fictional American Union of Interscholastic Athletics (Twain State 4/22)

[kb105]

 

Colors

 - Iron Blue

 - Rust Red

 - White

 

 

Spoiler

          Hibbing, MN is home to the largest open-pit mines in the state and was first opened in 1895. With the establishment of the new mine, many structures were built around it in Hibbing to support the influx of workers and their families. One such was the Hibbing Mining School for children of miners. Originally a single room schoolhouse, it soon expanded to have five rooms by 1910. In 1916, expansion of the mine led to the whole northern portion of Hibbing to be moved to a new downtown area further south. Along with this move, the operating mining company pledged to help fund a new high school, among other new constructions, in the new downtown. The new high school also led to the creation of a community college that also was housed at the high school campus. By 1920, there were 15,000 in the town and the high school could no longer accommodate all of the high school students and community college students, so some college courses were offered at what was by then called Hibbing Primary School. Between the two world wars, the Mesabi Range where Hibbing is located accounted for a quarter of all iron ore mined in the US, leading to an increasing need for engineers to help continue developing new techniques in mining. The community college campus at HPS was split off from the other campus and was renamed Mesabi Institute of Mines in 1940. In 1945, the institute was made a state institution and was renamed again to Minnesota Institute of Mines. 
          By the 80s, the school began offering degrees outside the scope of mining operations, but opted to retain their name. It was also at this time that the school changed their mascot from Rangers, in reference to being the largest city of the Minnesota Iron Range, and instead began going by the nickname Greyhounds, after the Greyhound Bus company that was started in Hibbing by a local miner named Eric Wickman, who is also the namesake for the school’s football stadium. 
          For athletics, competition for Minnesota Mines (or locally called Mines) began in 1945 in the Minnesota Interscholastic Athletic Conference where they found athletic dominance and starting in the 50s became fierce rivals with Minnesota-Duluth, particularly in hockey. In 1975, both schools left for the then called Northern Collegiate Conference (Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference) where Mines would stay until the AUIA. From 04-08, Duluth left the conference and Mines saw the most in-conference success during their time, winning the conference every year in football and winning the bid to the NCAA DII tournament for the conference in 2006. 
Since joining the AUIA, athletics has had its ups and downs. Football won the first conference title before going winless in the league the next two seasons. Since then, they have consistently been in the top half of their division (of 6 teams) except in 2016 and 2019 when they finished 5th and 4th, respectively. Since 2020, they have represented their division in the conference game, winning once in 2022, against Dakota A&M each time. Basketball and hockey are the other strong sports, with hockey being the strongest of all three. They have not missed a tournament since joining, either entering as conference champions or a higher at-large bid, and having never left prior to the quarterfinals. Baseball is a different story. They have had some decent years where they win their conference and go on to make a run in the tournament, but never have gotten past the semi-finals. 

 

[jbird669]

The helmets for MN Mines are great.

[kb105]

Spoiler

On 5/10/2023 at 12:49 PM, jbird669 said:

The helmets for MN Mines are great.

Appreciate it! Was difficult at first deciding the sizing of the logo since its just so long horizontally, but the old Seahawks and Jacksonville Bulls helmets definitely inspired this one, along with Dakota A&M.

 

 

 

Colors

 - Fire Engine Red

 - Hazard Yellow

 - Slate Grey

 - White

 

 

Spoiler

          In 1869, New Castle was incorporated as a city and along with it decided a place of higher learning was in order. Soon, as New Castle became a hub of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, the institution grew steadily along with the city. However, the Great Depression led to financial turmoil for the school, which was exacerbated by the turn of WWII as less and less young men were going to college and instead were enlisting or being drafted into the military. During this time local business leaders came together to save the institution, then called New Castle College. The chief benefactors were pyrotechnic leaders Antonio Zambelli and Rocco Vitale, Sr. This led to the school’s students being nicknamed ‘pyros’, a nickname that still sticks to this day. 
          As a result of this financial rescue, the school was able to get back on its feet and began to flourish in the years after the war. In the 60s, the school began experiencing exponential growth which led to the need for physical expansion. Once again, the Zambelli family donated a large sum to the school, along with a working partnership with the engineering department. This gift led to the school being renamed Antonio Zambelli University and the college of engineering being named George Zambelli College of Engineering.
          The 1960s expansion also led to the creation of an athletics department that took on the student body’s ‘Pyros’ nickname. Athletics played in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference up to 1980, when the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference transitioned from NAIA to Division II and Zambelli was extended an invite. From 1980 until their invitation to the AUIA, athletics were consistently decent. Towards the end, baseball and hockey began building momentum that carried over to the AUIA and are consistently among the upper echelon of the league.
 

