Photo: Jim Daves/UVa Media Relations

One of the first things I ever did on the Internet was go to virginiasports.com and print off page after page of information about UVA baseball. The site had news, game recaps, an updated schedule, and the team roster – all of which was difficult to keep up with at the time if you didn’t live in Charlottesville. The one frustrating part was that it was mostly text-based so there were very few pictures. Therefore, even with that significant increase in the availability of information, keeping tabs on the uniforms of various Virginia teams was limited to the rare times games were on TV (easier for football and basketball, but tougher for non-revenue sports). And the late-1990s was an interesting time in terms of the visual identities of UVA teams. Some used the now-omnipresent V-Sabre, originally introduced to the football team’s helmet in 1994, while others used the familiar block-V-with-Virginia logo or some other V variation. Baseball had its own take on it with a block-V hat logo that was used as recently as 2004, Brian O’Connor’s first season as coach. The following season and ever since, the team has used the V-Sabre logo on its hat in step with the entire athletic program’s more uniform adoption of it.

While we’ve come a long way from those early years on the UVA athletics website and photos are more prevalent, it’s still tough to keep track of which uniforms the Hoos use for each game without being there. College baseball teams tend to have a ton of uniform combinations. The number of games played is significantly more than in other sports and most weekends include a series with three games on consecutive days. Having multiple uniform combinations helps break up the monotony of wearing the same thing for every game. Virginia appears to have used three major combinations this season: the solid white look in the feature photo, a navy jersey with white pinstriped pants, and an orange jersey with solid white pants. Virginia has two hats, both with the V-Sabre: solid navy worn with the navy jersey and navy with an orange brim worn with the orange jersey and the home whites. In addition to the two main hats, Virginia got a little festive earlier in the year and wore green hats for its game on St. Patrick’s Day. The solid white is a classic home look and I really like the “Virginia” lettering, which appears to have been inspired by my favorite MLB team. The navy and orange jerseys feature an identical script “Virginia” (which I also like) across the chest and one-stripe piping down the front placket and around the sleeves. For the navy jersey this meshes fine with the pinstriped pants, but the one-stripe piping on the orange jersey clashes with the three-stripe piping of the solid white pants (also used for the home white uniform). I think both uniforms would look better with white pants with a single navy stripe down the sides.

While they have worn these three uniforms predominantly this season, there have been a number of additional designs used during O’Connor’s tenure at UVA that may have appeared in games this year. One of the regular sets used last season and my favorite recent jersey is the solid navy version with “Virginia” in orange with white trim. It features the Red Sox font again, which dresses up the solid navy base enough to make it clean without being plain. This jersey appears to have been worn mostly with pinstriped pants, but it looks like in this photo solid white pants may have been used on occasion or in the past, which I greatly prefer.

Here’s an unexhaustive rundown of other uniforms from within the last decade:

• Solid white jersey with a slightly different “Virginia” wordmark and solid white pants with one-stripe navy piping (If link doesn’t work initially, click on the address bar then hit Enter).
• White pinstriped jersey with script “Cavaliers” wordmark. I was never a big fan of these pinstripes – they’re kind of bland and I prefer to see the school name to the team nickname on college uniforms – so I wasn’t sad to see that they weren’t used this season.
• Solid navy jersey with script “Cavaliers” wordmark, solid white pants with one-stripe navy piping, and orange hats, which I wasn’t a big fan of.
• Solid orange jersey with script “Cavaliers” wordmark, solid white pants with one-stripe navy piping, and orange socks, which are a bit too garish for my liking.
• Navy jersey with orange armpits and script “Virginia” wordmark (as on current navy and orange jerseys) with solid white pants with one-stripe navy piping. I wasn’t a big fan of the armpit design with piping down the sleeves, just seemed to be a bit much. I tend to prefer more traditional baseball uniform styles.
• Navy jersey with orange armpits and script “Cavaliers” wordmark.
• Orange jersey with navy armpits and script “Cavaliers” wordmark (ditto on the orange socks).
• White hats with navy jerseys and solid white pants.
• White vests with block “Virginia” lettering.
• White vests with a different script “Virginia” wordmark with tail. This look is from around 2001 and, based on the few games I caught in the late-1990s, this “Virginia” script with the tail is a good indication of what the team wore around that time. Also, it’s kind of hard to see, but if you look closely the helmet logo features the V from the V-Sabre but without the sabres. This logo never appeared on the team’s hats, however.

