Following on yesterday’s theme concerning helmet logos, I wanted to look at the time between the 1948 Los Angeles Rams busting out their horns and college teams adding helmet logos.
Thanks, James. I have not spent enough time on that site and did not realize how much information is available, which obviously has taken a lot of work.
I would say Blaise D'Sylva at helmethistory.com has done the bulk of the work as far as finding pics of helmets in yearbooks and the like. His database is more in depth than the Helmet Project, which only goes back to around 1960. I'm surprised UNC wore their 'horn helmets' as early as they did (1953 and part of 1954). Once they returned to the logoless helmet in 1954 they did not put a logo back on until 1963 when they returned to the monogram that first appeared on 'Varsity sweaters in 1893.
thanks for sharing, this is great! So there's UNC's horns in the '50s that they abandoned, Wisconsin's front logo, and Texas putting the Longhorn under the TV numbers in 1962. It seems like most schools didn't add logos to their helmets until the mid-1960s
I think you are right and that basically what I was looking to find out without spending way too much time on the issue. So, until someone else spends the time to show otherwise, I'll go with the mid-1960s and later for college teams. Even NFL teams did not add logos until the 1960s.
Fantastic research!
Thanks, James. I have not spent enough time on that site and did not realize how much information is available, which obviously has taken a lot of work.
I would say Blaise D'Sylva at helmethistory.com has done the bulk of the work as far as finding pics of helmets in yearbooks and the like. His database is more in depth than the Helmet Project, which only goes back to around 1960. I'm surprised UNC wore their 'horn helmets' as early as they did (1953 and part of 1954). Once they returned to the logoless helmet in 1954 they did not put a logo back on until 1963 when they returned to the monogram that first appeared on 'Varsity sweaters in 1893.
thanks for sharing, this is great! So there's UNC's horns in the '50s that they abandoned, Wisconsin's front logo, and Texas putting the Longhorn under the TV numbers in 1962. It seems like most schools didn't add logos to their helmets until the mid-1960s
I think you are right and that basically what I was looking to find out without spending way too much time on the issue. So, until someone else spends the time to show otherwise, I'll go with the mid-1960s and later for college teams. Even NFL teams did not add logos until the 1960s.
You could take this one step further and also do an article on Rose Bowl teams that integrated a rose into their helmet logos a la https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/KU8AAOSwTf9h3DHz/s-l1600.png