 

[kb105]

 

Colors

 - Connecticut Blue

 - Robin's Egg Blue

 - White

 

 

Spoiler

          Capitol Pines is located in Enfield, CT, just 3.75 miles south of the Massachusetts border along I-91. The school found its beginnings in the wake of Johnathan Edwards’ sermon, Sinners in the Wake of an Angry God. The sermon was presented in Enfield on July 8th, 1741. By that August, a seminary school began providing classes to build up new clergymen, ran by the Church of Christ. The first graduating class commenced in the spring of 1743. The school helped fuel the First Great Awakening through 1755. The school remained operating, uninterrupted up until the Revolutionary War. With the onset of the war approaching, there was a rift in the seminary’s leadership surrounding who the supported. The British supporting side kicked out the Revolutionary supporting side, who all decided to fight in the war. After the war, the Revolutionary supporting side returned to Enfield and started their own seminary, based on the Methodist teachings of John Wesley. Connecticut Seminary College was opened up in 1790. The school worked hard in what would now be described as transient students, sending out recently graduated students to other colleges in the South, learning at other institutions and preaching at local churches. This continued on until the 1850s, when tensions between North and South led to the end of this practice. In the post-Civil War era, CSC grew to be more than just a seminary college and renamed to Shaker Pines College, named after the neighborhood of Enfield where the campus was located. In 1908, they began conducting four-year degrees. In 1980, the school was burned down in a massive fire and relocated to a larger campus along I-91, just east and across the river of the Bradley International Airport. This led to yet another name change, this time with the school trying to capitalize on its new location being closer to Hartford, the state capital, to Capitol Pines University. 
          Athletics began in just 1980. The sports only consisted of basketball, hockey, and baseball. Hockey was actually a rather decent program, as it was heavily aided by the Hartford Whalers. The other sports struggled for years, trying to find their footing in the New England Small Collegiate Athletic Conference (NESCAC). In 2002, their football program began. They had a predictably poor first few seasons before making a surprising run to 2nd place in the conference in 2006. Basketball and baseball also started finishing in the upper portion of the league by the mid-2000s, thus gaining the attention of the AUIA, which they joined in 2012. Football and hockey continued to have success before football trailed off to being more middling to mediocre. Baseball and basketball returned to their previous cycle of average play, periodically having seasons of promise.
 

 

[kb105]

Here is a familiar school, one that was already updated once and was the school that started it off. But, as mentioned before I will be going back to all the schools and updating the presentations for them and making tweaks, from small to overhauls, to them along the way. This post will just simply explain the updates, if any, and the reasoning for them. The full update will be in the original post, here.

 

Branding

          The logo was just ever so slightly tweaked from the previous iteration that was done in Inkscape. It simply is more mathematical in its shearing and the crossbar in the G is ever so lightly more pronounced from the original. The secondary, Thor's Hammer logo is unchanged while the tertiary was scrapped. It was just too busy in my opinion, especially for small scale uses and really was redundant with the secondary already being the main feature of the logo. 

 

Football

          This one is rather simple. The makeup of the uniforms necessitated some minor changes, such as the change from the collar logo to a small chest text. Also changing is the pants. The original had a block gradient stripe, which was updated to being two thin gradient stripes on the white pants and a gradient stripe borders by thin white stripes on the orange. The idea is the same, but slimmed down and with the switch from the GEO logo to the Hammer logo on the front hip. Overall, Red Rock was de-emphasized as a whole, something @the_grateful_ted had suggested from the beginning. As a result, the Red Rock alternate was axed in favor of a white helmet that uses the gradient GEO from the logo slick along with a chrome orange facemask, hopefully emulating the gradient found in the rest of the brand. 

 

Basketball

          The look here was simply simplified from the Wizards-esque yokes from version 2, which itself meant to lighten from the side panels of the original. The gradient is relegated to just the collar and arm holes on the primary uniforms, and the alternate takes note from the pro team up north in Salt Lake City. Even the court is simplified with Thor's hammer at midcourt being shrunk down and the gradient only making an appearance on the sidelines between the coach's box.

