The 1964 McGregor Catalog - Pants & Stockings

The Tidbit from several days ago looked at the jerseys in the 964 McGregor Fall & Winter Catalog. Of course, a well-dressed team only steps onto the field with a sweet pair of pants to match or complement the jerseys, so today's the day to review those offerings.

By the mid-1960s, football pants no longer had integrated pads. Knee and thigh pads came separately and slipped into internal pockets in the pants.

-Click images to enlarge-

Rawlings also had two options for hip pads. There were wraparound pads with a buckle or D-loop synch to keep the pads in place. Some units included cantilevered plastic overlapping other pads, much like on the shoulder pads. The one-piece style seen at the bottom of the page did not require a separate belt because the hip pads snapped into the pants or were kept in place by passing the pants belt through the pads.

The top pant below shows the one-piece hip pads in action. Although the bottom pant is red, the description tells us it has the Duke-style crotch. All sorts of lines could follow that point, but I will slowly walk away from that opportunity.

The next two pant styles also have Duke-style crotches and are bigger than previously seen. The material on the front of both pant styles appears shiny, and that may be the most expensive nylon contact cloth version, but it is unclear.

The catalog includes another page of pants that appear to differ only in the fabrics used, so we won't show that page. Instead, we look at the football pant inserts, including the complementary-colored Duke crotch. The stripes running the length of the pants are all tame compared to what arrived in the future.

Next are the practice pants, available in two shades of white. Rawling sold these pants when every football field in America still had natural turf and mud as their surface, so you might think they would offer practice pants in colors other than white, but such was not the case. Of course, their version of coaches' pants came in gray and included a watch pocket so they could tell time without the aid of a graduate assistant.

Last but not least are the stirrups or stockings, with the football and basketball stirrups starting 10" from the bottom versus 8" for their baseball cousins. Styles 8 and W(G) are painfully ugly and should not have been for sale. If ever there was a case for government intervention in the economy, this is where it should have started.

We will review the 1964 Rawlings helmets and a set of shoulder pads or two the next time. See you then.

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