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WNBA All-Star Review & A USFL DIY

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Well, that’s an extremely low bar, but I think it’s safe to say they cleared it with ease…

Good morning, everyone. It’s pretty bad, uni-wise, when the most visible numbers last night were on the referees. I watched a bit of the WNBA All-Star Game, and while the level of play was good, it wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing contest. The WNBA All-Stars did come out with some nice colorful unis, starting with a swirl of orange, pink, purple and white, with black numbers.

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Lots of players were wearing black or white tights, either two-legged or one-legged.

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The All-Stars’ opponent, Team USA, wore the ghosted letters and numbers that sadly are a feature of this year’s Olympic uniforms.

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The WNBA unis were better, but the small numbers were easily obscured by the long hair of many of the players.

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Not sure how you can get around that. I’d still like bigger numbers for the shorter-haired players. Even with medium-length hair, you can see the name and the ad on the bottom but not the numbers.

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For the second half of the game, the All-Stars made a wardrobe change. They switched into black unis with orange, pink and purple accents with white letters and numbers.

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Unfortunately, Team USA kept the same ghosted unis throughout the game.

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Not sure which WNBA uni I liked better. I don’t want to get used to having a choice, by the way. This was all right for an All-Star Game, but I wouldn’t like to see halftime uniform changes become a thing in regular-season or post-season games.

By the way, before the game there was an interesting uni-related moment. Normally I ignore the pregame tunnel walks that have become a thing in both men’s and women’s sports. Last night, though, Indiana’s Kelsey Mitchell showed up in an outfit made of old WNBA jerseys, including one of the defunct Cleveland Rockers. Now there’s a Color Palette Special!

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Anyway, as you saw up above, the All-Stars defeated Team USA. And the men’s team narrowly avoided a humiliating upset to…South Sudan?

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Granted, it was a pre-Olympic exhibition, but come on. I wish I could blame the unis.

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Missing My Old Lunchbox And The USFL

I’m feeling a little sentimental today. It’s been four full decades now since the 1984 USFL season ended. I loved all three seasons of the original spring football league (and the ’22 and ’23 seasons), but the ’84 campaign was by far my favorite. It ended on July 15th, when the Philadelphia Stars defeated the Arizona Wranglers 23-3. Just six days later, the Stars were over in London, taking on the Tampa Bay Bandits in an exhibition game. Imagine today’s players agreeing to that! Today, forty years after that exhibition, I get to share with you my latest DIY project: a box for my USFL paper footballs, inspired by an early ’70s NFL lunchbox.

This was my all-time favorite lunchbox, even better than my Six Million Dollar Man one.

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Every so often when I go to the old house, I look way in the back of the cabinets hoping against hope that it’s still there. Eventually I felt the need to recreate this bit of my childhood, but I added a twist by making a USFL version. Instead of a lunchbox, I took one of Dad’s old cigar boxes which I was using as a place to keep my paper footballs. Then I scanned and cut out the players from the lunchbox, the USFL helmets, and the logos.

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I made some Eastern and Western Conference helmets. They started out both white, but when I decided to have them facing in the same direction as the team helmets, I switched the Western helmet to blue. I glued everything down, lined the cigar box with black tape, then glued the sheets of paper to the box.

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For the field design, I just drew that by hand with a white pencil.

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I have paper footballs for all five USFL seasons, but only the ’84 ones go in this box. Maybe someday I’ll do something similar for the others.

 

 

 

And That's It For The Weekend

Whatever you’re doing today, I hope it’s enjoyable. Take care, everyone, and I’ll see you on Saturday.

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Comments (11)

    USFL had great uniforms (and a high percentage of teams with silver pants).

    Though the team could have come up with a better logo, I love the San Antonio Gunslingers uniform. Green helmets with blue jerseys unfortunately so underutilized in the football uniform world.

    The Breakers would have more awesome in white pants…and the Feds never should have adopted silver.
    Another team that suffered by using silver was the Gamblers – should have claimed the mono-black look the Outlaws had.

    One of the reasons I liked the ’84 season the best was because the Feds switched to silver.
    I could have lived with the Breakers having white pants, but the Feds mono-white uni was too much for my eyeballs.

    I preferred the black uniforms of the second half last night. Agreed it’s hard to view uniform numbers in women’s sports with a large portion of the players having long hair.

    Team USA’s basketball uniforms this year a big miss. I would love to see them bring back the classic 90s design.

    “…Team USA, wore the ghosted letters and numbers that sadly are a feature of this year’s Olympic uniforms.”
    I like these on the women’s white set – really sharp-looking with the red frame- but on the boys’ blues they are blah.
    Nice work on the box! Curious…the Express logo is so much better (and ‘faster’) when seen facing right …why’d you go with the left-facing route for the helmet orientation?

    The first set of USFL helmet graphics I ever found came from Paul Reeth’s OurSportsCentral back in the early days of the interwebs. They faced left just like these. I wanted to go that route for nostalgia, plus I thought the helmets should face the opposite direction from the NFL helmets on the lunchbox. Gives it a similar but decidedly different vibe.

    I rejoice every time I see references to the original USFL. One of history’s best alternative leagues if you ask me.

    No ads, hair problem fixed! I know, I know… Or put their name where it should be. I know, I know…

Comments are closed.