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The Coolest Helmet That Never Was


BlueSky

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Most people know of 1960s Cowboys WR Peter Gent's most popular novel, or at least the movie that was made from it: North Dallas Forty. It's pretty good but I think his other book may be even better. It's called The Franchise and it tells the story of the expansion Texas Pistols (how's that for a name that wouldn't even get close to approval today?) and their draft-darling QB, Taylor Rusk. I highly recommend it (with the caveat that I read it a very long time ago).
 
This is the original cover. Yeah, they're wearing Dallas' jersey style and Minnesota's pants, but that helmet is AWESOME. Would love to see someone do a concept of it.
 
81bAtiR7zML.jpg

92512B20-6264-4E6C-AAF2-7A1D44E9958B-481-00000047E259721F.jpeg

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 9/7/2017 at 8:06 PM, BlueSky said:
81bAtiR7zML.jpg

Man, does that bring back memories... my best friend/dorm roommate had that same paperback in college; we both read it and loved it.  Football, business, a kind of prime time soap opera thing going. I was going to get us and our friends purple "Pistols" jerseys with character names on the back for Christmas (Rusk for me, Hendrix for my buddy, D'Hanis for another guy, etc.), but of course I had no money to do so back then....

 

Interesting how this to some degree parallels the rise of the Dallas Cowboys, but a little differently-- they always refer to "the City"  and  "the University" without specifying either. But the fact that the franchise owner picks the purple color scheme of the same-city "University" and calls the team the Texas Pistols led my buddy and I to decide that this was an alt-universe version of Fort Worth and TCU (which has purple).

 

Later I noted that the character Pete Dudley had a lot of similarities to Paul Tagliabue...

It is what it is.

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On 9/8/2017 at 4:30 AM, BlueSky said:

 

Nice! I had no idea. I'll have to strike "never" from the title. Surprised there aren't protestors lining up over that. 

New Mexico State football isn't exactly on most people's radars. 

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On 9/7/2017 at 6:06 PM, BlueSky said:
Most people know of 1960s Cowboys WR Peter Gent's most popular novel, or at least the movie that was made from it: North Dallas Forty. It's pretty good but I think his other book may be even better. It's called The Franchise and it tells the story of the expansion Texas Pistols (how's that for a name that wouldn't even get close to approval today?) and their draft-darling QB, Taylor Rusk. I highly recommend it (with the caveat that I read it a very long time ago).
 
This is the original cover. Yeah, they're wearing Dallas' jersey style and Minnesota's pants, but that helmet is AWESOME. Would love to see someone do a concept of it.
 
81bAtiR7zML.jpg

 

Loving the artwork.

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