 

Hockey

          Same as the others, simplify from version 2 to help make the team look like a classic powerhouse with modern flair. Gone is the sunset helmets and instead, hockey takes from football with the hoodoo orange helmets and the

de-emphasizing of red rock.

 

Baseball

          Again, simplify the look to hopefully be a modern classic set. Instead of gradient caps, I opted for the gradient hammer to be from and center on the main cap with the mismatch decals still present from the first two iterations. An added bonus is the turf that made the sunset outfield possible is now grass as well as the pitcher's mound actually having a rubber (can't believe I let the one go unnoticed for three years). 

 

And before I let you go, here are some minor updates to Space Coast.

Football

          Football barely changes, except for the astronaut-themed uniform. Similar to UCF's Space game uniforms, there will be different iterations based on different aspects of the history of space exploration. For the 2022 season, this look is celebrating Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, as well as the EMU suit, the long used spacesuit from 1983 to 2011. Sally Ride's first space flight was in June of '83 and she passed in 2012 and the EMU was first used in April of '83. Since the 2022 season is apart of the 2022-23 school year, which is closest to these anniversaries, it is the year in which Space Coast decided to commemorate them, along with 2022 being the 10 year anniversary of Sally Ride's death. Here is an explanation of the "mission patch" for this year. Here is the 2022 schedule graphic, as well. 

 

Hockey

          For hockey, I felt I went too conservative the last go around and ultimately wasn't too pleased with the end result. So, I went back to the original and decided to base the look off of that. The angled stripes lead to color blocking on the sleeves, similar to the football sleeve caps. The last major change was for the space alternate. Instead of a Florida pride jersey, I went with another commemorative set and decided on Columbia, as 2023 is the 20 year anniversary.  The uniform is based on the mission patch, namely the jet trail from the star and the shape of the space shuttle. The first game wearing it on February 1, the day of the disaster in 2003.

 

[kb105]

So, I need a little bit of help. One of the teams I'm going back to is Nogales. If you remember, they were one of the original teams and their mascot is a Tiger Rattlesnake. The original snake head logo I designed for them is not very good, so I wanted to go back and work on it. Here is what I came up with: 

As you can see, I'm a bit undecided on which one to use. They are both the same base logo, but the coloring around the mouth is different. The one on the left was the original and is closer to what the source image looks like, but the one on the right, I feel is less busy and makes the mouth appear thinner. So if you can, let me know which one y'all think is the better option.

[Blindsay]

The one on the left

[kb105]

On 6/4/2023 at 10:15 PM, Blindsay said:

The one on the left

Appreciate the input, I hope to have the Nogales update within the net week.

---

The other side to the Cadillac Classic between themselves and Cadillac Narrows, the Manistee Briars.

 

 

Colors

 - Pine Green

 - Strawberry Red

 - White

 

 

