Collier: Uniform changes by design
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Penn State's original colors for the football uniforms were pink and black (don't ask), but the pink soon faded to white on the sunny rural plains of Centre County, making the rows for calisthenics look like some kind of primitive bar code, so they changed the colors to blue and white.
Since then, virtually nothing has changed visually since Joe Paterno first coached his Lions in the opener at Christians.
Oh, like you could resist.
This is marginally relevant today because PSU recently revealed a planned change in the uniforms, a change so slight and so retro to its traditional minimalist look that 90 percent of its fans would not have noticed had this news not leaked into cyberspace. Once there, of course, everyone got mad about it, which is pretty clearly what cyberspace is actually for.
The blue home jersey will no longer have white trim at the collar and the end of the sleeves, and the all-white road uniform favored by Penn State (and most of America's registered nurses from roughly 1930 through 1975), will no longer be graced by the midnight blue trim, either.
The faculty at Penn State has long instructed that change is good, as well as inevitable, except when it comes to coaches, but changes to the football uniform always have been highly suspect and essentially unwelcome. For a time during the mid-to-late 20th century, players' numbers appeared on the sides of the milk white helmet, but that didn't last. For three hours Jan. 1, 1979, Penn State wore white adidas shoes. When they lost the Sugar Bowl and the national championship to Alabama that day, they returned to their basic black footwear never to waver. But that lesson was soon forgotten. After winning two national championships in five years through the mid '80s, the now doomed trim was attached to the jerseys in 1987. Penn State hasn't won the national title since.
But fear not alums; when your Nittany Lions open in September against Sitting Duck State, no one will have any trouble identifying the home team, which will look almost identical to the way it has looked since the great pink fade of the late 19th century.
This isn't true everywhere, however, as uniform politics are as hot or hotter in this offseason as the seat Jim Tressel is sitting on at Ohio State. Way out west, Nike has upset the fashion table at Arizona State with new uniforms that trash the school's maroon-and-gold tradition. Black is the new maroon, and Sparky the impish Sun Devil, who appeared on the helmets lo these many years, has been sent straight to the impish Sun Devil underworld. The new helmet logo is a "trident" (just say it's a pitchfork, will ya?) favored by many of your more notorious urban gangs across this great country.
First Published May 5, 2011 12:00 am
