air perfectly horizontal for a fraction of a second before slamming into the swampy mud and grass with a big wet thud. I saw how he tried in vain to hold his head out of the mud and how it snapped back coming to rest an inch deep in the muck. I couldn’t stop laughing and it only got worse when he struggled to his feet and I saw how the entire back of his beautiful new jersey and the back of his hat were covered in mud. I’ve recounted the tale a dozen times but even now I’m laughing again just picturing it. This is the unexpected raw joy I’m talking about. If you recall my first column about how all real men love violence you’ll agree that this was just a real bonus to a day out at the field. Incredibly, he did the same thing a few months ago but as good as that was, he didn’t have a fancy, squeaky clean, brand new jersey on to make it a peak viewing experience for yours truly. To his credit he insisted we check out the other end of the field and it was indeed less muddy and he did manage to play through his pain and continue kicking for the next forty five minutes. He even posed for a picture with me pointing at his muddy back. Ahhh,… good times.

Anywhooo, back to the old shoes. Research is definitely in order. First, what is the name of that feature? My long and extensive research* into the field of football fashion has taught me new words such as “gusset” and “the double panel look” and I just know there’s some weird name for this…. thing. Second, who made the shoe? Seems to me that when a team sports a throwback uniform from that era it would be a nice detail touch to include the coolest most sport specific spike ever to grace a field of play. Those photo galleries are a godsend. The archives of the league just amaze me and make me thankful that these pictures finally have an outlet for the unwashed fashion-history hungry masses of which I am proud to be among. What’s that? Spotted or suspect more improper grammar? Fuck you, this is a man site. We don’t do grammar here. And yes I am going to work that line into every column. I just like saying it.The other thing that struck me was the poses these players would assume for the bubble gum card pics or maybe they were even official team pics. I wouldn’t be surprised if these shots were used for game programs. I wish I could see how they did some of those. The hiesman types I could imagine, but some of the others I can’t. I would dearly love to see video footage of the photo sessions. This must have been a situation ripe for laughter and goofing around. Hell even the rag tag collection of drunks I call friends inevitably have a few laughs every year at the paper football tournament trying to recreate the poses. It’s one of those things that never stops being funny no matter how many times you pull it out of the old comedic bag of tricks. Kind of like “Me love you long time” or “Me so horny” See, I can’t even type those phrases without smiling. It’s as dependable a reflex as the old little rubber hammer to the patella tendon.I’ve been told by the fashion commission that a trampoline was used in some of these sessions and that only reinforces my beliefs that these photo shoots must have been more fun than listening to Shannon Sharpe give his commentary with that Cosby kid voice while everyone else on the set struggles to keep a straight face. Now can you imagine how funny a bloopers outtake reel of the trampoline pose attempts gone wrong would be? If anyone out there has any more information on these topics or knows anyone involved with them please forward them to us here and football fashion command central and we will have soon have teams of researchers working around the clock to bring you even more pointless but hopefully entertaining trivia on the subjects. Ken
P.S. Full disclosure *(by long and extensive research I mean listening to Rich and then asking him “What the hell does that word mean?” or (pointing) “What do you call this?”)

Chris throws flag

Got the following e mail from a reader named Chris.


I know you guys are giants fans...but i guess you're not even > including the eagles? - haha- weak.

I replied:

Right you are my friend ! ... I mean not about dissin' the Eagles, that was a mistake by my web designer and I only noticed it a few days ago. Rich is the Giant fan. Im a Jets fan but have one of my fondest memories of a footall fight way in the upper deck of Veteran stadium back in the day. If you followed the link on the top of the power rankings you would have seen the most recent breakdown of the NFC east which does include the Eagles All apologies. I'll get right on fixing it ;)
Ken

Wouldn't you know it... the first guy to visit the site spots the one mistake in 8 pages of content. Ok he wasn't the first but you know what I mean. But he's right. I should have spotted that omission earlier. And I have to admit that now I owe you Chris, you reminded me of the fiasco at Veterans stadium on a Giants/Eagles monday night long ago... now I have material for another column ; )
>

I feel like Steve Martin in The Jerk "I've been published!"

Omigod, omigod, omigawd !!! We're jumping up an down and waving our arms back and forth, hands flapping on limp wrists like teenage valley girls over here.... We got mentioned on Uniwatch!
For anyone not in the know, Paul Lukas' Uniwatch is the big Kahuna on uniform detail obsession and Paul his own bad self is Yoda, the big cheese, the head honcho, the HMIC, the Grand Poohbah, El Presidente, big Chief uni-man (anyone recognize this Robert Stack routine from "Airplane" yet.... ? )
I sent an email to Paul and considering the amount of information he processes and presents on a daily basis, I figured him to be pretty busy and didn't really expect to hear from him soon.
Much to my surprise and delight I received a brief but friendly and encouraging reply to my request to link to his site in short order.
This was pretty fun for us just having started our own little project but then today I was reading the latest on Uniwatch and saw he actually had put a mention with a link in the latest post and suddenly I felt like "Damn... someone might actually follow that link and look at the site... is it ready? is there enough stuff? will the links work right? will they get the joke?
There's so much stuff we think is funny that we haven't gotten up yet...
We find ourselves apprehensive but want to post a big public thanks to Paul for the mention and hope we won't disapoint the odd one or two of his legions of followers that might actually check out our site. (if they have any interest our twisted take on the little niche of the universe Uniwatch covers so well)
Big thanks Paul ; )