Good Thursday morning, Uni Watchers. I hope everyone had a good Wednesday.
I’ll be hitting the road shortly — heading up to a Bonspiel (curling tournament) in Norfolk, CT, so if there is any breaking uni news in the next two days, it may need to wait for Anthony. I’ll have a bunch of articles today (and several tomorrow), but my time on the boards and my ability to cover any new news will be limited.
I’m back today with new Ticker Assistant Susan Freeman, who shares many of the same passions many of us Uni Watchers have. One of these is data visualization — which is the art/science of taking raw data and turning it into the form of a chart, diagram, picture, etc. I’ve always been a big fan of data visualization. (In fact, I don’t know if any of you subscribe to an excellent weekly newsletter from WaPo columnist Philip Bump called How To Read This Chart, but I highly recommend it. It’s free, and it appears in your inbox every Saturday morning at 10:00 am ET. Trust me, if you enjoy data visualization, this is for you!).
Susan, as she’ll explain below, has been into creating infographics for years, and she’s going to share a bit of that part of her life and some examples of her previous work. The graphics below are purposely cut off (“I tried to capture entertaining stuff because they would be too long or too cluttered or have gaps of incompleteness,” she told me), but they will give you a good idea of the full graphic.
There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to know Susan a bit more as she brings us…
by Susan Freeman
I am a nerd and I love data – like many of us here. Phil just introduced me to the term “data visualization.” And wow, that is spot on and 100% explains my love for infographics. It is the perfect combination for me – blending the science and the art. I am an artist, but I am also a NASA engineer. And the world of data visualization allows both of those things to live comfortably and quite happily together. My whole life, whether I knew it or not, I have loved watching uniforms. Someone forwarded a Uni Watch article to my dad and he forwarded it to me. He was amazed and I was amazed – my God, there were others like me!
I am obsessed with the old Southwest Conference – my dad lived it, I lived it. It was special and quirky with fun mascots, hand signs, and GREAT football. So naturally, there came a time when I wanted to do some uni tracking. Well, at first it was more historical history as opposed to game to game uniforms (we will discuss that one on another day).
Uniform Tracking comes in many shapes and sizes. I have used various uniform templates and colored them in over the years – and yet have never been happy with any of them to track a uniform history. Although someone on Uni Watch uses that ’70s-feel baseball one I just love. But most of my uni documenting centers around that old Southwest Conference. For the young ones: Arkansas, Baylor, Houston, Rice, SMU, Texas, Texas A&M, TCU, and Texas Tech. So I am handling nine teams, not just one. Scrolling through pages and pages of uni drawings just doesn’t work for me.
One day I wanted a quick go-to visual reference for fact checking that would also be suitable for the creation of infographics. So I peeled off of the standard “guy in a uniform” tracking method and turned to Excel. I wanted color blocks. I find it extremely satisfying to make these kinds of charts in different styles to see the data from different angles. I love it – and they really are a go-to tool for me.
SWC HELMETS
It all started with wanting a one-page “graphic” of all the helmet stripes Texas Tech had worn including when the Red Raiders first wore their red facemasks. Yes, it pre-dates the Chargers! Texas Tech wore red facemasks in 1973 – one year before the Chargers wore yellow.
My first Excel documented history is designed in a timeline format and is intended to be a one-look sees all. It fits on my laptop screen. You progress from left to right once you have the first colored helmet (in this case 1949). The helmet stripe row, as you can see, is made from nine rows to effectively portray those beautiful stripes. There is a row for the older days when numbers dominated the sides of helmets in the ’50s and ’60s. And unfortunately I needed another row for alternate helmets because for three years (1949-50 and 1961) Tech wore RED helmets at road games. The chart originally was only intended for the years of the Southwest Conference. So that row came in useful when I expanded to years after 1995. Then there is a facemask row. And lastly a row to document when the Double-T premiered and when other major changes were done to the helmet logo.
Of course, I couldn’t stop there. I did this for all old Southwest Conference teams to varying levels of completeness. I don’t have all the logos embedded for all the teams yet. I would also like to document the years the clear MaxPro helmets were worn. I love seeing the contrast between the teams – the classic few changes of Arkansas and Texas against the colorful quilts Rice and TCU weave. That is all part of that data visualization – there are so many things to notice!
Arkansas is one of the classics.
Until Nike took over, Baylor was pretty classic too. Hell, Baylor has not even had a true gold helmet since 1996. And of course now, they use yellow.
The University of Houston was pretty consistent in the SWC days. They have bounced around a bit since then.
Rice, Rice, Rice!!! Oh what fun are the Rice uniforms in general…. lots of great helmets and logos. I still need to add about 5 R Diamond logos (and they only encompass 1984 and 1985…) as well as many others.
