FSU gets it right (uniforms that is, not logo)

by Travis Normand

Read:  FSU puts rush order on fixing uniforms, helmets.  by Ben Jones and Ira Schoffel of Warchant.com.  Sept. 8, 2014.

Apparently, Seminole fans were not happy with the new uniforms that FSU wore on August 30 during their season opener against Oklahoma State.  While negative fan reaction to a change in “tradition” is nothing new, what is refreshing is that the administration at FSU is apparently working to get things fixed.

Less than one week after Florida State’s new football uniforms debuted with a thud in the Seminoles’ season opener at Dallas, the university’s athletics department announced on Friday that it was taking the redesign back to the drawing board.

“Saturday night at AT&T Stadium was the first opportunity we had to see the color of our helmets and facemasks under stadium and broadcast television lights,” FSU stated in a press release. “The shades of both the Garnet facemasks and the Gold of our football helmets did not accurately represent those of our tradition-rich past.”

Read more HERE [Warchant.com]

The sad thing about this story is that this is actual news.  In my experience, when a change in tradition gets rejected by a fan base, the school making the change spends more time trying to convince the fan base that they need to accept the change as inevitable (as opposed to correcting it).  So, the fact that FSU is willing to start over with their uniform design, in order to get it right, is very refreshing.

On the other hand, before I give FSU too much credit, I should point out that they have yet to correct their new logo amidst plenty of negative fan reaction.  While they seem to be handling the uniform correctly, they are apparently sticking with the new logo despite the fan base’s lack of approval.

Read more about the logo controversy:

John Antonio, Designer of Clemson Tiger Paw, Dies

by Travis Normand

John Antonio, 83, the designer of Clemson’s Tiger Paw logo, died Thursday, May 30 in Greenville after a long bout with cancer.

The native of Greenville, SC designed the logo in the spring of 1970 and it was introduced at six separate press conferences around the state of South Carolina, Charlotte and Atlanta, by Head Football Coach Hootie Ingram, Head Basketball Coach Tates Locke, All-ACC running back Ray Yauger and University Vice President Wright Bryan, on July 21, 1970.

For more: See the official press release from Clemson University, HERE.

See John Antonio’s Wikipedia page, HERE.

Clemson was apparently the first American football team to use a tiger paw logo on its helmet.*  Click HERE to listen to the June 5th, 2013 ESPNU College Football Podcast about how and why John Antonio developed the tiger paw logo.

*Note: Other teams (such as the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League) had used animal paw print logos prior to John Antonio’s design at Clemson.  One listener of the ESPNU College Football Podcast wrote in to the June 19, 2013 show and said that the BC Lions had paw print logos as early as the 1962-63 season.  For this reason, Clemson is credited as the first American football team to use such a logo.  

Is Disney stealing Oregon’s “look”?

Oregon Donald Duck - 16Kby Travis Normand

One of the reasons I enjoy college football so much is that any given game is so much more than just a random match-up.  The history behind each program elevates any possible game from just another match-up to a potential Super Bowl.

In other words, when it comes to college football, a game is more than two football teams playing against each other.  A Saturday in the fall represents a match-up of ideologies, cultures, histories, and entire schools.  The outcome of the game will determine which side is “right,” and which side is “wrong.”

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