It is my opinion, and I believe that many would agree,
that HELMET HUT is the best "helmet related" site on the
internet and it reflects the passion and interest that the
principals of the company have for what might seem an odd
focus. As a former player who was fortunate enough to wander
through Pop Warner, junior high school, high school,
collegiate, what I will affectionately term "minor league"
football, and two NFL camps, it has been exciting and
rewarding to share my passion and interest in helmets with
HELMET HUT readers. As my wife once inquired, "Are any of
the visitors to the site as batty as you are over football
helmets?" I like to think that most are and view the helmet
as the central and most significant piece of equipment of
the uniform and the symbolic representation of the team,
institution or city, and history of the specific program.
The obvious and for me, often asked question is, "How did
you get into this?"
Playing tackle football on the streets in Brooklyn, N.Y.
was tough. Former Olympic medalist and sprinter John Carlos
who raised a furor in Mexico City at the 1968 Olympic Games
with his Black Power protest, was offered tryouts with a
number of NFL teams and spent most of one season with the
Eagles and then two more in the Canadian Football League. At
the Eagles' pre-season camp he was asked what, other than
his amazing speed, made him suited to play football, having
been a track and not a football performer in college. Carlos
described a childhood and adolescence of playing tackle
football on the streets of Harlem in New York City, being
tackled onto the concrete and knocked into parked cars,
calling it the perfect preparation for the NFL. My
introduction to organized football was very much the same
with full speed tackle played without any protective
equipment, in the middle of busy streets. I have previously
described the almost spiritual effect that the first high
school football game I saw had upon me after we had moved to
Long Island and the small town of Point Lookout.
Now populated primarily by those who can afford housing
ranging from $500 thousand to one million-plus, it was then
a summer-only community, leaving winter residency to
blue-collar types like my father who could afford little
more than a summer bungalow with no heat as a year-round
home. Watching the hometown Long Beach High School Marines
square off against the Uniondale Knights was a mystical
experience and one I wanted in on and it was the MacGregor
externally padded Columbia blue helmet that caught most of
my attention as the Marines marched down the field.
My fascination with helmets was solidified when watching
college football games. For those old enough to recall,
there would be one game on per week, the Saturday Game Of
The Week which featured either a game of national importance
or an Eastern powerhouse like Syracuse or Pitt. I would sit
with my Pop Warner League helmet nearby, often reveling in
my homemade paint job that gave me a replica of Army's
gleaming gold helmet with black center stripe, and remain
transfixed at both the intricacies of the offense and
defense as well as the skill of the individual players.
However it was the January 1, 1959 Sugar Bowl game that
sealed my lifetime love affair with the football helmet. One
could blame this one game for addicting me to college
football and a passion that drove a New York City youngster
to know as much as possible about Southeastern Conference
and Southern football. Like many of my friends, the favorite
team for most of us during the mid and late 1950's was
powerful Army. They were awfully good, they had running
backs Pete Dawkins and Bobby Anderson (see HELMET HUT'S
authentic reproduction of his helmet), and it was still
close enough to the end of both the Korean War and World War
II that the institution represented the very best of
American values and virtues. However I read everything I
could find that was related to football and knew about
Louisiana State University and their Chinese Bandits
defense. I knew that Auburn was not allowed to play in one
of the four major post-season bowl games because they had
cheated in some way, yet they were the national champions in
1957 and I surprised my younger brother by decorating his
youth league helmet with electrical tape so that it mimicked
the distinctive headgear of the mighty Auburn Tigers. I knew
that I was seeing something special when watching the Sugar
Bowl that matched Clemson and LSU.
Television broadcasts in color were rare in the 1950's
and it wasn't until 1966 that NBC became the first
one-hundred percent color broadcast station. Having a color
television was uncommon in our neighborhood at any time in
the 1960's and certainly in 1958, if any college football
game had been broadcast in color, I would not have known
about it. Thus watching Clemson and LSU in the Sugar Bowl, I
could only guess at the shades of the uniform color even
with the knowledge of the official school colors at my side
in the Street And Smith College Football Yearbook. The lack
of color did not diminish my enjoyment or awe of the LSU
helmets. I knew the headgear was a shade of yellow with a
white stripe flanked by purple stripes and I thought the
player numerals on the sides were the coolest thing I had
seen. Though this was a standard appearance for the era and
I had certainly seen many other teams wear side numerals,
everything about the stripes on the helmet to the shoulder
stripes on the jersey, and the pants that seemed to be the
same shade as the helmet made me think that this was the
greatest uniform ever seen. I recall Clemson looking very
sharp too with what was described as an orange helmet with a
great arrangement of a blue center stripe flanked by wide
white stripes. Being partial to a jersey with shoulder
stripes, it was great to see Clemson in jerseys that also
featured contrasting shoulder stripes.
The game was spectacular, a defensive struggle that
featured the famous LSU Chinese Bandits, a defensive
specialty unit that had to, and could also play offense but
whose forte was in stopping the opponent. Billy Cannon,
Johnny Robinson, and Warren Rabb were the well-known names
and stars for LSU but I knew through my reading that the
number one LSU Tigers had these very special defensive
players whose sum was greater than the addition of their
parts, who gave up a touchdown or less in nine of their ten
regular season games. I knew the names of Tommy Lott, Mel
Branch, Gus Kinchen, and Hart Borque, who seemed to be as
small as I was, as well as the All American stars and these
guys were animals, flying all over the field to stuff what
looked to be a very fine Clemson team. I knew about
Clemson's Lou Cordileone, a great lineman from St. Michael's
High School in Union City, New Jersey who was related to an
older teenager I was acquainted with. Cordileone made a
number of '59's All American teams and was the number-one
draft choice of the Giants in 1960. He had an oft-repeated
quip after learning that he had been traded to the San
Francisco Forty-Niners for their terrific QB YA Tittle. "I
was traded for Tittle, you mean just me?" Clemson FB and LB
Doug Cline was impressive, hustling all over the field and
recovering a fumble on the goal line when LSU's FB J.W.
Brodnax was stopped as he was diving into the end zone at
the end of the first half. LSU's winning TD in this 7-0
defensive gem also involved Cline. As the up-back on a punt,
an errant center snap hit him in the leg and was recovered
by the Bayou Bengals who scored a few plays later when
Cannon threw a halfback option pass to Mickey Mangham for
the winning points. I followed Cline's career as a
linebacker for the Oilers from 1960 through '66 where he
also joined Cannon in the backfield as the Oilers blocking
fullback.
This great game held my attention and made me an LSU fan,
one that was partial to shoulder stripes on the jerseys and
the distinctive flanking stripes placed on either side of a
center stripe. I came to love what is now considered to be
"old school" hard-nosed defensive football that epitomized
the type of play that was emphasized in the south and
southeastern colleges from the mid-1950's through the late
'60's. It was the LSU Tiger helmet that symbolized their
entire uniform and gut-busting march to 1958's National
Championship. It was in fact, that one game that for reasons
that remain unknown and unexplained that changed my
perspective and made me believe I could be much more than I
otherwise may have been prepared to be.
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