Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
New media
New media comments
New resources
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Resources
Latest reviews
Search resources
Members
Current visitors
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Forums
Open Football Discussion
Green Bay Packers Fan Forum
Injuries and face masks
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="JBlood" data-source="post: 357706" data-attributes="member: 16"><p>Here's another article on the facemask:</p><p></p><p> [ATTACH=full]9498[/ATTACH] </p><p style="text-align: center"><strong><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 18px">"</span></span></strong><span style="font-size: 18px"><strong><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">The Rich History of Helmets"</span></strong></span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><span style="font-size: 10px"> </span></span></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></span> <span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 15px">The Rich History of Helmets</span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong>By Paul Lukas</strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong>ESPN Page 2</strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">"Back in the old days, you could tell who a player was, or at least what position he played, just by his facemask," says Curtis Worrell. "Today's masks are so generic, the players basically look like robots, or interchangeable parts."</span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">Worrell knows what he's talking about. He and his business partner, Jim Parker, run Helmet Hut, the football world's premier virtual helmet museum and authorized helmet-reproduction firm. With enough detailed historical knowledge to make Uni Watch look like a mere dilettante (plus a rather unique on-site reference resource), they're experts on everything from players' mask preferences to mask manufacturers. So Worrell seemed like the right guy to call when Uni Watch decided to take a look at facemask history. </span></strong></span></p><p> </p><p style="text-align: center"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial'"> [ATTACH=full]9499[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]9500[/ATTACH] </span> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"> </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">Worrell's point about the masks of yore is dead-on. Back in the day, the mere mention of a player's name conjured up a mental image of his facemask, whether it was Larry Csonka's nose guard, Joe Namath's cowcatcher, or Terry Bradshaw's narrow two-bar (at least until he switched to that boring mask late in his career). But can you name even one current player with a distinctive mask? No wonder so many of them insist on dancing around like clowns on the field -- they can't express their individuality through their facemasks anymore. </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">The party line, repeated in many sources, is that the first facemask was worn by Otto Graham of the Cleveland Browns, who got elbowed in the mouth during the first half of a 1953 game and then played the second half wearing a piece of plastic that coach Paul Brown taped to his helmet. </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">It's a good story, but Worrell says the reality is a bit more complex. "Everyone has their own opinion on who was first," he explains, "but we know for a fact that it wasn't Otto Graham. Some of the improvised stuff probably goes back to the 1920s. We've even got an old helmet with a mask made of barbed wire." </span></strong></span></p><p> </p><p style="text-align: center"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial'"> [ATTACH=full]9501[/ATTACH] </span> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"> </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">Graham's true legacy, says Worrell, is that he wore the first mask that was meant to be a mask. "After Paul Brown came up with that improvised mask, within a few weeks Riddell (the longtime helmet manufacturer) made the very first Lucite mask for him. That was the first mask that was designed to attach to a helmet." </span></strong></span></p><p> </p><p style="text-align: center"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial'"> [ATTACH=full]9502[/ATTACH]</span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"> </span> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"> </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">Although the clear Lucite masks looked really cool, they were brittle. "The Lucite would shatter upon impact, and people would get cut or get the fragments in their eyes," says Worrell. "So around 1957, they had to ban it." </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">Worrell and his Web site are loaded with facemask arcana, like the fact that Chiefs teammates Otis Taylor and Fred Williamson both had two separate masks bolted onto their helmets at once, or the exact catalog stock number of Ernie Stautner's platypus-like mask. Here are Worrell's comments on some other notable masked men: </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">John Henry Johnson: "That was the very first one-bar mask that Riddell produced. It didn't stick out very far, so nowadays some people refer to it as the 'stubby.' One interesting thing is that when Joe Theismann was playing, he wanted something like the stubby. But it wasn't being manufactured anymore, so he took a modern one-bar and shoved it as far back as possible on his helmet, so there'd be nothing to interfere with his vision." </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">Joe Perry: "People were complaining about broken noses with the one-bar, so they tweaked it upward to give a bit more nose protection. Eddie LeBaron wore one of these in conjunction with a one-bar, which looked kind of like a duck -- that's one of my favorites!" (It's also worth noting that Perry had previously worn an even odder mask, designed by Dr. M.T. Marietta, whose product line included some real doozies.) </span></strong></span></p><p> </p><p style="text-align: