UMass Lowell (1980-2002)

In the grand tradition of Vermont, Boston University and Northeastern, here's another hockey school that fooled around with football for a while. The University of Lowell Chiefs/UMass Lowell Chiefs/UMass Lowell River Hawks fielded a varsity team at the Division II and III levels from 1980 through 2002. The school was formed in 1975 following the merger of Lowell State College and Lowell Technological Institute (a.k.a. Lowell Textile, which had a football team until about 1950).

One major caveat: I'm uncertain about some of the color combos the Chiefs/River Hawks used, and the 2002 road uniform is just a shot in the dark (thus, the "No Reference" label, which the awesome Basketball Jersey Database uses for a few early NBA/BAA teams). As I think I've said before, once a program dies — especially a small-school program — its history tends to die with it. 

Much of the research comes from grainy black-and-white photos from the Sojourn yearbook, whose quality was rather haphazard. (Hey, at least they had a yearbook, which is more than I can say for my alma mater.) But if anyone out there has any info, feel free to pass it on!

There's also a Facebook page with some vintage photos.

1980: Not long after winning a national club championship, Lowell took the field as a varsity unit for the first time. The unis bear a vague resemblance to those of the nearby New England Patriots. I'm not certain of the color combo on the chief logo is correct, but it's the same combo the hockey team used later in the decade.

By 1982, the chief logo was gone from the helmets.

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1983: By this time, Lowell worse something that looked more suited for practice than Saturday afternoons. That said, the plain jerseys with the stubby numbers were a mainstay well into the '90s.

The sleep-inducing Lowell uniform of 1983. 

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1984-85: The helmet becomes silver, with a "Chiefs" script on the side, and better matches the pants than the white lids did.

The silver helmets in 1984.

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1991: For its finest season as a varsity unit (the Chiefs were undefeated until the NCAA D-III Tournament), the newly rebranded UMass Lowell went all red, with not a trace of blue to be found.

1994: The Chiefs become the River Hawks, and the new logo appears on the helmets. Everything else stays the same.

1999: Sometime in the '90s, the River Hawks elevated their program from D-III yo D-II and blue overtook red as their primary color. The numbers are HUGE, a la the old Seattle Seahawks. The shoulder logos that face each other bring to mind the weird Patriots unis of the Drew Bledsoe era.

2002: For their final season, the River Hawks went with a very plain design, with a number on only one side of the helmet. Sleeve numbers are absent, and the only logo is a Northeast-10 Conference patch on the front. The only trace of red is on the belt, which is strange for a team that wore nothing but red a decade earlier.

Addendum: The spring 1994 name change was a nifty process, as school administrators whittled the options down to four and put them to the students in a (non-binding) referendum. The River Hawks won out, but the logo did not.

The final four candidates are presented in the Connector student paper.
The Lightning and Raging Rapids logos look like they belong on an Arena Football team,
and the Ospreys logo uses lettering out of the 1970s.

The winning name, but not the winning logo.