Today's Tidbit... What's Old Is New Again: A History Of Football Equipment Reconditioning

Football equipment has been repaired and reconditioned for as long as the game has existed to save costs. All indications are that players, coaches, and managers handled the process themselves into the 1920s, while local seamstresses, cobblers, and harness makers handled work requiring particular expertise or equipment. Whoever did the job, however, appears to have done so locally.

That began to change in 1924 when Lloyd's Cleaners of Springfield, Missouri, which claimed to be the country's first athletic equipment repair shop, took on the task from a local college coach looking to offload the work. Within several years, Lloyd's annually handled 12,000 pairs of pants, 10,000 pairs of football shoes, helmets, shoulder pads, and assorted other gear for schools nationwide.

Seamstresses and others at work at Lloyd’s Cleaning. ('Athletic Reclaiming Manufactory, Springfield Press (MO), December 31, 1931.)

Other firms doing similar business popped up around the country, many of which were dry cleaners that cleaned uniforms, repairing tears as needed. However, since football pants of the era often had built-in pads and the jerseys had friction strips, the dry cleaners also became involved in refurbishing or replacing the pads. Helmets and shoulder pads became part of the business, and since they were largely made of leather, they were scrubbed, oiled, shellacked, and painted as needed. Likewise, school-owned football shoes were scrubbed and rebuilt with their leather cleats tacked to the soles.