Spoiler

          In 1899, the predecessor to the Cadillac Chamber of Commerce, the Cadillac Club, sought to better the city and one way was to build a post-secondary school for graduates of Cadillac High School and surrounding high schools in the area. Wexford College first began as mostly a community college with most of the programs being two-years and many classes being held at night. In 1901, the state took the school over and changed the name to Wexford State Normal School. The school was rather small, nestled between Lake Mitchell and Lake Cadillac on the western side of the city. In 1926, US Highway 131 opened up and the state decided to move the school next to the highway for better access. The new campus opened up for the spring semester of 1927 and the new campus led to a decent bump in enrollment. During the depression, Enrollment dipped down slightly from the post ‘27 bump, but the college did not experience major financial distress. Coming out of WWII, the school began expanding rapidly, going from 3,000 students in 1945 to 27,000 in 1960. This explosion was led in part to the expansion of degree programs, particularly the hospitality program. The school was made a state university in 1962 and renamed to Wexford State University. In wanting to cater to a wider range of Northern Michigan, the school was renamed a year later to the University of Manistee, named after the Manistee National Forest where Cadillac and Wexford County are on the Eastern edge of. Into the 90s, the school continued to grow, enrolling 40,000 and expanding the campus past Highway 131. New construction continued on into the early 2000s including pedestrian bridges over the highway as well as expansion and rebuilding of athletic facilities. 
          Athletics first began with the baseball team in 1905, followed by the football team in 1908. Basketball started up in 1911, along with hockey. The teams were named after a folklore creature, the Dogman, which reportedly had been sighted in Wexford County first in 1887. The first few years were independent with most of their opponents being among other small schools in Michigan with the main rival being Central Michigan Normal School (now Central Michigan). In 1950, they joined the Interstate Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) alongside Central and Eastern Michigan. There was not much success seen in their time in the IIAC and eventually left in 1964 to join the Presidents Athletic Conference alongside Eastern Michigan. In 1963, the athletics team was renamed the Briars after Briar Hill. In ‘64, they added red to their colors to differentiate between them and Eastern in their new conference. At this time, they formed a rivalry with Zambelli which lasted up to Zambelli’s departure in 1980. Manistee would remain one more year before going back to being independent until 1992. In this period, Manistee saw their first taste of athletic success. Hockey was competing in the Western Collegiate Hockey Conference and in 1991 was the runner up to Northern Michigan. In 1993, they joined the GLIAC in all sports, minus hockey, who remained in the WCHC, and football who played with other football-sponsoring GLIAC members in the MIFC. During this time, a rivalry formed with Northern Michigan, mainly in football and hockey in the Battle for Northern Michigan. A rather even series, the rivalry came to be very heated at times. Hockey and football contests in 1999 through 2003 were not allowed to be on campus, in front of fans as the ‘98 games were stuff of legends. Of the 3,100 people packed into Lakeview Arena, 1,500 of them were arrested as an on-ice brawl at the end of the 2nd period led to one in the stands. The game was suspended and later deemed a no contest (Manistee was leading 4-1) and in total, a total of 10 different police jurisdictions were needed to process and house all of those arrested. The next fall, the football game was at Manistee and 300 state troopers, along with city and county law enforcement were present at the game. Dogman Park held 30,000 at the time and on this day had close to 40,000 inside and another 10,000 outside. The game went off without a hitch as Manistee came back from 10 down at the start of the fourth, winning on a last second two-point conversion. After the game, as the over crowded stadium began to slowly empty, multiple fights broke out in various sections. As police tried to reach these altercations, pushing through fans in the process, fights began between fans and law enforcement. The most famous of these fights was in section 113 where, allegedly, a state trooper shoved a pregnant lady out of the way in order to get to a fight of 30+ drunken fans. After people started yelling about the lady being pushed, the trooper, along with five other LEOs were jumped by the fans previously fighting each other. In the end, around 60 people in section 113 were arrested for assault on an officer. In total, 5,000 people were arrested and another 250 were hospitalized. Subsequent games were held in Traverse City, football at Thirlby Field and hockey at the Centre ICE Complex. In 2012, Manistee accepted the invitation to the AUIA and also tried to persuade Northern Michigan, who declined. Initially hoping to resurrect their PAC rivalry with Zambelli, the layout of the league and Zambelli coming along with one of their conference mates has led to them not being able to play every year and instead every two to three years. Football has had some success, winning two Frontier Lakes titles and entering the postseason once as an at-large. They have been ranked inside the top 24 numerous other times, but have been bumped out of postseason contention by bid stealers in championship games, most notable in 2017 and 2019 when they were ranked 23 and 22, respectively, and still missed out on extra football. Hockey has become the one of the best and consistently battles Zambelli for conference titles.

---

I just figured how to share individual posts, so I went back and put a post 'map' of all the teams and their updates in the topic post for ease of use. I am also putting in there the other aspects of the AUIA (post season, schedules, results, rankings, etc.), so if you are interested, stay tuned to keep up them as I try to update as much as possible.

 

[kb105]

Logos

 - Primary: Logo changed from one continuous interlocking NC to the N and C being broken up, makes it look a little bit more different from so many interlocking logos. 

 - Secondary: Perspective changed from previous snakehead logo, also made less illustrative.

 - Tertiary: Baseball script added with the T using both a tail rattle for the vertical bar and the split tongue as the cross bar.

 - University Emblem: The emblem is simplified to focus on the Arizona flag rather than the seal for Nogales, AZ. The copper star is replaced by Saguaro Cacti, which are prevalent in the Sonoran Desert.

