Rams Will Only Look the Part
Andre Rison was smart enough to know when to pick his spot, and so are the Rams, proving to be fast learners if nothing else.
By now, you’ve probably heard the teaser: This Sunday, the Rams will look like champions when they play the San Francisco 49ers.
Of course they will.
Yellow jerseys with royal blue block numbers and arm stripes.
White pants with gold and blue piping down each leg.
Solid blue stockings.
This is what the Rams wore the year they brought the NFL championship back to Los Angeles, the now mythic 1951 season. These were the uniforms Bob Waterfield, Tank Younger and Elroy Hirsch made famous, once upon a time, and if you’re too young to remember them--everybody under 45 qualifies--the Rams are bringing them back the next two weeks in the hope that dressing for success might be enough.
The Rams are doing this in accordance with the NFL’s “Throwbacks Weekend” promotion, a fine idea I’d assumed the No Fun League was no longer capable of making. This weekend, every team in the league wears a uniform from yesteryear, and some of them are true classics.
The Pittsburgh Steelers will wear their 1933 “rugby shirts”--black and gold vertical stripes with a castle-topped coat of arms on the chest.
The San Diego Chargers dig out their Lance Alworth specials--powder blue jerseys and white helmets with gold lightning bolts that debuted in 1961 and, if there’s any justice, ought to replace the team’s sad Ram-wanna-be outfits on a permanent basis.
The 49ers will oppose the Rams in their 1955 suits--silver helmets, red shirts and nifty three-D effect numerals that immediately conjure images of giant-finned autos, ceramic diner counters and Hugh McElhenny alone in the open field.
The Rams’ throwbacks are golden oldies, too, reminders of a time when the Rams were the boldest team around, instead of the one that runs Jerome Bettis up the middle three times from the one and then botches the take-the-safe-route field goal attempt.
Who else in the NFL had the audacity to wear yellow jerseys on Sunday? The Rams of 1951 may have looked like banana splits, but with Waterfield and Norm Van Brocklin cranking up 54-14 and 48-21 victories, no one seemed to laugh much.
“I love ‘em,” says Mickey Dukich, the Rams’ director of video operation for the past 39 years. “It was sad to give them up. They were unique, distinctive. Very clean-looking.”
The Rams gave them up in 1957 because television, in an ominous sign of things to come, ordered them to.
“The games were broadcast in black and white then,” Dukich says, “and the gold came out as gray on TV sets. It conflicted with white jerseys and light blue jerseys, like the ones the Detroit Lions wore. Television wanted more of a contrast.”
The Rams switched to blue and white, but “not without a struggle,” according to Dukich. “Dan Reeves, who owned the Rams then, told our equipment manager, Bill Granholm, to try to find a gold or a yellow that come across as white, or near it, when it was photographed in black and white.
“Bill went through a lot of different shades, but none of them worked until he found a light-colored yellow with blue on it. We went to the Coliseum one afternoon, he’d model it on the field and I’d shoot it from the top of the stadium. Sure enough, it came out white on the film. We were told we’d be able to use it.
“But then Dan Reeves asked Bill the name of the color. ‘Buttercup yellow,’ Bill told him.
“That did it. Mr. Reeves said, ‘No way, I’m not going to let the reporters know my team plays in buttercup yellow.’ It was back to blue and white after that.”
The Rams remained in blue and white throughout the ‘60s and into the ‘70s, until Carroll Rosenbloom bought the team in 1973 and introduced the basic design the Rams wear today. The Rams had some outstanding moments in those “ambulance whites”--Roman Gabriel, Dick Bass and Deacon Jones made their names in them--and the 1967 version was one of the two finalists the Rams considered as their “Throwbacks” uniform.
“It was Mrs. Frontiere’s decision,” says Todd Hewitt, Ram equipment manager. “The ’67 uniform would’ve been fun, with the white horns on the helmet. But Mrs. Frontiere wanted to go with the ‘51s, because it was the year we won the championship and it brings to mind so many great players. And, she liked the uniform.”
The Rams intend to wear the yellow ‘51s twice, this Sunday and next, and it is Hewitt’s responsibility to have them ready. He was a little nervous last week when the jerseys arrived with white cuffs and sleeves--the ‘51s were all yellow--and some of the linemen’s jerseys had the wrong shoulder material.
Hewitt had to send them back and hope a rush order for the correct models would arrive by Monday. They did, and were in the shop Tuesday being stitched with names and numbers.
These are not authentic ‘51s, Hewitt confesses. First of all, no long sleeves. “With all the grabbing that goes on now,” Hewitt says, “a Sean Gilbert or a Jackie Slater is not going to play in long sleeves.”
And no nylon dureen, the heavy material that made the ’51 jersey feel “like an old blanket when it got wet,” according to Hewitt. The new yellows are lightweight nylon mesh, cooler and more comfortable. Nostalgia has its limits.
And what say those who will be seen in public wearing them Sunday?
“When the players first saw the jerseys, they said, ‘Aw, we gotta wear those ?” Hewitt says, laughing. “But then they saw the white pants and they said, ‘Oh, those are pretty cool.’ I think they thought they were going to have to wear gold pants, too. That would have been a little too much.”
If they were good enough for Deacon Dan Towler, they ought to be good enough for Tim Lester. If it sets back fashion 43 years but brings the football with it, it’s a trade the Rams should make and stick with.