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Tidbits

Today's Tidbit... Officials' Uniforms in 1932

Timothy P. Brown

Jun 3, 2022

Yesterday, the U.S.P.S. brought me the 1932 revision/supplement to F.A. Lambert’s 1926 volume, How to Officiate Football. As the first, or one of the first, books detailing the philosophy and mechanics of officiating, it influenced the state and regional organizations that formed at the time to train and schedule officials.

Officials did not consistently wear uniforms before the 1920s when they began wearing white (with black socks) as seen in Lambert’s picture above. While his organization opted for generic white, he commented positively on the Southern Football Officials Association’s (SFOA) spin on the regulation uniform and jacket.

Lambert also argued for officials to:

Arrive clean-shaven in a clean uniform
Not wear a coat over their white shirt unless, like SFOA officials, they have a regulation jacket.

For more on the appearance of officials, the following articles cover the evolution of officials’ uniforms from football’s birth to the 1960s.

Football Archaeology

How Football's Zebras Got Their Stripes

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3 years ago · Timothy P. Brown

Football Archaeology

More Alternatives to Zebra Shirts

Each week, schools across the nation excitedly announce the unique combination of colors and styles their teams will wear that weekend. Yet, despite the hype, the never-ending variety all starts to look the same. The weekly new duds, you might say, have jumped the proverbial duck. Conversely, the other guys on football fields – the officials- show up game after game in the same black-and-white striped shirts to unerringly make their calls…

2 years ago · Timothy P. Brown

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