 

Football

          The main uniforms stay pretty much the same, the only difference being the new logo on the helmet, the facemask changing to the lighter brown, and the updated fonts. The stripe used throughout swapped the light and dark browns, maintaining a northwestern stripe design on all backgrounds. The major change is the addition of the Sonoran Night uniform. The sleeve caps take the scenery from the university emblem, recolored into the team colors. The field design is usually the same as what I had originally envisioned, just never got around to finishing. That design is found on the left of the field and the design for the Sonoran Nights is on the right. The only difference not shown is the midfield logo logo would change to the snakehead logo for Sonoran Nights games. Due to the change of the field design, the game normally is scheduled after and before a non home game. This past season, it would be for the Grand Valley game in Week 10. 

 

Basketball

          Not much change for the home and away, just new fonts and the stripe being added to the jersey side panels. The Sonoran Night uniform takes cues from the 90s Phoenix Suns 'Starburst' uniform shorts. The court is heavily stained, taking from the Cactus-AZ Flag design all season long.

 

Hockey

          Hockey is the biggest changes yet, but still not much. The NHL team has a history of large blocks of color on the sleeves, so the hockey team in Nogales does the same. That, along with the pants changing to the lighter brown, the uniforms are still rather similar to the originals. The Sonoran Night is inspired by the Peyote jerseys with the state flag being used on the hem design as well as on the arms and socks. The ice design is actually from another desert hockey team, the Vegas Golden Knights and their multitude of complex designs they've used at center ice.

 

Baseball

          Lastly, the biggest detractors from the original sets. Gone are the pinstripes and the striped hats. The home uses the aforementioned baseball script along with the stripe on the sleeves. The away is no longer the normal grey, instead going with a lighter brown that is primarily worn on the road, but also worn at home. The Sonoran Nights opts for a raglan sleeved pullover with the design on the sleeves and the socks, worn mostly during night games at home or on the road. The baseball stadium is actually based on the high school field, War Memorial Stadium, just slightly larger by holding up to 6,000 seated fans.

---

For the original designs, go here for the original Nogales post, along with the background story.

---

C&C Welcome!

[heavybass]

Trying to see the Tigers  from the Snake

[kb105]

It's been a minute since I've been able to post, and I'm currently working on a few updates and a few new schools. The two updates are on some of the original teams, NIE and Dewi Sant. NIE had the tortoise logo that I have grown to not be too pleased with and wanted to update it to be a more serviceable logo rather than a crude illustration. Dewi Sant is similar in the regard that it is not the look I was intending to mimic in the Welsh Red Dragon and so went a completely different direction with the new logo.

 

NIE

 

Dewi Sant

---

The next team comes from the NEAU in Barre, VT. This team is actually named for a WWI memorial statue, called the Youth Triumphant, which is also found on the city seal and flag. They have a proud history in granite and compete against Cannon for the Granite Cup across all sports (each sport gives out 2 points: 2 points for football game winner, 1 point for each game winner in basketball and hockey, and 2 points for the series winner in baseball).

 

Green Mountain Central

---

The hope is to have these schools finished in the coming weeks, but for now I hope to get some feed back on the direction so far with them.

---

On 6/25/2023 at 6:09 AM, heavybass said:

Trying to see the Tigers  from the Snake

The Tigers are modeled after the Tiger Rattlesnake, which is named for its striping pattern along its spine that looks like tiger stripes. In the backstory, it is explained that when Nogales operated as a high school they were nicknamed the tigers whose mascot was modeled after the more traditional tiger and wore orange and brown. When they became a college, they transitioned to a more desert theme both in colors and mascot. 

 

[kb105]

Colors

 - Sandstone removed for a simplified look of just Silver and Neon. A dark grey is used in alternate capacities, similar to Smokey Grey for Tennessee.

Logos

 - Primary: Logo remains the same aside from removal of sandstone.

 - Secondary: As highlighted in the post above, Tommy the Tortoise receives a much needed face lift

 - Font is called Fela by Laszlo Feja on behance.

 - University Emblem: Just took the atom element from the previous seal and added a contrasting N. The electrons shown on the atom corresponds with the color of the emblem and that element's valence electrons (Neon is 8 and Silver is 2).

 

Football

          With the removal of sandstone, the striping pattern had to be altered slightly. Instead of two separated blocks of color, the stripe has a "neon-fied" center pinstripe, aside from the dark grey elements which use the previous striping convention. The main uniforms lose the sleeve stripes, instead opting for a tortoise shell design, ala Maryland's shell print uniforms.  