SMU was red at first and then they fell into their consistent red/white/blue striped look. It has been altered from time to time (those dark blue helmets were dark times…), but always comes back to their classic look (even when it’s a modern take). I need to add all the ponies on this one.
Texas – a true classic. This still needs some logos out to the right, but not many, obviously. Honestly, I cropped these so they looked the best and not cut off mid-logo/text – these charts include some random data and are not always quite as aesthetic without showing the whole history.
Texas A&M has varied it up enough to keep it interesting.
And TCU wove a quilt of pure fun in the old days. I still need more logos on this one.
And there is your first look into my view of uni tracking. Just a peek into the helmet histories of nine teams. I hope you enjoyed it. This is just the start – there is so much more to come. As I said above, there are so many ways to look at the very same data.
Readers? What say you?
GTGFTS – Cardinals 13 at Phillies 5, Opening Day, 4/3/2006
Hi, Susan (and Uni-Watch):
Very interesting article, especially about the Southwest Conference! I believe my website was the first to document the history of the SWC football helmets (launched in 2000 – Southwest Conference Helmet History), as my 2nd cousin played for the 1939-40 Texas A&M Aggies (1939 the ONLY National championship football team for Texas A&M), and my dad was an SWC football official from 1977-90 and SWC Supervisor of Officials from 1990-1996, so lots of history there. I see you are using my vector artwork I created years ago for the 1966 horned frog head. I created that several years ago for a personal project from old photographs, relying mostly on the excellent Dave Campbell’s Texas Football magazines in my collection.
Again, great article.
Jay, it is a pleasure! I have used your website for years. In fact, it is probably the first one I ever found with comprehensive information. I have never seen logos there though. Am I missing a part of your website? I just implemented the frog head in 2023 to document the throwback helmet on another set of current uni tracking I do. Honestly, I found the logo at sports logos and image traced it so I could make the blood red trim.
Hi, Susan:
I used to be a mini football helmet collector, and at one time, I was a member of the Mini Helmet Club and created (for collector use only) artwork based upon the SWC teams for helmet decals. That’s one that I did, and evidently, one of the people that went in on the project with me (minimum of 12 decal sets) decided to either sell or post my artwork.
You may be interested in my recently published book, “Life on the Sidelines of the Southwest Conference” which is available on amazon.com. I wrote it using digitally recorded interviews with my father and other football officials over a 5-6 year period.
I noticed the book this morning on your site. Already ordered! Just FYI – I am the one behind the SWCfootball site. I have been running a virtual SWC football season for two decades now. This year I realized it had been 32 years since Arkansas left the SWC. That was sobering because I was born in 1965. 30 years of SWC in my life time… There has been more non-SWC for me than SWC.
GTGFTS
Opening Day in Philadelphia
3 April 2006
Jon Lieber’s day is almost over, but the Phillies day gets worse when Scott Rolen hits a grand slam later in the inning.
link
Final score is 13-5.
Wow great stuff Susan! Thanks for sharing, and with an article like that…nice to “meet” you!
Love the infographics! Great work!
GTGFTU – Pirates vs. Rays (6/22/24). The second day of their weekend-long City Connect celebration. The first time they wore their city connect with white pants and their batting practice cap. Cruz hit one into the river on the fly. I was there and enjoyed an ice cold IC Light.
Great stuff, Susan! I’m a Texas Aggie who was in school during our SWC glory days in the early 90s, so this brings back good memories. I also used to read Dave Campbell’s Texas Football cover to cover when I was a kid. That magazine was a treasure trove of great uniform pictures (including the small schools, JUCOs, and high schools). Well done.
I was there a decade before you – but graduated from Texas Tech. You will see in another article coming probably this month that I rely heavily on Dave Campbell’s Texas Football. A fantastic source of verification along with old yearbooks. And I get to flip through them any time I want – and still regularly do!
Your multi year graph of helmets on a single page might be a single year multi helmet page for Oregon, given their six different helmet and facemask combos in 2024. :-)
That is the beauty of focusing on the Southwest Conference, Definitely a finite amount of data to play with. When you are doing nine teams, that really helps. Of course, I did not stop there and as you will see later – I keep up with the current uniforms of those teams.
I loved the article and the fun graphics, so colorful! I really like seeing Texas Tech unis. I think they have just the right balance of red, white and black. Just wished we could have been able to click on them to enlarge.
That would have been a great idea! At some point when they are more complete I will probably post them on my website. You can follow @SWCfootballNow on Twitter.
Outstanding article!! Love it. Wish I was born to see the SWC in all its glory but thankfully I’ve heard all the stories from parents and grandparents. Guns Up!
I love a good spreadsheet and have frequently developed my own to indulge my weird interests, and this is just a stroke of genius. Well done!