After seeing all of those different uniform combinations, one thing you might have noticed is the lack of gray pants. Traditional baseball protocol calls for the home team to wear white uniforms and the road team to wear gray (though some use a different color). While colored alternate jerseys are increasingly used in MLB games, one team always has white pants and the other has gray (or sand) – regardless of whether one or both teams are wearing colored jerseys. In the college game, however, it is not uncommon to have both teams wear white pants with one wearing white jerseys and the other a colored one. While in lower leagues one might expect teams to have fewer uniform options and therefore resort to always wearing white pants, but it seems a little odd for a college team like UVA to have so many different jerseys without gray pants.

There are a number of other interesting aspects of the UVA baseball visual identity. The baseball squad is one of the few that has yet to use a variation similar to this “Virginia” wordmark which has been adopted by virtually every other University team. I’m torn since I like the lettering and script that the baseball team has now, plus it distinguishes it from the school’s other sports, but I think the standard “Virginia” wordmark would also look good on a baseball jersey. Another interesting aspect is that Virginia appears to use a navy helmet with orange brim no matter what the rest of the uniform or hat being used (recall that the team wears a solid navy hat with the navy jersey when looking at that photo). Finally, I really like the use of the “Hoos” wordmark on the back of the hats and on the left sleeve of the jersey.

Hopefully now you’ll know what to expect the Hoos to wear as they make their way back to Omaha. Wahoowa!

Photo: Orlin Wagner/AP/via ESPN

We’ve talked about the topic of powder blue baseball uniforms before in this column as one of the few instances of a team replacing the standard gray jerseys and pants on the road. Eleven MLB teams used powder blue road uniforms for varying lengths of time mostly in the 1970′s and 80′s. The Royals were one of those teams, rocking the powder blues for nineteen years and becoming one of the last two teams to drop it after the 1991 season (The other was the Montreal Expos). They were also one of the teams that made it look good. I think this has to do with the royal blue hats that played really well off the lighter shade of blue of the jerseys and pants. Last season, Kansas City introduced a powder blue alternate jersey (without matching pants) as a throwback-inspired tribute to their classic look. I really liked this as well, especially the way the white numbers and player names pop off the front and back of the jersey and the overall look with royal blue socks showing.

But the Royals have taken it to another level with the new powder blue hat for 2010 to go with the alternate jersey and shown in the feature photo. As far as I can tell, this is the first instance of a powder blue base color (crown or bill) for an official MLB hat. When I first saw it on its own, I actually said out loud, “That’s a sweet hat.” While I still think it looks great independent of the rest of the uniform, when paired with the powder blue jersey, it’s a bit too much in my opinion. I think the Royals would be better off sticking with their regular royal blue hat with the powder blue jersey as they did last year (and still do on offense since the team just uses its regular helmets with the alternates). The problem is I don’t know that there’s another uniform combination that Kansas City has that the powder blue hat would work with either. Maybe the royal blue jersey, but there aren’t any powder blue elements on it to tie the two together. It seems that this solid hat just doesn’t have a place in the Royals uniform set right now.

Now, if you follow MLB uniforms closely, you may recall that the Tampa Bay Rays had light blue bills on their batting practice hats in 2009. You could argue that this is actually the first case of a powder blue base color on an MLB hat, but I would disagree because the Rays hats are technically light blue and I don’t consider BP hats as official game hats. Regardless, one of the Rays’ two BP hats this year takes it up a notch with a light blue crown and bill combination. The emergence of light blue (which has been used as an accent on their game hat since their redesign in 2008) for Tampa Bay is most evident in a light blue alternate jersey new for 2010. I think this one looks solid and that the darker navy works a little better with light blue than the Kansas City alternate combo of royal and powder.

The topic of powder or light blue jerseys in baseball wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the Toronto Blue Jays who wear a powder blue throwback to their 1979 season for Friday home games. (Toronto was also the first team to have a powder or light blue accent in their hat logo, though not for the entire crown or bill). The throwbacks were introduced last season and get props for a nearly-complete look (especially the hats), but lose points because of the fact that no one wears their pants up with late-70′s-era stirrups. A true throwback should replicate even the sock stylings of the time, but with players wearing “pajama pants” that drape over their cleats and being unwilling to change even on rare occasions, the overall look feels incomplete.

The fact that three teams wear powder or light blue jerseys after an absence of sixteen years could indicate a developing trend, similar to the black revolution across sports in the last fifteen or so years. While it might seem difficult for most teams to integrate powder blue into their uniforms, it didn’t stop some from trying in the past. It might just mean more teams wearing powder blue throwbacks for a single game, which – as long as they try to imitate the entire feel of the original – would be cool to see.

