The (Somewhat) Complete Holy Cross Uniform History, Part III

Ya, it's been a while. Time to get back to the Holy Cross retrospecticus. Where did we leave off? 1969? Part III will take us through the 1990s.

Part I Part II

1970: Back on the field after the '69 season was cut short due to a hepatitis outbreak, Holy Cross ditches the stripes on the shirts, but keeps them on the socks, at least for cold-weather games.

1971: The "HC" logo and sleeve numbers vanish, making for a very plain uniform.

1972: The helmets are now white, and a squished version of the "HC" logo is on the sides. 

1976: With a coach in town (Neil Wheelwright), Holy Cross makes its biggest overhaul in years. Purple helmets return, this time with numbers on the side, and a spaced-out "H O L Y  C R O S S" wordmark appears across the front. I always liked this jersey, and I have no clue why.

1979: A crusader logo replaces the numbers on the helmets.

1981: Another new coach (Rick Carter) means more changes. Stripes return to the sleeves, white pants replace the silver models and the numbers return to the helmets. Also note the addition of the Champion logo on the sleeve.

1986: The silver pants return. This was the style The Cross wore when it went undefeated in 1987 and two-way threat Gordie Lockbaum was a legit Heisman Trophy candidate.

1992: A new "HC" logo debuts on the helmets and home jerseys. Curiously, the road jerseys and plants retain the older style.

1994: The road uniform matches the home version.

1996: Helmet numbers and purple pants return, and names on the back are worn for the first time. By this point, we're getting into the era when if you didn't like Holy Cross's uniforms, just hold tight because they'll probably change in the next half-hour.

1998: The full Holy Cross logo appears on the helmet, the silver pants return and the names on the back vanish. A year earlier, the Crusaders started wearing the Patriot League patch on the jersey fronts. The jerseys have a Wilson logo; the pants are from Reebok. Ah, the days before exclusive apparel deals. ...

1999: The 1990s were full of oddball fads, like the swing revival that was a big deal for about a week or people randomly shouting "Who's your daddy?!" Drop-shadow numbers were another fad of that era, although at least they lasted for more than a week. Holy Cross joins the parade in 1999 and keeps them through 2002.

Boston State Warriors (1974-75)

No, this is not a mashup of two famous NBA teams, but a football team from a school that no longer exists. 

Boston State College operated under several names before settling on its final moniker in 1960. The school had a football team from about 1970 until the school closed in 1982 and merged into UMass Boston, which, alas, does not have football. After a few rough years on the gridiron, the Warriors were generally pretty decent, with their best season coming in 1975, when they shared the New England Football Conference championship with Nichols.

In '81, with the school's fate all but sealed, the lame-duck Warriors lost their first eight games before defeating Bridgewater State 12-2 in the program's final game. According to accounts from The Boston Globe and the school yearbook, only 22 players dressed for the finale — BSC started the season with 47 — and eight played both ways.

A couple shots of the 1974 Boston State Warriors,
taken from the BSC yearbook. The green and silver
with a hint of gold go well together.

Judging by photos from the yearbooks, the jerseys were pretty consistent throughout the team's existence: Plain green or white jerseys with a small Native American logo on one sleeve and no sleeve or shoulder numbers. The helmets and pants, on the other hand, seemed to change frequently.  The 1974 uniform shown above has a unique (well, unique for such a plain uniform), silver-green-and-yellow combo. Under first-year coach Mac Singleton in '75, the Warriors switched to green helmets and yellow pants, with a helmet logo that bears more than a passing resemblance to these guys. The socks came in all sorts of stripe combos; the one shown above seems to be the most frequently used.

BSC in action against (I think) Maine Maritime in 1975.
Someone's missing a logo on his helmet, tsk-tsk.

A close-up of the '75 BSC logo, not to mention
a helmet that's taken an absolute shellacking.

As for notable players, defensive back Earl Garrett was the next-to-last selection in the 1974 NFL Draft (Minnesota Vikings) and also was picked by the Detroit Wheels (no, Mitch Ryder was not the coach) in the World Football League draft that same year. For a Division III player, that's still a whale of an accomplishment. Quarterback John Rogan set New England career records in 1980 with 372 completions, 782 attempts and 5,133 yards and was named New England D-III player of the year by the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference and United Press International.

Dream Japan Bowl (2023-24)

This, kids, is how the the Ivy League postseasons. For the last two seasons, representatives of the Ivy League and Japanese college football have faced off in a postseason all-star game called the "Dream Japan Bowl." Each side has won a game, while promoting international goodwill and and all that fun stuff. Hopefully, the series continues for a while.

The uniforms, as you can see, are decidedly un-Ivy. The Ivy jerseys, with the horizontal navy and royal blue bands, kinda resemble a muted version of those Steelers alternates from about a decade ago. The Japanese jerseys use a very distinctive font that took forever for me to reproduce. (These were easily the toughest uniforms I've ever had to create; all apologies if they're not picture-perfect.)

For helmets, I simply used a lid from an Ivy League champ from the previous season. (The 2023 game was played after the 2022 season, etc.) For Japan, I used the helmet of the Fujitsu Frontiers, who have won multiple Japanese national championships (called the Rice Bowl), including the 2023 season.

Boston College, UConn, UMass (2023)

Enough procrastinating. (There's no nation like Procrastination, where the next game is always tomorrow.) Let's wrap up the uniforms of 2023 with New England's three FBS representatives.

Remember when Boston College was going to dump Jeff Hafley as coach and bring in Bob Chesney from Holy Cross? Instead, the Eagles had a winning record capped by a bowl win. BC made no changes from previous seasons, except for the all-maroon ensemble worn for the Fenway Bowl.

There might not be a more complicated team to keep track of than UConn. Even though the Huskies have only two jerseys and two pants, they trotted out seven different helmet designs, many of them with very minute differences; some weeks the helmets had stripes, some weeks they didn't. UConn also had two specialty helmets — a "Husky Heroes" lid with a red-white-and-blue logo and a cancer awareness helmet with the "C" logo in a variety of colors. 

I've said a million times before and I'll say it again: UMass may be bad, but at least the Minutemen look good while they're losing. The uniforms remained the same as in previous seasons, although UMass fiddled around with the facemark color a couple times. I wonder what it's like to be the equipment people, having to swap out 100-plus facefasks on short notice?

Colgate, Holy Cross (2023)

 Time to review the two Patriot League teams profiled on this little ol' blog. ...

Colgate simplified things a bit, dumping the white helmet and sticking with the classic dark red 'gate lid. The road jersey underwent some minute modifications.

Holy Cross, which won a share of its fifth straight Patriot League title (and lost coach Bob Chesney to James Madison in the process — remember when he was supposed to be BC's next leader?), kept the same uniform as 2022, just changing a few combos here and there. The black alternate jersey from the previous few seasons was not used.