 

Basketball

          Big changes here. Main uniforms add side stripes along with collar and sleeve striping that is based on the base color of the uniform. The alternate uses the atom from the school emblem to create a shimmer effect and the pattern is also repeated on the painted areas of the court.

 

Hockey

          Hockey sees a much needed modern flair for the home and away looks. The striping convention is borrowed from the Vegas Golden Knights and Pittsburgh Penguins with the top of the arms being the "neon" version of the main colors. The alternate is a more old-school, faux-back look with the college numbers and arched text. One thing about the dark grey pants ia that they could be used for home and away uniforms as well, hence why they are stripeless.

 

Baseball

          Baseball opts to use the atom design over Tommy as their traditional nickname is the Atomic Bombers. The uniforms have completely changed as the home is cream and orange and the away is pinstriped silver. The field dimensions are 405' to center and 325' down each flag pole.

--- 

The original post can be found here and the backstory can be found below.

Spoiler

           In 1950, the Atomic Commission set up Base Camp Mercury in the southwest corner of the Nevada Test Site. In 1960, the commission opened up a research institution, The US Energy Institute  for doctoral candidates whose focus of study surrounded nuclear and radioactive materials as well as exploring new and improved energy sources. In 1992, subcritical nuclear testing ended and the school was transferred from the Atomic Commission to the Department of Energy. At this time, the school began offering bachelor degree programs and began expanding in both land area and in student population. In 15 years, the institute transitioned from a few research labs along US-95 holding less than 200 researchers to a sprawling 2,400 acre campus, home to wind and solar farms, a state of the art jet propulsion laboratory, and a farm. The student population also grew to about 2,500 of the brightest students in the country. In 2007, the school was once again transferred to a new governing body, this time to the State of Nevada, and was renamed to the Nevada Institute of Energy. They were still connected to the DOE as the testing school for a proposed Nuclear-Grant program, modeled after other grant programs in US higher education, focusing on the effects of nuclear activity and radioactivity on humans and the environment. Along with this effort was the creation of a medical and a veterinarian college.
          The first athletics were club based sports who would compete with military bases in southern Nevada and northern Arizona, the most common being Creech AFB in nearby Indian Springs. In 1998, the student body voted to start some sports programs by 2002. The first season was first pushed back in early 2002 after 9/11 and the federal government stopped construction on new facilities, opting to use those funds in  the war in the Middle East. Ultimately, the Bush Administration had no desire to continue the use of funds for athletic facilities, thus halting construction until the state took over. Unfortunately for the student body, the recession had hit just as the school was set to resume construction, and the school opted to hold off beginning the next phase until 2010. Finally, after 8 years and millions wasted, construction would begin once again, this time including a football stadium along with the previously planned arena and baseball field. Being set to have all of the facilities be operable for the 2012-13 academic year, the school began exploring a conference home in the spring of 2011. The school was looking between NAIA and NCAA Division II. However, they were not able to secure anything before the AUIA contacted them to join. Ultimately, they joined and were placed in the CRC. 
          The athletics opted to carry over the mascot from their club days, Tommy the Tortoise. Tommy was at first a real live desert tortoise who was found near a nuclear testing site in 1962 and was brought to the institute to be studied for effects from exposure to the nuclear blasts and fallouts. Tommy was estimated to be around 8 when brought into the institute and was adopted by one of the researchers. Eventually, Tommy began showing up to select games with his shell painted a bright orange and silver, leading to the club teams taking on the name Toxic Turtles by the local military base teams. In the 90s, the nickname was changed to the Toxic Tortugas as a reference to the Mexican heritage of Nevada before them becoming just Tortugas prior to their first year in the AUIA. Tommy is still a part of NIE, as he has a habitat on campus that he shares with a female Desert Tortoise, Tina, and still is seen at most home contests. Tommy II, a 7 year old son of Tommy and Tina, is being groomed to be the next live mascot, as he is seen alongside his father at home games and is usually able to go to away games by himself. Tommy has also been rendered as an anamorphic Tortoise, also called Tommy, in both mascot and logo form. In both renderings, Tommy has Neon Orange flesh and a silver colored shell.
          On the field, the play hasn’t been much to talk about. Unlike conference-mates such as Geo who started play in 2012, NIE has not been able to reach much success. This can be attributed to the constraints of both low acceptance rates (usually between 10-15%) and their lack of ‘easy’ majors. Football is the worst of them all. They currently are on a 15 game losing streak and besides 4 wins over Malpais State, they are winless in conference competition. Basketball is slightly better, having actually achieved a winning season, 6 times including a conference championship in 2020, but have never been able to build lasting success. Baseball is similar in that they have some good seasons where there is hope for sustained periods of good ball, but for one reason or the other they fail to string those types of seasons together. Hockey is usually a poor performer along with football, but do battle it out with the other southern teams and even make some noise by upsetting one of the mountain region teams in the conference every few years. As you can imagine, NIE lacks much support from boosters and fans alike, however, there is hope things will change as a new athletic director and president hope interest can be gained as new coaching hires of former high profile athletes, notably Stacey Augmon for basketball and Demarco Murray for football, has led to a recent boost in both season tickets and donations to the athletics program and collective.
 