Photo: Politico.com

About a month ago, Indiana State wore throwbacks to the Larry Bird era. I’m pretty sure I had seen those jerseys prior to last January, but at the time I must not have thought much of the most obvious aspect of the jersey – the use of the Indiana state outline as the letter “I” in the wordmark. That’s amazing in retrospect since it’s such a unique design element that really jumps out at you (and ripe for a JOTW column topic). While the sheer number of sports, leagues, and teams – past and present – make it difficult to say anything definitive about sports uniform absolutes, this very well may be the only instance of a state outline as a letter. I’ve never seen it anywhere else and certainly not in the most popular and well-covered sports in this country.

Whenever a new uniform design is unveiled, I’m always interested to see if it has some element I’ve never seen before. But when you really think about it, a truly unique new uniform element is incredibly rare. To see a real sports uniform first, it’s a lot easier to go back in time rather than forward. Going back to Terry Haute, IN circa 1979 yields the incredibly rare case of using the shape of a state as a letter on a jersey. Granted, Indiana State was no stranger to bizarre uniform decisions, such as pairing plain jerseys with pinstriped shorts. But as I said, I can’t think of any other example of the state-outline-as-letter style, which was even immortalized on a Bird starting lineup figure (how sweet is that?!). Indiana State still uses the state outline as part of its logo, though sadly it no longer forms the letter “I” on their jerseys.

While the use of a state outline on a jersey is rare, its appearance in other areas of sports aesthetics is more widespread. Without leaving college basketball, one major example is the use of the state outline as part of the midcourt logo design. Some of the most storied college hoops programs employ this design, including North Carolina and Indiana (here’s an older version), for which it has become iconic. I think the state outline midcourt design is a really cool look, especially when it isn’t comically large (see the Texas schools below). The Big Twelve is a breeding ground for midcourt state outlines with three current schools sporting the design. Missouri used to have a simple outline, but recently has obscured it with the school’s tiger logo. In-state rivals Texas and Texas A&M (sublimated) have dueling state outline court designs, true to the notion that everything is bigger in Texas. The only other borderline current example I came across (bearing in mind that there are over 340 teams in Division I and I probably missed some) was Michigan State, which has two state outline logos on the court but not at midcourt

That rounds out the list of current state outline court designs (to the best of my knowledge), but it is not the complete compilation of historic examples as a number of schools used to have the design but don’t anymore. Tennessee is a recent convert, while Kansas replaced its state outline-flag combination design with a gigantic jayhawk when Bill Self took over in 2003. Ohio State and Oregon are other examples. One interesting case is Kentucky, which appears to have taken its 1977-78 team photo on a court with a midcourt state outline. However, those photos feature a brick wall in the background which probably indicates that it was taken at a practice facility – though it’s certainly possible that the practice court design mimicked the actual court design at Rupp Arena.* Without conclusive photographic evidence, it remains a mystery.

In addition to their appearances on college basketball courts, state outlines have also been part of logos for a number of professional sports franchises with at least one example from each of the four major U.S. leagues. In the MLB, the Minnesota Twins shake hands in front of the state outline, while the Texas Rangers used to have a couple of different state outline logos. In the NHL, state outlines appear on the secondary logos of three teams – the Tampa Bay Lightning (old logo too), the Phoenix Coyotes, and the Dallas Stars – though interestingly, none of them have an actual state in their name. (The New York Islanders’ logo does not technically qualify, but is worth mentioning because of the outline of Long Island in it). In the NBA, the Golden State Warriors used to have a very cool logo with the outline of California along the left side. Finally, in the NFL, the Dallas Texans (who later became the Kansas City Chiefs) had a couple of logos with the outline of Texas, including a very nice helmet design. And speaking of the Chiefs, they probably take the cake in state outline history by taking it up a notch and including the entire Midwest!

* Thanks to Ivan Reifman of the excellent Basketball Court Designs blog for pointing this out to me and for providing assistance in coming up with some state outline examples.

Photo: Icethetics.info

I watched the Super Bowl at a friend’s apartment on Sunday and during one of the commercial breaks (which were actually worth watching for the first time in recent years) his roommate mentioned the Olympics. When I told him I was excited for them, he said, “For what sport?” Without hesitation, I replied, “Hockey.”

I love international sports competitions like the Olympics and the World Cup because of the intense patriotism it brings out of the players and fans. The Olympics persuade me to watch sports I otherwise wouldn’t check out, so when they include sports that I actually do watch during the two years or so between Games, I catch that Olympic fever even more. Hockey is one such sport. My Olympic hockey fixation dates back to 2002 when I ended up watching a couple full days of games, one after the other regardless of the countries involved. I’m a sitting duck for this type of setup, like a television channel that doesn’t put commercials between the end of one show and the beginning of another so that you get sucked into watching something you weren’t originally planning to. Throw in the fact that 2002 saw the United States take home silver, marking the first US hockey medal since the Miracle on Ice and I was hooked. The 2006 Games didn’t go as well for the Americans, but I was as invested as I was four years before and now in 2010 I’m ready to go.

