Dartmouth Big Green (1929; 1931-41)

First, I apologize for the lack of updates over the last year and a half. Let's try to make up for it. The good news is that I have uniform data for most of the non-NEC teams going back to at least 1935, so I have no shortage of material to work with.

Rather than profile a specific uniform from a given year, I'm going to try to burn through a decade's worth of garb from a particular school, with a minimum of text, but with the obligatory illustrations and photos. Some of these uniforms have been mentioned before.

Let's start with Dartmouth from the 1930s, when the Big Green (a.k.a. Indians; Dartmouth used both interchangeably for decades), was an honest-to-god national powerhouse and whose coaches included Earl "Red" Blaik, who went 45-15-4 from 1934-40 before he went to Army and wreaked havoc over college football for the next decade.

1929: Like many teams big and small, there was no set jersey; as long as everything was green, that was close enough. Some had friction stripes, some had white shoulder panels, some had both. The same went for the white "alternate" jerseys.

1931: I'm missing 1930, but 1931 gives us more of the same, except one green jersey has white friction stripes, and the pants now have green friction stripes on the back.

1933: I'm missing '32, so let's go to '33. Friction stripes are gone from the shirts, making for a relatively plain uniform. But check out the stripes on the road socks!

1934-35: Red Blaik takes over at this point, and the uniform gets a makeover: Gold helmets and pants appear, and the white jerseys are discarded.

1936-38: Numbers are added to the front, following a trend that swept college football in the mid-1930s. This basic style (except for several number font changes) was used by Dartmouth until 1955.

1939-41: I'll admit, I'm not 100 percent when the Big Green dumped gold for silver as a trim color. I strongly suspect that in the early 1940s they may have wore gold helmets with silver pants, but until I find a color photo (or even a film), I have to rely on guesswork. Anyway, the number of helmet stripes was reduced to four from eight, creating the pattern that, again, lasted until 1955.

Dartmouth (in dark jerseys) faces Columbia in 1931.

Dartmouth wears white jerseys against UVM in 1933.

The Big Green takes on Princeton (in striped shirts) in 1939.

A funny preseason photo from 1941.The plain jerseys, without numbers, were used in practice.