 

[kb105]

 

Colors

 - Barre Green

 - White

Logos

 - Primary: The sword from the Youth Triumphant, a World War I memorial statue in the center of town

 - Secondary: GMC stylized like the sword logo

 

--- 

The backstory can be found below.

Spoiler

          Green Mtn Central finds its roots all the way back to 1788 to the first schoolhouse of Wildersburgh, the predecessor to Barre, VT. Built by the Rogers and Goldsbury families, Wildersburgh School would gradually grow along with the town. In 1793, the school was a part of a project to build a new house of worship. A new school building would be built next to the church which would house younger students (ages up  to 14) and the older students would remain at the original location. The upper school held classes during the day from older children and at night for young adults. By 1801, the young adults' classes had grown so much that there were plans for a separate building for them. The new building would not be a part of the now called Barre Schools (Barre Lower and Upper Schools) but rather would operate as a proper institution of higher learning, aptly named Barre Institute. The Institute would stand for 45 years until a fire damaged much of the structures. After a handful of years of operating in the Upper and Lower schools, it was decided to move the campus to a larger tract of land and become a university. The Former campus was then used by the Barre Academy for their new building in 1852. 
          The newly named Central University, as it is located centrally between Berlin and Barre, was opened in 1852. The university had a unique combination of their most popular colleges, engineering and arts. Barre is located on vast deposits of granite that are prized across the world. The school would provide the engineers to figure out how to get the granite and the artists who would figure out how to use the granite for amazing artistic displays. As time would go on, the engineering department would shrink in importance as the acquisition became more and more established and the art department only grew. 
          During the 1920s, the school, along with the city of Barre, underwent a socio-political change as the immigrants who came to the area to work in the quarries instituted labor unions and Socialist politics. The town would go on to experience numerous labor strikes and began electing socialist city leaders while the school began implementing more progressive policies and curriculum. By the 50s and 60s, Central was considered a “communist stronghold” by the state and federal government and accreditation was pulled by most recognizable entities. In 1967, control of the school was forcibly transferred to the state government and the name was renamed to Green Mountain Central. Despite the attempted cultural coup, the student body remained the same and tension between administration and students brinked on hostilities, especially during demonstrations against the Vietnam War in the late 60s. 
          Luckily, the tension never reached a breaking point and gradually relationships got better as new administration was cycled through by the 90s. Nowadays, Green Mtn Central is one of the premier schools in both the state and the whole of the Northeast, generally considered just a tier below the Harvards and Yales of the collegiate world. 
          On the athletic side, there is actually a quite rich history. Football began in 1884 and consisted of mostly immigrant quarrymen and college students who traveled across the region and were able to hold their own against the best. Basketball began in the early 20th century, the official first season being 1913, along with hockey in 1922. Baseball was played intramurally for decades prior to the first official season that began in 1876. For the better part of the early athletic period of Central, the school competed in an independent manner while essentially having unofficial annual games with Vermont, Norwich, and Middlebury along with commonly recurring battles against the likes of Northeastern, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. In 1923, they joined Connecticut and Northeastern in founding the New England Conference. By joining the conference, games against Norwich and Middlebury began becoming less frequent before ceasing altogether by the late 30s. All athletics were suspended starting in the spring of 1944 lasting through the fall of 1946. When competition did resume, it was met with some changes. The New England Conference had been morphed into the Yankee Conference with the remaining NEC teams and the UMass and Vermont joining. Central’s participation lasted until 1978, when the Yankee Conference transitioned from Division II to Division I-AA, a jump that the now named Green Mtn Central just could not afford nor compete in. For the next five years, the Green Mtn Boys & Girls competed as D-II independents, but as more and more regional foes moved up in classification, travel costs piled up. In 1984, Green Mtn Central would play its last competition for what most assumed would be not for long, as hopefully a suitable conference or arrangement could be made. No such accommodations could be found. Ultimately Green Mtn Central went without athletics until 2012. However, it was not like too many rivals missed them. In the 60s and 70s many games were either postponed or canceled due to on-campus demonstrations, something that put both student-athletes and season results at risk. Finally after the 1969-70 seasons when half of the basketball games were somehow affected along with three football games, the NCAA implemented a new rule that from then on, Green Mtn Central would have to forfeit games instead of ruling them no contests. In the 1970 football year, the team was only able to host one game at home, going 6-4 (the 4 loses being home forfeits with the last ‘home’ game being secretly moved to the University of Vermont and no student tickets were sold). 
          Despite the hiatus and the baggage that the student body brought with it, the AUIA still lent out an invite to Green Mtn Central. After they accepted the offer, renovations were under way. The football stadium was increased in size from 5,000 to 20,000 by 2015. After their 2017 conference title and deep playoff run, the school started a new plan to double the size to 40,000 by the 2022 season, which ultimately was pushed back to the start of the 2023 season. The basketball arena was the former gymnasium that was completely gutted and reconfigured into what it is today. That project lasted until 2021. In the meantime, events were held inside a bubble-like structure next to Thunder Road, a racetrack about 2.5 miles southeast from the center of campus. Another task was renaming the athletic teams as the Boys & Girls would not work as team names. It was voted on by the student body and they chose Triumphants, a call back to their struggle to regain their athletics program as well as a reference to the World War I memorial statue named the Young Triumphant located in the center of Barre. They have been able to cut out a nice slice of the NEAU and AUIA pie as they have won multiple NEAU division titles in football, and conference titles in football and baseball. They have formed a rivalry with Cannon, Hudson, and Fort Dummer in conference, as well as an annual rivalry with Frontier Lakes Conference member Cussewago.

