I don’t know about you, but I don’t even wanna think about food for another week or two.
Anyway: Yeah, those Cowboys throwbacks were pretty nice. But the real throwback action yesterday was at the annual Easton/Phillipsburg high school tilt. Easton had some rad shoulder yoke striping and two-tone pants, while Phillipsburg had old school jersey stripes (here’s another view), and their helmets appeared to be mimicking this old design. It all added up to a very pleasing spectacle.
Two small things I noticed: First, note the inconsistency in Easton’s helmet uni number placement. And second, the officials had non-striped socks — scandalous! Anyone know if this is common in high school football?
Meanwhile, Matt Jagiello stepped away from his Thanksgiving dinner long enough to dash off this note:
I feel like I’m going crazy. While watching the Virginia Tech/Western Michigan basketball game and the Broncos/Chiefs NFL game, something unusual struck me. I noticed Virginia Tech forward A.D. Vassallo had something stenciled into the back-right side of his haircut. It appeared to be the letters “PR.” Vassallo is Puerto Rican, and I can understand the wish to represent his land and show some love for the brothers back home, but we’re not stuck in the 1980s and early ’90s! This caught me completely off-guard and I felt like I had found a loop in the space-time continuum.
Then it got worse. After the Chiefs/Broncos game had wrapped up, I saw Larry Johnson giving an interview — with something [shaved onto] the left side of his head. It appeared to be something like “Y2,” with maybe a “K” in the back.
My guess: LJ’s “Y2K” has something to do with his quest for a 2000-yard season (although there’s no need for the “Y” — “2K” means 2000, and the “Y” only confuses the issue by referring to the year 2000). Anybody know more about this?
It’s worth noting, incidentally, that this leaked memo from a Yahoo senior VP includes the following: “I’m proud to admit that I shaved a Y in the back of my head.” So maybe this trend is spreading. Or maybe Larry Johnson just owns a lot of Yahoo shares.
Uni Watch News Ticker: The Browns will be wearing throwbacks this Sunday, complete with uni-numbered helmets (but presumably nobody will be wearing this). Full details here (and an extra plate of leftover turkey for Tim Bennett). … Nasty holiday surprise for Shea McMahon, who went home for Thanksgiving and discovered that his kid brother’s high school — Circleville High, in Ohio — had taken up residence in NikeWorld. … MLS’s newest team, Toronto FC, unveiled their unis the other day (or so Ben Wideman tells me). … The recent story of Danny Forston doing some game-day sneaker shopping prompted this tale from Mike Murray: “Back in 1993, I worked as the shoe department manager for Oshman’s Sporting goods in a rich area of Phoenix (thankfully, I’ve moved on to a better career). … We got a visit from Rod Strickland one afternoon. Portland was to play Phoenix that night, and he walks in the store, slides over to the shoe department, and starts to eyeball our selection of Nike basketball shoes. He picked out the most expensive ones and asked me to get him a pair in size 13. I duly complied and he was set to walk out without even trying them on. But I had to ask: Why was he buying Nike shoes? Didn’t the team or Nike provide them for him? He answered that he’d left his travel bag behind in Portland and needed shoes for that night’s game. I watched the game and sure enough, there were the size 13 Nikes I’d sold him earlier that day.” … Speaking of personal reminiscences, Gene Sevcik checks in with the following: “With the Marquette win over Duke on Tuesday, I though it was about time to send this picture of my dad, Dale, sometime in 1952-55, when he played for them. They were the Marquette Hilltoppers then.” … Interesting auction item here (with thanks to Eric Stangel). … “I just received the latest publicity newspaper from my undergraduate school, Yeshiva University,” writes Aharon Fischman. “They have a picture of the Lady Macs (Maccabees), of the Stern College for Women’s basketball team (Stern is one of the schools in Yeshiva University), and it’s very clear that some team members are wearing shorts and others are wearing skirts.” … Kansas’s socks are normally either white or blue, but Brendan Donohue says we should look for something else in tomorrow’s game against Missouri: “Since Mark Mangino has been at the helm for Kansas football, KU has worn red socks while playing Mizzou in Columbia. There’s a historical significance to this, dating back to the Civil War.” … Our recent discussions of players wearing windbreakers under their jackets led David Murphy to discover this. … Two helmet decal observations from Joshua Knudson: First, check out the bizarre decal patterns being sported here by Gridley High in California. And second, while Miami and Boston College both wore “95” memorial decals for Bryan Pata last night (you can see B.C.’s decal here), Miami’s Kareem Brown went further: “He also had two trimmed-down 95 decals in between the two parts of the ‘U’ on his main helmet logo,” reports Knudson. … Very odd piece of jewelry here (with thanks to longtime Uni Watch pal Rob Walker, whose Murketing blog is totally worth your time).