center"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial'"> [ATTACH=full]9503[/ATTACH] </span> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"> </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">Y.A. Tittle and Roosevelt Brown: "Both of those players had had broken facial bones, so they needed extra protection. Also, the helmets back then were soft and would bend in. So the idea of that metal bracketing was to absorb the impact and keep it from caving in." </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">John Williams: "He used two Dungard facemasks. The upper one could actually flip up, like sunglasses, but they usually taped it to the lower one." </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">But for some players, the best mask was no mask at all. It's generally agreed that the final lineman to play without a mask was Jess Richardson of the Patriots, who retired in 1964. The last maskless player at a skill position is a matter of some dispute, but Worrell recently came up with this photo of wide receiver Tommy McDonald playing unmasked for the Browns in 1968, which would appear to end the debate.</span></strong></span></p><p> </p><p style="text-align: center"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial'"> [ATTACH=full]9504[/ATTACH]</span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"> </span> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"> </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">Or does it? Pat Studstill wore a facemask while playing flanker but switched to a maskless helmet when punting, placing him in a sort of gray area. "He was doing that for the Rams as late as 1971," says Worrell. And Bobby Joe Green of the Bears might have been doing likewise as late as 1974. </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">Worrell has little use for today's characterless facemasks (including the odd-looking ones found on the new Riddell Revolution helmets, which he says are known in the trade as "field hockey masks"). But he has a special place in his heart for veteran placekicker Morten Andersen, who's kept wearing his old-fashioned Dungard two-bar while playing with the Saints, the Falcons, the Giants , the Chiefs, and now the Vikings. </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">"That's my boy," says Worrell. "He's a real throwback and he's not gonna change. And you know, that mask is directly bolted on at the top [instead of being held by clips], which isn't even legal today, because there's no give. He can only wear it because he's grandfathered in." </span></strong></span></p><p> </p><p style="text-align: center"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial'"> [ATTACH=full]9505[/ATTACH]</span></p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"> </span> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"> </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">Worrell also doesn't much care for today's color-coordinated facemasks. "Just gimme basic gray," he says. (He no doubt loves that Titans kicker Gary Anderson wears a gray one-bar, even though the rest of the team wears navy.) Ah, but then we wouldn't have great little stories like the 1974 Chiefs, who switched from gray masks to white because their equipment manager figured the contrast of an opponent's hand against a white mask would make it easier for officials to spot facemask penalties. </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">It's a good thing the Helmet Hut folks are around to document all this minutiae, because the NFL and the Pro Football Hall of Fame are surprisingly spotty on the uni-related aspects of gridiron history. But as Worrell points out, the NFL wasn't always the high-profile operation it is today. </span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px"></span></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">"Remember, for decades this was a league that had no money," he says. "I mean, they were paying their players in the parking lot after the game. They just couldn't be bothered with archiving all this stuff." Fortunately, he's done it for them.</span></strong></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="JBlood, post: 357706, member: 16"] Here's another article on the facemask: [ATTACH=full]9498[/ATTACH] [CENTER][B][FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=5]"[/SIZE][/FONT][/B][SIZE=5][B][FONT=Times New Roman]The Rich History of Helmets"[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/CENTER] [FONT=Arial][SIZE=2] [/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Arial][B][SIZE=4]The Rich History of Helmets[/SIZE] By Paul Lukas ESPN Page 2 [SIZE=2]"Back in the old days, you could tell who a player was, or at least what position he played, just by his facemask," says Curtis Worrell. "Today's masks are so generic, the players basically look like robots, or interchangeable parts." Worrell knows what he's talking about. He and his business partner, Jim Parker, run Helmet Hut, the football world's premier virtual helmet museum and authorized helmet-reproduction firm. With enough detailed historical knowledge to make Uni Watch look like a mere dilettante (plus a rather unique on-site reference resource), they're experts on everything from players' mask preferences to mask manufacturers. So Worrell seemed like the right guy to call when Uni Watch decided to take a look at facemask history. [/SIZE][/B][/FONT] [CENTER] [FONT=Arial] [ATTACH=full]9499[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]9500[/ATTACH] [/FONT] [/CENTER] [FONT=Arial][B][SIZE=2] Worrell's point about the masks of yore is dead-on. Back in the day, the mere mention of a player's name conjured up a mental image of his facemask, whether it was Larry Csonka's nose guard, Joe Namath's cowcatcher, or Terry Bradshaw's narrow two-bar (at least until he switched to that boring mask late in his career). But can you name even one current player with a distinctive mask? No wonder so many of them insist on dancing around like clowns on the field -- they can't express their individuality through their facemasks anymore. The party line, repeated in many sources, is that the first facemask was worn by Otto Graham of the Cleveland Browns, who got elbowed in the mouth during the first half of a 1953 game and then played the second half wearing a