This might be obvious from my column archive, but I am also excited to see the jerseys that the countries will be wearing in the Olympic tournament. You can check out all of them here. As you can see, the United States will have three jerseys: white, navy, and retro-style white. Speaking as objectively as I can, I think Team USA is going to be one of the best-dressed teams in the field. Canada and Sweden are definitely on the medal stand with them, but the rest of the jerseys are too busy and “modernized” without adding anything to the uniform in my opinion. The United States went the opposite direction, scaling back the striping and extra embellishments. Whereas I could go on all day nitpicking some of the other teams’ sweaters, there’s really only a couple drawbacks for the Americans. For one, the sleeve stripes don’t wrap all the way around on either jersey which is an unfortunate trend in the NHL right now. The navy jerseys feature an ugly star on the shoulder as well as watermarked tribal graphics on the sleeves and back (more on that later). The retro is a nice touch, but it’s inexcusable to wear it with navy pants. Otherwise, the set is very solid.

In my column about the US’s World Baseball Classic jerseys last year, I mentioned how the battle for best USA wordmark was a toss-up between the baseball and hockey. That was originally one of my other gripes with these uniforms: the lack of the usual USA Hockey logo on the front of the jersey. I also included a link in that column to this jersey from the 2008 World Championship which, along with the accompanying white (on the right), is probably my favorite Team USA jersey. It turns out that I can’t blame USA Hockey for the crest’s absence in the Olympics as the team couldn’t use that logo anymore because of an IOC rule about not putting official team logos on the jersey (this was a huge deal for hockey-crazed Canada whose maple leaf logo had to be altered for the Games). The decision to go with a conservative, yet classic “USA” is a solid compromise given the circumstances.

Now about those watermark graphics. You probably didn’t notice them because they only appear on the lower back and sleeves of the jersey, but they are there. Nike seems to be adding this to everything it touches these days and I’m not a fan. One of its first appearances was on Team USA Basketball’s jerseys in the 2008 Olympics and then with Duke last season. Just last week, Texas, UCONN, and Syracuse all unveiled new jerseys with the watermark tribal graphics as well. It appears you have to be pretty close to make out the graphics, otherwise it just looks like a huge sweat spot on the back of the jersey. While the lingering question remains if spectators can’t see them then what’s the point of having them in the first place, I’m just glad that watermark graphics are not going to be very visible on the ice during games. All in all, the classic, clean look of the States definitely medals in aesthetics for my money. Hopefully the squad can equal that feat in the actual tournament too so we can hear the Star-Spangled Banner to close out the Games.

Photo: The Hockey News

In the last installment of JOTW we discussed abbreviated city names which have been appearing with increasing regularity on sports uniforms. This topic made me think of an even more prevalent style on jerseys throughout athletics: the use of a shortened version of team’s nickname – a “nicknickname” if you will. The Tampa Bay Lightning’s introduction last year of a blue third jersey with “Bolts” running diagonally down the chest (feature photo) really stuck out from the rest of the league’s alternates. Well, all but the Ottawa Senators, who unveiled their new thirds the day before Tampa Bay and featured a similar nicknickname style with “Sens” trending slightly upward across the jersey. The use of nicknicknames on hockey uniforms is definitely unique. At least “Sens” is short for the team’s official nickname. “Bolts” is more of a fan or media nickname that just doesn’t seem to make sense on one of the team’s actual jerseys.

Frankly, I don’t like them but I think it has less to do with the nicknicknames and more with the fact that they use wordmarks instead of team logos. Hockey is distinguished from other sports in that the front of the jersey has historically been reserved for a logo. There’s usually no city or nickname wordmarks, player numbers, or sponsor patches – just the team’s primary crest. So you can credit the two teams for doing something different, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s any kind of improvement. For example, I’ve long disliked the look the Anaheim Ducks came up with a few years ago. Instead of the lame wordmark, why not slap the webbed-D logo on the front and call it a day? In reality, the Lightning and Senators’ alternates probably aren’t as bad as the Thrashers and Stars “basketball” look with name and number on the front of jersey, but that doesn’t excuse them for missing the opportunity to feature a secondary logo on their new sweaters.

