Nothing like that ever happened. But I did find this awesome photo of the 1904 OshKosh Normals (actual team). It took me a few minutes to realize that those sweaters have the letter O for OshKosh on them—it's not a team full of guys all wearing the number zero.
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But don't worry, Eva, because all is not lost! Football uniforms as such don't really have much of a story to tell, but football pads have actually had a pretty interesting evolution. Apparently, the first game of what we now call “football” was a competition between Princeton and Rutgers, but it was less like a game of football than it was a very violent game of capture the flag with a ball instead of a flag. Then as now, the violence was the real appeal of the game, because, as we all know, Victorian collegiates were known mainly for committing mindless acts of violence.
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As more and more football games resulted in injury and death, however, the rules were continually adjusted to make things safer, and more and more players chose to wear leather helmets to make themselves look more like George Clooney, which in turn led to a major increase in the amount of sex that college football players were having with silent movie stars (a tradition carried out to this day by Reggie Bush and Kim Kardashian). By the 1920s these helmets were almost universally accepted, thanks to the efforts of Clara Bow.
Facemasks were added gradually but had become standard by the 1950s, and as America developed into the insurocracy in which we now live, players increasingly accepted their clubs' encouragement to wear more and more safety gear. Demand inspired supply: since the NFL made padding standard, and all players were wearing it, manufacturers decided to specialize, and for the last two decades, safety gear for each individual position in the NFL has become more and more distinct, and basic equipment
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Excellent POST!! Thanks for taking my idea! :-) It was actually quite interesting and I appreciate your effort in finding out this information. I am sorry it took me so long to read this, but I have been busy. But, I am looking forward to the next post! Hope you feel better soon...
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