In this little ol' blog, we've chronicled some schools that use colors not normally seen on their palettes: Witness Maine dabbling with red and black, or more recently, Dartmouth using gray and Harvard adding black to its crimson.
Yale was no stranger to a color change-up or two, either. In the 1950s, the Bulldogs donned gold pants -- which made them look as if they were aping hated Harvard -- and added gray trim to the jersey sleeves. According to Mark F. Bernstein's wonderful book Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession, new coach Jordan Olivar considered football a part-time occupation and returned to California each off-season to attend to his insurance business, but produced a winning team anyway. "That made it easier for the alumni to swallow a little of his California showmanship," according to Bernstein, "even the heretical of one putting gold trim on the Bulldogs' blue jerseys." He mixes up the colors (see the pictures below), but you get the idea.
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| A pair of Yale programs in FULL COLOR. I wonder what Handsome Dan is thinking in the top picture? "Well, I don't see a fire hydrant anywhere ..." |
Like some other Ivy schools, Yale wore one color jersey both home and away and didn't add a white shirt until '56.
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| Yale (in white) takes on Brown in 1958. Yale Daily News pic. |
On the field, Yale went 8-1 in 1956 and 7-0 in the Ivy League to win the first formal Ivy crown, capped by a 42-14 rout of Harvard. The white pants -- and common sense -- returned in 1969.
One other note: You can see how rapidly uniforms were evolving during this period, with face masks and larger numbers taking hold. Others, like shorter sleeves and sleeve numbers, weren't far away.
Want more from the sons of old Eli? Look here: 2015, 2014, 2013, 1997-98, 1994, 1996, 1979-82, 1978, 1974-77, 1967-68, 1965, 1959-60, 1930. Rivalry Week: Harvard-Yale.
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