With all of that said, the New York Rangers’ jerseys are classic despite essentially featuring a word mark down diagonally down the front of the sweater. I like this look and even the jerseys it has inspired in other teams. But notice how each of the words in those pictures were on the long side. Tampa Bay was surely trying to capture the Rangers’ style, but I think “Bolts” is just too short to do the diagonal treatment justice. Part of the reason that I think the Rangers’ wordmark look is well-received and the Bolts and Sens jerseys might not be is that the Rangers have been wearing that sweater almost continually since the 1920s (when it really was a sweater). Sports uniforms that have been around for a long time gain acceptance because of their longevity and familiarity with fans. The use of nicknicknames on MLB and NBA uniforms has been around for decades and therefore has made fans mostly unaware and/or unfazed by it.

On the court, the Portland Trail Blazers go with the shorter “Blazers” on their jerseys and quite possibly have done that for the franchise’s entire existence (unfortunately, there is no comprehensive uniform history site for NBA teams). The Minnesota Timberwolves wore jerseys with “Wolves” across the chest from the team’s inception in 1989 until 1996 and then switched to the full nickname for more than a decade before going back to the nicknickname with their latest uniform set. In 2004, the Dallas Mavericks introduced a green alternate jersey with “Mavs” on it that is now blue but still features the nicknickname. The Cleveland Cavaliers have worn a number of uniforms with a “Cavs” wordmark (scroll to bottom), many of which are now worn seemingly every other game as throwbacks (probably to let LeBron mix it up with his headbands and footwear).

In baseball, the Oakland Athletics had worn various versions of a single “A” on their hats and jerseys going back to the franchise’s inception as the Philadelphia A’s in 1901. In 1970, the team (now in Oakland) switched to the nicknickname “A’s” on their jerseys and hats, which they still wear today. The nicknickname “Sox” for the Chicago White Sox first appeared on a jersey in 1911 and on a hat in 1917 – a style that carries on in the present. In 2001, Tampa Bay decided to go with just “Rays” on their jerseys despite the fact that the full team name was still “Devil Rays” at that point (it would be officially shortened to “Rays” in 2008). The Toronto Blue Jays have tried very hard to distance themselves from blue in recent years – both in their color scheme and in their nickname, which has been shorted to “Jays” on jerseys since a 2004 redesign. The Orioles have long been referred to as the O’s, officially adding the mark to their uniforms in 2005 with a hat (no doubt modeled after the A’s) that they have worn since then.

The one exception to the nicknickname love in baseball might be the Arizona Diamondbacks, who in 2007 went with the shortened “D-backs” mark on their home jerseys and were almost immediately ridiculed for it. I guess the built-up acceptance of nicknicknames in the sport only goes so far.

Photo: Issac Baldizon/NBAE via Getty Images

Call it a stretch, but there might be something to the idea that a team changing its uniforms, colors, or name can also change its fortunes. The Denver Broncos didn’t win a Super Bowl until they switched to ultra-modern uniforms in 1997. The Tampa Bay Rays had never even sniffed the playoffs until they dropped the “Devil” from their name, altered their look, and made it to the World Series. So maybe it shouldn’t have been a big surprise when the Atlanta Hawks redefined their colors and redesigned their uniforms in 2007 and made the playoffs two straight years after a decade of sitting at home. I really like the navy and red combo (which is surprisingly little-used in the NBA) and the side striping is definitely college-esque, but not overkill in my opinion. The red jerseys were an obvious step as alternates and the final result fits in somewhat with my personal belief that alternate jerseys should be a change of pace without being outlandish or ugly. While the Hawks’ red uniforms use the same template as the home and road sets, the “ATL” wordmark (also found on the home shorts) is a distinctive touch that brings up an interesting topic we have yet to address at JOTW: city abbreviations on uniforms.

The city abbreviation is a rather new occurrence on professional sports uniforms, but there are a few instances which leads me to believe that this is a style that we will see more of in the coming years. A quick definition for our purposes: the use of letters not solely at the beginning of a city name to abbreviate and identify the city. For example, “ATL” for Atlanta as in the feature photo. So by this definition, the use of initials for a multi-word city name like Kansas City with “KC”, such as on the Royals’ hats or the Chiefs’ helmets would not count. (Note: There are probably a ton of examples of the city/school abbreviation in college sports throughout the years, such as Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh, so let’s just consider professional teams for this column). The first instance of the city abbreviation on a pro uniform appears to be the Phoenix Suns who plastered a “PHX” wordmark on the team’s home shorts as a faux belt buckle when they introduced new uniforms for the 2000-2001 season. The Suns later debuted an orange alternate jersey with “PHX” across the chest in the 2003-2004 season. The Phoenix Coyotes ownership must have liked the move as the team added a new secondary log that featured “PHX” within the Arizona state outline and used it as a shoulder patch when they unveiled new uniforms for the 2003-2004 season. The Atlanta Hawks alternates were introduced at the beginning of this season and just a few months later the Florida Panthers unveiled a third uniform set that featured a new sun and city abbreviation logo on the helmets, shoulders, and pants.

