Today's Tidbit... When Leather Helmets Earned Their Wings

Let me start by saying I have never liked winged helmets, but as a chronicler of football’s past, it is my duty to reveal the game’s ugly side and its beauty. I’ve argued in the past that the 1930s produced football’s ugliest uniforms. Today, I’ll review how the decade’s helmets were no exception to the ugliness.

The front wings on the winged helmet originated to provide additional padding on the helmet's forehead. However, the sporting goods manufacturers took the opportunity to reshape the pad to add a bit of flare. In the days when few teams had helmet logos, the front pad and the straps crossing the helmet's crown were among the few ways to distinguish your otherwise brown helmet from your opponent's.

Helmets came in various designs before they earned their wings, but most looked like the Rawlings-Zuppke model below. Straps crossed the helmet crown with a small padded strap running across the bottom of the forehead.

(Rawlings Fall 1928-Winter 1929 catalog)

Some schools painted their helmets in one or another of their school colors in the 1920s, but most left them in their tanned leather color. However, since jerseys often had leather-colored friction strips on the torso and arms, and some ball carriers took to tossing their helmets to the ground to trick defenders into seeing them as fumbled balls, a 1930 rule required: