The winged football helmet is a helmet bearing a distinctive painted design and used by some American football teams. Fritz Crisler first debuted the winged helmet at Princeton University in 1935. When Crisler was hired by the University of Michigan, he brought the helmet style with him. It has since become one of the most identifiable parts of college football. The helmet has been said to help quarterbacks easily identify their receivers downfield. Michigan is the only Division I-A school to retain the winged football helmet, although variations were used by many teams in the past, especially in the era of leather football helmets.
Princeton's helmet is patterned after the design which originated at Princeton, but is most often associated with its 60-plus year run at Michigan. Most teams' helmets were bland and indistinguishable at that time, and Crisler's design was one of the first to bear some distinction. The triangular shapes are said to represent the folded-back ears of a tiger, Princeton's fight name, while the three stripes imitate those on the animal's body. Although these features are purely ornamental on modern helmets, they coincided with physical features of the helmet during the 1930s. Crisler took the design with him to Michigan in 1938, and Princeton ceased to use it at that same time. The design was resurrected in modern form at Princeton in 1998.
The design is also used on helmets by other athletic teams at University of Michigan, including the ice hockey, baseball, and lacrosse teams.
In addition to college teams, the winged football helmet design has also been adopted by high school and professional squads. For example, Xavier High School in Middletown, Connecticut, started using a white-on-black version in 1995. Bellevue High School in Washington uses the blue and gold winged helmet on their football team. For one season in 1996, the Connecticut Coyotes of the Arena Football League had a unique tricolor variation: a white helmet with blue wings, a blue center stripe, and red outer stripes. In the 2007 season the Burbank High Bulldogs wore a white helmet with a blue winged design and in the 2008 season the Bulldogs wore a blue helmet with a white winged design.
In 2007, as part of a "throwback" game, the Philadelphia Eagles wore baby-blue-on-yellow winged helmets that were replicas of the Frankford Yellow Jackets headgear in the 1930s. These helmets featured wings with a single center stripe, instead of the usual triple stripes.
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Colleges currently and recently using the winged football helmet
Division I-A
Division I-AA
- Saint Peter's College, New Jersey, before it dropped its football program in 2007.
- Princeton University [2]
- University of Delaware [3]
Division II
Division III
References
- ^ Michigan's Winged Helmet -- Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan Athletics History
- ^ Princeton Football -- Tiger Uniform & Helmet
- ^ Delaware Blue Hens Football
- ^ Southwest Baptist University Football
- ^ Grove City College Football
- ^ Gustavus Adolphus College Football
- ^ Middlebury College Football
- ^ Nichols College Football
External links
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