Football 101-II: The Uniform

Chicago Cardinals

The Cardinals are unveiling a new logo and uniform for the 2005 season, so let’s take a look into the history of football uniforms and equipment.

The legendary first game of American Football, played between Princeton and Rutgers in 1869 had only one piece of equipment—the ball. This account from journalist Allison Danzig:

“(The players) merely laid aside their hats, coats, and vests. Neither team was in uniform, although some Rutgers players wore scarlet stocking caps.”

The first recognized mention of any type of uniform to distinguish two teams is said to have been in 1874 when Harvard played McGill University of Montreal.

The Harvard side wore matching sweaters with handkerchiefs wrapped around their heads, while the McGill squad wore white trousers with striped jerseys.

The game of football was widely popular among colleges across the nation, while still only regarded as a ‘club’ sport in other venues, as there was no ‘professional’ game per se.

The college and club games, the latter among neighborhood athletic groups, were loosely officiated and the combatants often resorted in questionable tactics to win the game, which resulted in an astounding 19 deaths and 149 major injuries in 1905.

Alarmed by the public outcry of such reports, President Theodore Roosevelt threatened to ban the game unless major rules changed were adopted to make the game safer at all levels. The result was the establishment of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, later to become the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Specific rules were adopted to increase the safety of the participants, and the early development of a football uniform began to take shape.

The first pants and jerseys were made from canvas in the late 1800s. The pants were knee-length, loose and heavy. The top was usually long-sleeved as a shirt or jacket that was secured by laces in the front. Understandably, such a uniform became a nuisance after a long game in the hot, sweaty sun … or worse, soaked and heavy after playing in the rain or snow.

Logos and stripes on jerseys first appeared in 1876 when Princeton players wore a “P” on their sweaters, and jersey numbers made their debut roughly 30 years later in 1905.

The early 1900s saw cotton replace canvas, allowing for more freedom of movement, not to mention a measure of cleanliness. In 1906, Spalding offered football pants with a strip of cane sewn into the front of the thigh, and the evolution of football padding had begun. Later pant offerings included several pockets for pads on the thigh, hip, knee, and back.

The first manufacturer of athletic equipment on a national basis was A.G. Spalding & Company Sporting Goods in the early 1900s. In addition to matching jerseys and pants, players also began to wear shin guards and shoulder pads for protection.

Football jerseys at one time included a canvas vest worn over a cotton or wool sweater. Eventually the canvas vest was abandoned, but long-sleeved jerseys were the norm through the 1950s. Synthetic fabrics and a mesh-type jersey were later introduced, one benefit being their lighter weight and versatility.

Though long overdue, in 1943 the NFL mandated players to wear some sort of protective head gear, which were usually made of leather and very little padding. Plastic helmets first came on the scene about the same time, and though initially banned in 1948, returned to become accepted in 1949 and have become standardized to this day.

Any outfit is not complete without the proper shoes, and football’s first ‘cleats’ were high-top leather baseball shoes with leather laid over sharp metal cleats on the sole. The low-cut version became popular in the 1940s as cleats were later fashioned out of nylon and rubber to ensure a measure of safety and adapt to both natural grass and artificial playing surfaces.

The NFL standardized a numbering system in 1952 which is basically the same to this day: 1-19 for kickers and quarterbacks, 20-49 for running backs and defensive backs, 50-59 for linebackers, 60-79 for linemen, 80-89 for receivers. Today’s system has been relaxed somewhat to allow for receivers to wear numbers in the teens and with the increase of roster sizes, jerseys in the 90s are used for defensive linemen and linebackers as well.

And in 1970, players’ names appeared regularly on the backs of their jerseys.

Today’s NFL uniforms, like the ones the Cardinals will debut this fall, are a combination of state-of-the-art synthetic fabrics and space-age plastics. The Cardinals new uniform this year features a jersey made of a high-performance nylon-lycra combination, complete with a special mesh weave to allow for more ventilation while maintaining shape and strength. The pants as well, are of a light-weight fabric, and the requisite socks and undergarments a mere fraction of their predecessors from the early days of professional football. Today’s helmets are high-impact resistant and aerodynamically designed, along with uniform advancements reflecting the need to go “higher, faster, and farther.”

Nylon, fiberglass, synthetic polymers—a far cry from the canvas and leather centuries ago.

Greg Gladysiewski, Arizona Cardinals Football Club

This article was taken from www.azcardinals.com.  All rights reserved.