There are a couple of offshoots of this phenomenon that reside in the gray area between city abbreviation (“ATL”) and city initials (“KC”). One such case is that of a multi-word city name where one of the words is abbreviated. The St. Louis Cardinals fall into this category with their stylized “STL” hat logo (no doubt, a classic) and the Oklahoma City NBA franchise qualify for the lifeless “OKC” logo that adorns their shorts (but could easily be replaced with this). (I know I said no colleges, but it must be noted that the University of Virginia checked into this group for two seasons in the early 1980s with these football helmets. I love the V-Sabre, but you’ve got to admit that those are pretty sweet as well). Another offshoot that I’m not sure whether to include is the case where a logo includes the first letter(s) of the city name and the first letter of the team nickname. It’s certainly a step beyond the “KC” city initial example since it includes the nickname initial and it does not appear that many teams have done it through the years. The most prominent example on a jersey is probably the New York Rangers’ Lady Liberty alternates from 1996-2007 (with one year featured in white). I really like that jersey, as it accomplishes the changeup criterion of an alternate while also including one of the city’s strongest symbols. Another example in this category is the New York Knicks “NYK” subway token logo which has appeared on the back of the jersey above the player’s name since 2002. Obviously, it’s going to take a much larger uniform overhaul to help the Knicks.

Photo: Noah Graham/Getty Images/Life.com

Covering sports uniforms is a lot more dynamic than one might think. I have written over 40 JOTW columns and I always seem to stumble upon updates or things I missed regarding the uniforms I have highlighted in them. In order to keep you completely informed on these topics, I’ve compiled a list of updates for previous columns. The switch from Fanatic to Wahoo Wire didn’t preserve the JOTW archives, but they are available on another site so I’ve linked to the column being addressed there followed by the update or other pertinent information. The featured photo depicts the San Jose Sharks’ third jersey set circa 2001-2007. It’s always been one of my favorite uniforms with the solid shark logo, awesome dorsal fin secondary mark on the shoulders and pants, and the way the teal and white pop off the solid black base. Enjoy the updates!

JOTW: The Best Players, Not the Best Uniforms
In this column, I talked about how the Pro Bowl uniform designs always look ridiculous because of seemingly ultra-modern aspirations that result in offbeat jersey templates. Well, the 2009 versions for the AFC and NFC were no different. I’m not a fan of the two-tone, bib look, and it’s interesting to note the star patterns integrated into the jersey fabric.

JOTW: Purple Raptor’s Majesty
I mentioned in this column that I liked how the raptor on the original Toronto jerseys had a unique “R” jersey that the team doesn’t actually wear, similar to how the dolphin in Miami’s football logo has an “M” helmet that doesn’t really exist. Well someone designed new logos for all of the NFL teams with animal mascots modeled after the Dolphins’ logo. Very cool!

JOTW: Update Edition
Yes, even the first update column has updates. In that article, I mentioned that while looking for documentation of NFL teams that wore blue pants for JOTW: A Blip for the Blue and Silver, I found out that the Denver Broncos wore orange pants for a year. I’ve finally come across a photo of the orange pants in game action.

JOTW: A Pink Memorial
After highlighting the pink jerseys being worn at NC State and other women’s college basketball teams, our own Virginia Cavaliers wore pink uniforms and shoes to promote breast cancer awareness.

JOTW: College Retro Stripes
This year, both Alabama and DePaul switched to uniforms without retro stripes (thanks to UniWatch for those comparison photos), but Penn State picked up some of the slack with a modern take on the style. The Nittany Lions actually wore those uni’s last season as well, but I was unaware and did not include them in that column. Also, college retro stripes are spreading to the gridiron where the Temple football team used a variation on their pants, possibly as a throwback to these uniforms from an undetermined year. I’m not sure they translate quite so well to the football field.

JOTW: Red and Black (Not White) All Over
I neglected to mention the Philadelphia Phillies in this column as a team that once wore dark pants in the major leagues. The Phils rocked an all-maroon look in 1974. One team I did reference was the Oakland Athletics, but I only linked to mannequin illustrations of their colorful uniforms throughout the 1970s. Here’s a more realistic depiction of their gold jerseys with gold pants.

JOTW: Oregon Featherweights
If you’re wondering what crazy combinations the Oregon football team wore this season, look no farther than the Ducktracker. You can click on each illustration to see an action shot from each game.