piece of plastic that coach Paul Brown taped to his helmet. It's a good story, but Worrell says the reality is a bit more complex. "Everyone has their own opinion on who was first," he explains, "but we know for a fact that it wasn't Otto Graham. Some of the improvised stuff probably goes back to the 1920s. We've even got an old helmet with a mask made of barbed wire." [/SIZE][/B][/FONT] [CENTER] [FONT=Arial] [ATTACH=full]9501[/ATTACH] [/FONT] [/CENTER] [FONT=Arial][B][SIZE=2] Graham's true legacy, says Worrell, is that he wore the first mask that was meant to be a mask. "After Paul Brown came up with that improvised mask, within a few weeks Riddell (the longtime helmet manufacturer) made the very first Lucite mask for him. That was the first mask that was designed to attach to a helmet." [/SIZE][/B][/FONT] [CENTER] [FONT=Arial] [ATTACH=full]9502[/ATTACH] [/FONT] [/CENTER] [FONT=Arial][B][SIZE=2] Although the clear Lucite masks looked really cool, they were brittle. "The Lucite would shatter upon impact, and people would get cut or get the fragments in their eyes," says Worrell. "So around 1957, they had to ban it." Worrell and his Web site are loaded with facemask arcana, like the fact that Chiefs teammates Otis Taylor and Fred Williamson both had two separate masks bolted onto their helmets at once, or the exact catalog stock number of Ernie Stautner's platypus-like mask. Here are Worrell's comments on some other notable masked men: John Henry Johnson: "That was the very first one-bar mask that Riddell produced. It didn't stick out very far, so nowadays some people refer to it as the 'stubby.' One interesting thing is that when Joe Theismann was playing, he wanted something like the stubby. But it wasn't being manufactured anymore, so he took a modern one-bar and shoved it as far back as possible on his helmet, so there'd be nothing to interfere with his vision." Joe Perry: "People were complaining about broken noses with the one-bar, so they tweaked it upward to give a bit more nose protection. Eddie LeBaron wore one of these in conjunction with a one-bar, which looked kind of like a duck -- that's one of my favorites!" (It's also worth noting that Perry had previously worn an even odder mask, designed by Dr. M.T. Marietta, whose product line included some real doozies.) [/SIZE][/B][/FONT] [CENTER] [FONT=Arial] [ATTACH=full]9503[/ATTACH] [/FONT] [/CENTER] [FONT=Arial][B][SIZE=2] Y.A. Tittle and Roosevelt Brown: "Both of those players had had broken facial bones, so they needed extra protection. Also, the helmets back then were soft and would bend in. So the idea of that metal bracketing was to absorb the impact and keep it from caving in." John Williams: "He used two Dungard facemasks. The upper one could actually flip up, like sunglasses, but they usually taped it to the lower one." But for some players, the best mask was no mask at all. It's generally agreed that the final lineman to play without a mask was Jess Richardson of the Patriots, who retired in 1964. The last maskless player at a skill position is a matter of some dispute, but Worrell recently came up with this photo of wide receiver Tommy McDonald playing unmasked for the Browns in 1968, which would appear to end the debate.[/SIZE][/B][/FONT] [CENTER] [FONT=Arial] [ATTACH=full]9504[/ATTACH] [/FONT] [/CENTER] [FONT=Arial][B][SIZE=2] Or does it? Pat Studstill wore a facemask while playing flanker but switched to a maskless helmet when punting, placing him in a sort of gray area. "He was doing that for the Rams as late as 1971," says Worrell. And Bobby Joe Green of the Bears might have been doing likewise as late as 1974. Worrell has little use for today's characterless facemasks (including the odd-looking ones found on the new Riddell Revolution helmets, which he says are known in the trade as "field hockey masks"). But he has a special place in his heart for veteran placekicker Morten Andersen, who's kept wearing his old-fashioned Dungard two-bar while playing with the Saints, the Falcons, the Giants , the Chiefs, and now the Vikings. "That's my boy," says Worrell. "He's a real throwback and he's not gonna change. And you know, that mask is directly bolted on at the top [instead of being held by clips], which isn't even legal today, because there's no give. He can only wear it because he's grandfathered in." [/SIZE][/B][/FONT] [CENTER] [FONT=Arial] [ATTACH=full]9505[/ATTACH] [/FONT] [/CENTER] [FONT=Arial][B][SIZE=2] Worrell also doesn't much care for today's color-coordinated facemasks. "Just gimme basic gray," he says. (He no doubt loves that Titans kicker Gary Anderson wears a gray one-bar, even though the rest of the team wears navy.) Ah, but then we wouldn't have great little stories like the 1974 Chiefs, who switched from gray masks to white because their equipment manager figured the contrast of an opponent's hand against a white mask would make it easier for officials to spot facemask penalties. It's a good thing the Helmet Hut folks are around to document all this minutiae, because the NFL and the Pro Football Hall of Fame are surprisingly spotty on the uni-related aspects of gridiron history. But as Worrell points out, the NFL wasn't always the high-profile operation it is today. "Remember, for decades this was a league that had no money," he says. "I mean, they were paying their players in the parking lot after the game. They just couldn't be bothered with archiving all this stuff." Fortunately, he's done it for them.[/SIZE][/B][/FONT][FONT=Arial][SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Staff online
Poppa San
* Team Owner *
Members online
Poppa San
tynimiller
Wi. Mike now in Florida
jetfixer
Latest posts
2024 3rd round #88 MarShawn Lloyd RB
Latest: Poppa San
A moment ago
Green Bay Packers Fan Forum
The 11th Annual Amish Draft Contest 2024
Latest: jetfixer
15 minutes ago
Draft Talk
2024 draft discussion thread
Latest: Raleigh NC Packers Fan
20 minutes ago
Draft Talk
Most hated teams outside of the division
Latest: milani
45 minutes ago
Green Bay Packers Fan Forum
Assessing the Draft Class (2024)
Latest: Thirteen Below
Today at 7:18 PM
Draft Talk
Forums
Open Football Discussion
Green Bay Packers Fan Forum
Injuries and face masks
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
Accept
Learn more…
Top