Being interested enough in football to pay attention to and study
helmets, uniforms, and in my case, the history of specific teams is not
usual. Being interested enough to focus upon these specific aspects of a
professional or collegiate team's characteristics to the point of at
least trying to "know everything" for no other reason than the enjoyment
it brings, is probably not the norm. Studying team results and
individual statistics falls within the realm of "interesting trivia" and
fodder for talk around the water cooler but seeking out old magazines
for the primary purposes of knowing the game scores and starting
lineups from 1961 for example, marks one as a quirky personality, one
that would certainly be warmly welcomed at HELMET HUT. I have been asked
frequently how and why my own interest developed and perhaps some of our
readers would like to share their stories. Through the columns in HELMET
NEWS and the HELMET REFLECTIONS series, I have noted my general
obsession with football and an overwhelming desire to play the game
after seeing the first "live" game I had exposure to, a late-Fifties
match between Long Beach and Uniondale, New York High Schools that had
me mesmerized. The clash of the Columbia blue clad Long Beach Marines
against the black and gold attired Knights had me chomping at the bit as
I planned to emulate the one obviously dominant player on the field that
day, Long Beach fullback Eddie Beck.
The concern or point of focus on the uniforms came around the same
time. There was one book and one helmet that "got me" and definitely
provided both a target and outlet for my all-consuming attention to
football, training to play football more effectively, and what became a
love of the game and the strategy connected to it. While hurriedly
walking past the one bookstore in town, my attention was drawn to a book
that was displayed in the window. Later famous as perhaps the first of
the large format pictorial books about football, and considered by many
to still be the very best of them, THE PROS by Robert Riger caught my
attention. The black and white photo of Johnny Unitas unleashing a
monstrous pass over the outstretched arm of the Giants' Dick Modzelewski
captured me, captured my imagination, and instilled a love of reading
and books that I had never previously known. There was commentary by
Sports Illustrated's Pro Football Writer Tex Maule, a very big name at
the time, but it was Riger's photos and beautiful drawings that
immediately caught my attention. With the emphasis on the hometown
Giants, it was a chronicle of professional football, at least from the
perspective of the 1960 publication date, as seen by an astute observer.
I must have walked by the store window every day for a month, taking
time to stare at the book cover before I had the nerve to actually enter
the store and it may have been another month of leafing through the
pages of one of the store copies that attracted the attention of the
shop proprietor. He asked me why I hadn't yet purchased this book that I
was so obviously enamored with and I explained that I did not have the
money to do so. He suggested that I give him a small sum each week,
perhaps a nickel, dime, or quarter and he would keep a copy for me. I
didn't know an arrangement like that could be made but my after-school
and weekend odd jobs allowed me to eventually pay off the $10.00 book.
The many keen-eyed photos revealed the intensity and beauty of football
and everything about it including the uniforms and helmets. It was this
book that sparked an interest in reading and football that persists to
this day, an interest that finds me reading one to five books per week,
every week, despite a fifty-five hour office schedule, other
interests, and family responsibilities. It is also one of the few books
I have kept through more than four decades and have multiple copies of.
It is the one book I have purchased through used bookstores and dealers
what could be another three dozen times that have been given as gifts.
Already obsessed with the Columbia blue helmets worn by the high
school players, I would often walk to the high school to watch practice.
I daydreamed about eventually becoming big enough, strong enough, and
old enough to get a chance to go onto the field. Playing in the city's
youth league, I would envision myself performing the same feats on the
high school gridiron. The goal wasn't to play professional or college
football but to represent the town on the high school field of play.
Reinforcing this desire was another "chance encounter" at the local
sporting goods store. We lived on the very far end of town in Point
Lookout which at the time, was a gathering of summer bungalows and some
houses used for year-round residents. Without heat or hot water, winters
and fall seasons in the sparse summer residences were difficult and with
few families there full-time, there were limited services. Shops,
movies, the public library, and schools were all within the city limits
of Long Beach and it required a bicycle or bus fare to get to them
unless one chose to hitchhike, a very acceptable form of travel in the
1950's and early '60's, especially locally. I would go into town and
walk past the sporting goods store and note the baseball gloves and
various displays until the day that I spied a football helmet in the
window. I thought they were displaying a Long Beach High School helmet
although this was a suspension model and the Marines of the high school
wore MacGregor externally padded models. I of course walked in to
inquire about the helmet and was told that while the color was the same
as that of the high school, this was in fact "a Kansas helmet", a
Columbia or Sky-Blue shell with white side numerals and a two-bar
plastic facemask. Perhaps it was my obsession with football, with our
local high school team, or the fact that it so closely resembled the
helmet seen in the first game I had witnessed but I thought that this
was indeed, an unbelievable find, a true work of art. As I had done at
the bookstore, I tried to walk past the sporting goods shop as often as
possible just to gaze at the helmet and while I wasn't quite sure where
Kansas was, even looking at the map that hung in my classroom, I was
positive that I wanted to wear one of those helmets.
At some point, the helmet was no longer in the window, sold I was
told but the impression had been made. I enjoyed drawing in my school
notebook, usually football players in various poses I had seen in
Riger's book and often donned in the Columbia blue helmet of Long Beach
or Kansas. I sometimes used finely sharpened and carefully maintained
colored pencils to "dress up" my drawings, giving the helmets
various modifications, based upon photos seen in Street And Smith
Annuals I had already begun to collect or the Sports Illustrated
magazines kept in the school or public library. The bug had bitten, the
spark had been lit for a lifetime source of enjoyment and inspiration,
one that continues. The HELMET HUT
"Build Your Own Helmet", available in
the Webstore has allowed me to duplicate this wonderful helmet so that I
have this same constant source of motivation, a reminder that one can
work long and hard each day to reach what may at first appear to be an
unattainable goal. At least this is one of the key purposes that the
football helmet has served for me. The "Build Your Own Helmet" option
allows anyone to capture a magic moment, a reminder, or a memory they
want to keep for a lifetime and one glance at my Kansas helmet, one worn
by the Jayhawk greats like John Hadl, Curtis McClinton, and Bert Coan,
is all it takes to make me work harder and longer.