JOTW: Going Gray
I am sure to come across a number of other gray college basketball uniforms, but this is the first since my Seattle U article: the University of South Carolina-Upstate.

Photo: Eric Badeau / GoSeattleU.com

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been having trouble getting fully immersed in college basketball so far. I guess it just still feels like football season to me. The college game still has six (6!) undefeated teams and the BCS picture is cloudier than usual this late in the year. There are two conference championship games with major national championship implications and a de facto Big East title game that could also affect the BCS spots that are up for grabs. In the NFL, there are two undefeated teams and a one-loss squad at the top, about a fourth of the league is truly dismal, and the rest are lurking somewhere in between. It’s about as paritous (is that word?) as usual with five weeks to go.

My inability to switch gears is definitely not for lack of college hoops games, and good games at that. The early season invitational tournaments during ESPN’s “Feast Week” featured a number of major conference matchups as well as good mid-major teams showing what they can do given the chance to actually play bigger programs. While mid-major upsets over teams from the BCS conferences get the most press, a number of surprising results go unnoticed as they take place well beyond the collective periphery of many college basketball fans. Case in point: the owner of this week’s featured jersey, the Seattle University Redhawks. SU is in its first season at the Division I level since 1980 and currently plays as an independent school, so no conference and no chance at getting into the Big Dance. That hasn’t stopped the Redhawks from starting the year 5-3 with upset victories over Fresno State and Utah. In theory, all of their wins could be considered upsets, but when you’re beating teams from the WAC and the Mountain West as a first-year independent that’s especially noteworthy.

There are a couple of reasons the Redhawks’ jerseys caught my eye. The first was that they were gray (more on that later), but let’s start with the “SEATTLEU” word mark. Frankly, I’m not a fan. I’m not sure if everyone there calls it Seattle U or what, but the Seattle women’s basketball team doesn’t do it. And if they really feel the need to include the U, it why not go with SEATTLE U? That little space can go a long way. The school at least set Seattle and U apart by using two different colors. That’s more than can be said for Albany, er UAlbany, whose similar word mark issues I became familiar with from their 2007 clash with UVA in the NCAA Tournament first round. The UAlbany nickname seems to have been around for a while and is plastered all over the school’s website, apparel, and (most importantly) Wikipedia page, but it still makes it seem like the school name is pronounced “y’all-ba-knee” or “oool-ba-knee.” The SeattleU designation seems to be a more recent phenomenon (last year’s jerseys didn’t have the U) that the university is trying to get going, though it is used for the school’s website domain. A solid rebuttal to my dislike of the U with no space is mentioning any of the University of California schools who don’t include a space between the UC on their jerseys, but I’d argue that since the UC abbreviates two words and there’s a space between that and the school’s city name, it at least looks aesthetically better.

In addition to the word mark issue, the uniforms bear a striking resemblance to Syracuse’s uniforms using similar shorts striping accentuated by the fact both schools are SU’s. With Nike’s System of Dress taking over college basketball there are bound to be teams that share uniform templates, but when two teams already have similar logos (like Syracuse and Seattle) it might make sense to pick different designs.

Having said all that, you’ve got to give SeattleU props for going with gray uniforms at home. You don’t see teams rocking the gray all that often in college basketball, and often it’s only as an alternate. Georgetown is probably the most well-known example and a personal favorite, especially when players wear the mismatched gray t-shirt underneath reminiscent of prior players. Other recent examples include UCONN, Ohio State, UNLV (very subtle gray), Colorado (technically silver), and probably a few others that I am forgetting (there are, after all, over 340 teams in Division I). I’ve said before that I love when teams use underutilized colors, and gray on the hardwood definitely fits the bill. Gray tends to work with most color schemes and I especially like the way it can make white numerals pop off the jersey (check out the Seattle player in the background of the featured photo above as well). It tends to work best when it’s already a part of a school’s color scheme (cough Colorado cough), but it seems to have been recently added to Seattle’s look and it works so maybe the jury is still out on that one.

Regardless of your opinion of the jersey overall, you know it felt good for the Redhawks to do this with it after beating Fresno State and Utah. And maybe that’s all that really matters.

The NFL season has been blessed with a number of outstanding uniform matchups this season, thanks in no small part to the AFL 50^th Anniversary Throwback series. The Patriots-Titans (as the Oilers) throwbacks matchup might be the best of the year – and it was in the snow! Just outstanding. This must have been what they had in mind when they invented HD TVs. This Bills-Titans matchup is not too far behind and I thought Chargers-Raiders was great both in spite of and because of the fact that those uniforms are so close to what each team wears now.

