1955 Don Spencer and Coca-Cola Program Covers
The illustrated game program covers from the 1940s to 1960s are among football's most iconic images. There isn't an individual cover that is iconic; instead, the covers as a class are iconic, and none are more so than those drawn by Lon Keller.
I've written about Keller three times previously. Once, to describe the early evolution of program covers, which reached their peak with Keller and his association with the Don Spencer Company. As detailed in the second and third stories, Keller created program cover artwork that Don Spencer printed and distributed. By leaving gaps or open spaces in the designs, schools could buy high-quality printed covers from Spencer and have local printers add the opponents, dates, and other details to the covers.
Like the covers, Spencer also offered page formats for rosters, referee signals, and other information that local printers could customize along with other internal pages.
One can never get enough of Lon Keller and Spencer program covers, so I happily took possession of the 1955 Keller/Spencer/Coca-Cola catalog to continue the journey down memory lane. (I don't have actual memories since the catalog preceded my birth.)
This particular catalog is distinguished by its tie to Coca-Cola, which sponsored the program cover program for high schools and colleges. Like every good catalog of the time, Spencer offered suggestions on how to use their products effectively. Today, we'd click a link to get far more information or ask a good-looking AI model for the answer, but they lacked that option. The catalog provided schools with guidance on how to acquire advertisers, the potential revenue generated, and the program's format. The catalog also contained technical information for local printers.
The 1955 catalog offered eight football program covers and six basketball covers, though schools often ordered and used cover designs from previous years.
Below are four football covers available through Don Spencer and Coca-Cola for 1955.
Coca-Cola placed its advertising on the team roster template, as fans likely referenced those pages more often than any others.
A final fun aspect of this catalog is that it is "game-used." More accurately, a carbon copy sheet in the back of the catalog indicates that the original owner, Clarence Pierce Junior College, located north of Los Angeles, ordered 1,000 copies of four programs.
The covers Pierce chose for their 1955 home games follow.
I hope to acquire other Don Spencer catalogs in the future and will share the template covers when I do.
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