Join us at the Pigskin Dispatch website and the Sports Jersey Dispatch to see even more Positive football news! Sign up to get daily football history headlines in your email inbox @ Email-subscriber

Don't forget to check out and subscribe to the Pigskin Dispatch YouTube channel for additional content and the regular Football History Minute Shorts.

Miss our football by the day of the year podcasts, well don't, because they can still be found at the Pigskin Dispatch website.

Listeners are treated to a unique exploration of football history, specifically the evolution of helmet colors, in this engaging podcast episode featuring Darin Hayes and Timothy P. Brown. The discussion centers on the Iowa football team of 1925, one of the pioneers in the use of painted helmets, which were intended to improve visibility for players on the field, particularly the quarterbacks looking to pass. Brown provides a detailed narrative about how painting helmets became a strategic innovation in football, illustrating how the sport has continuously adapted to improve gameplay and player safety.

Of course, this story is based on Tim's Factoid Feast Tidbit I in a section called Iowa's Passing Fancy.

As the conversation unfolds, the hosts explore the quirky history surrounding the psychological claims made about the helmet designs by Iowa's psychology department, leading to a humorous yet critical examination of the relationship between sports, psychology, and design. Brown's insights into the challenges of maintaining painted leather helmets during inclement weather add depth to the discussion, emphasizing the practical considerations that teams faced in the early days of football. This historical context enriches the listener's appreciation for the game, showcasing how even small changes, such as helmet color, can have significant implications for strategy and player interaction on the field.

Thanks for joining us today because we've got a great football story. It's a story of how the helmet colors changed with the forward pass. Timothy P. Brown of Football Archaeology joins.

Us to tell us about this great.

Story in just a moment.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history. Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello my football friends. This is Darren Hayes@pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal deposit football history.

And today is Tuesday and what we do on Tuesdays is talk to our friend Timothy v. Brown of footballarchaeology.com Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey Darin, looking forward to chatting?

What are your, your other factoid feasts that you had? Break these down a little bit. You had one titled Iowa's Passing Fancy. Maybe you could tell us a little about that.

So, so that's, that was the original reason helmets got painted was to be able to find your past receivers. But what Iowa did that just, I mean, so they went ahead and they painted their helmets, which is no big deal.

But then somebody or some combination of professors in their psych department published a story saying that they had determined that the, the way that Iowa painted their helmet was psychologically perfect. Now, you know, back in the day when I was in grad school, I used to teach psych methods at the university I was at.

Maybe they were sniffing a little bit too much of the lead paint fumes or something back.

Yeah. Or drinking it. I don't know which it was. But yeah, so that was kind of the story. And it, you know, actually makes no sense.

But, you know, it's one of those things that some. Whoever was their public relations person heard about these. You know, a psychologist saying, hey, you know, we've got the perfect helmet.

And so you write up a story or whatever and it hits the press, and so then start. People across the country learn that Iowa has the perfect helmet.

That brings up the question, Tim. Now, we've talked, you know, talked about these leather helmets getting painted. We've talked about, you know, the balls getting painted.

You have quite a bit of information of that in your latest book on the history of the football and some of your tidbits. Now, how did the paint last on these leather items? Because I'm sitting here thinking leather is a pretty pliable thing. Paint is not always.

It doesn't always stretch and adhere, especially to something like leather. Now, do they have to paint these quite often, like every game or.

Yeah, so I don't really know. I do know that I've got a lot of different sporting goods catalogs. And so particularly when.

When they're still using leather helmets, kind of in the back of the catalog, they'd have. They'd sell all kinds of miscellaneous items and including how to lace the football and all that kind of stuff.

And so they would always sell paint, you know, in the various colors. So, you know, whether they repainted them mid season or not, I don't know.

But, you know, actually, once they started painting them, they probably, they. They would only paint the exterior.

But, you know, one of the challenges that they had back then is if you played in a, you know, when it was snowy or rainy or. Same thing with practice, you know, the leather would. The leather would get wet and absorb all that water and stiffen.

It's just like, you know, if you ever left your baseball glove out in the rain, you know, when you're a kid, you know, it's like a big chunk of cardboard, you know, afterwards. So you had to beat it up and oil it and do all that kind of stuff. And so they. They face the same issue with leather helmets.

And in fact, those same catalogs would have these little forms, they'd call them wire, like helmet racks, I think, is what they called. But you, you know, you'd take your helmet off after practice.

And put it on that form because, you know, your sweat or, you know, water from rain or whatever, you know, you had to. You had to get. You had to make sure that it didn't. Like, if you laid it outside, your helmet would be.

Would be malformed when you try to put it on the next game.

It'd be a little bit painful putting it on for the next game.

Yeah, so. So I. I don't really know, you know, about the. The paint issue in terms of how frequently they. They redid them.

I guess I'm almost relating, you know, if you watch like the movie Rudy, you know, there's that scene where he's helping out, like, before the games, he's not playing on the team, and they're painting the helmets before every game, the gold Notre Dame helmets. And, you know, just sitting there thinking, wow, that. That's quite a process on a plastic helmet or the materials we use today.

But a leather, that's a whole different story.

Yeah, well, you know, they probably did it like. I mean, maybe they used a brush, but I would think that they used more, you know, do you remember, like, when you polish your shoes, it had.

There was like this ball thing that you stuck down into the polish.

Right.

I think. I think the painting process was more along those lines, but. But I'm not 100. Sure.

Yeah. Don't ever make that mistake. I did. When I was a kid, we grabbed, you know, we saw the football players with eye black on everything. So we made.

We thought that would be brilliant to take my dad's shoe polish and put it under our eyes. It's not a good idea. It doesn't.

Yeah.

Doesn't work very well and your mother gets really mad at you. So we'll leave that for a different story, a different day. But, yeah, Tim, these.

Seems like it was kind of a painful episode for you in your life.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was very traumatic. Very traumatic.

But, you know, Tim, these tidbits and the factoid feasts and, you know, all these little great pieces of great history that you preserve are. You have all in one place and maybe you could tell folks where they can enjoy these at.

Yeah, just go to football footballarcheology.com and, you know, if it's first time you're going there, it's going to present you with an opportunity to enter your email address. If you do that, then you're subscribing.

And after that, every time I publish an article, you'll get that article sent to you in your email and it'll have the full contents of the article there.

But of course you can always just bookmark the site and go out there whenever you want and pour through the archives or whatever's on the front page and kind of have at it.

Well, Tim, we really appreciate your sharing this information with us and sharing these stories in person and speech and in writing, and we'd love to talk to you again next week about some more great football history. Very good.

Look forward to it.

That's all the football history we have today, folks. Join us back tomorrow for more of your football history.

We invite you to check out our website, pigskindispatch.com not only to see the daily football history, but to experience positive football with our many articles on the good people of the game as well as our own football comic strip cleat marks comics.

Pigskindispatch.com is also on social media outlets, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and don't forget the Pigskin Dispatch YouTube channel to get all of your positive football news and history. Special thanks to the talents of Mike and Gene Monroe, as well as Jason Neff for letting us use their music during our podcast.

This podcast is part of the Sports History Network. Your headquarters were the yesteryear of your favorite sport. You can learn more@sportshistorynetwork.com.