To bring this back to reality, there will always be dud uniform matchups in the NFL, especially as long as the Bills, Bengals, Seahawks, Browns, and Vikings keep their current looks. And this column will serve as a reminder of just that. Call this installment “Jersey Matchup of the Week.” The Cleveland Browns are our first culprit. For a uniform set that is supposed to be classic and traditional, they are rather uninspiring. The plain orange helmets are played out and there’s a reason you have to search far and wide for other examples of brown-and-orange as a color combination. Unless I’m completely blanking on someone more obvious, I don’t think there’s another big four major sports team with that combo. The next most recognizable team is probably Bowling Green State University (despite the fact that green might have been a better choice for them).

The Browns might have been a likely candidate to make up half of a subpar uni-matchup. But the Bears? Chicago has a solid color-combo – not that I’m biased or anything – and some classic uniforms. The Bears usually has a solid home look with navy jerseys, but that changes when they trot out their bright orange alternates. These have been around for a while, but have failed to look any better with time – especially compared to the standard navy jerseys. The combination with the Browns’ orange helmets (what a weird phrase) and brown pants, as well as the mish-mash of both team’s stripes made this game a tough one to watch aesthetically.

Getting back to the Browns, the brown pants are the big issue with this road set. As much as I like solid-color pants in college, I don’t think it translates as well to the NFL. This is probably because the NFL requires players to wear full-length socks as part of the uniform and there isn’t always a good option for a team when they wear colored pants. So when the Browns wear brown pants, they can either wear white socks with stripes as they did or solid brown socks to create what has been dubbed “the leotard effect.” I’m not a big fan of white socks with stripes; they just seem so dated to me. Wearing the same color pants and socks isn’t the greatest look, but I don’t mind it as much when compared to nearly solid white socks (which doesn’t even come close to my biggest pet peeve: white pants with white socks). One decent solution is to add some stripes to the pants to at least break up the monochrome effect somewhat, though wearing a different solid color sock is the better visual answer.

The Titans are a good example for this lesson in colored pants and colored socks. The team had it right when they wore navy jerseys with white pants and navy socks. For the road, they paired navy pants with navy socks but at least had some stripes on the pants. Then more recently they added light blue pants with navy socks that look great too and eliminate the monochrome effect. The Titans have a nice set of options for working around the same color pants and socks issue while still maintaining some solid combinations (not that they always do that). A lot of other teams don’t have a secondary color that is versatile enough to work on an extra pair of pants or socks. I mean, imagine how much worse the featured matchup would have been if the Browns had tried to use orange socks with brown pants. Disaster.

Photo: AP Photo/Mike Stone

Back in the early days of JOTW on the old Fanatic Magazine website, one of my friends sent me a photo of the Colorado State football uniforms as a suggestion for an article. I agreed with him that it was a solid look, but never got around to featuring them for a week (Brooks, file this under “better late than never”). I caught some of the TCU-CSU game this past Saturday and though the Rams were taken behind the woodshed 44-6, they looked pretty good (jersey-wise) doing it.

I’ve decided recently that an underutilized color scheme like Colorado State’s green and gold (or the Vancouver Canuck’s royal and green from last time’s JOTW) is a major plus: a solid uni design gains extra points in my eyes just for not being an overused combination like black and red, navy and gold, or maroon and anything. For instance, I think navy and gold is a great color combo, but it’s hard to argue that it’s not overused or that it doesn’t regularly provide scenes that seem less like actual games and more like intrasquad scrimmages. I also have an affinity for solid color pants with white jerseys so CSU’s featured road uniforms are acing my evaluation (though it pains me to see them sometimes wear this). You might remember that one of my favorite college uniforms belongs to another school from the Mountain West Conference (note the solid color pants). There must be something in the water out there.

Anyways, the uniforms themselves are pretty simple: no stripes or patterns on the jerseys and minimal piping on the respective white and gold pants. Adding a simple or traditional shoulder stripe could liven up the jersey a bit, but as it stands the main attraction of the set is the classic spiral horns helmet design made famous by the NFL’s Rams franchise. According to the Helmet Project, a reputable but not infallible reference on the subject, the NFL’s Rams began wearing the first variation of the horn design on their helmet in 1964 with Colorado State following suit in 1973. (It’s also currently worn by Division I-AA Rhode Island and was used a couple decades ago by I-AA Fordham). I think it’s cool when teams use a helmet logo to give off the illusion of something attached to the players heads and even though it’s borrowed from the pros, CSU is still the only Division I-A school using the classic design. In the end, it’s just another great element of a great college football uniform set.