 

[Blindsay]

Oh boy I can already imagine the rivals of GMC making the Sword into… other things…

[kb105]

Colors

 - Reaper Red

 - Welsh Green

 - Intimidator Black

 - White

 

Football

          Football receives a slight facelift with the new logo and the assurance that red and green never touch. The alternates see the most drastic changes as color blocking was fixed to make the look less gaudy and easier for numbers to be discerned for those with red-green color blindness.

          The stadium also has seen a major upgrade as the old neon turf was replaced with natural grass in 2021 as well as the stadium name reverting back to its old, sponsor less name that references the city of Darlington's famous NASCAR race. 

 

Basketball

          Like football, the uniforms follow the same blueprint, albeit with a lot more divergence from the original. A trend I have seen in basketball uniforms at the college level is traditional/simple jerseys with the pants being a bit more "loud". Two of my personal favorites of this look are Miami (FL) and Villanova. The idea here is that the jerseys should be clean design-wise for fanwear while the shorts get to express the team a bit more.

          The court is also a recipient of a more subdued design as the green court was the first of its kind, and hopefully the last. The look follows the football turf's lead with a black-heavy design, but here also incorporating a reptilian skin pattern that is better seen in the paint. 

Hockey

          Hockey actually sees a quasi-modernization as the home and away uniforms get more green and black while the crest is simplified from the previous academic crest to the DS lockup.

Baseball

          Baseball gets even more simple than before as the regular uniforms ditch the pinstripes and instead opt for regular striping that matches the hem of the hockey uniforms. The single layer applications were also introduced to further strip down from the previous look. The alternates simply color swap with uniforms lettering and number applications and are universally home and road options.

          The stadium was actually rebuilt, with just the outfield walls remaining (although they were reinforced and padding changed) from their pre-death penalty venue. The capacity was kept the same, although expansion was planned for with a second deck being structurally accounted for should demand be high enough in the future. Like the football stadium, the ballpark had its sponsorship deal end and thus the stadium was renamed after the cultural region of Pee Dee, where Darlington is squarely located in. 

 

To see the original post with the school history and uniform matchups, go here!

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C&C appreciated!

[kb105]

Had a few tests last week so this will feature a new school as well as an updated Cape Ag set. 

 

Colors

 - Tool Blue

 - Macaw Green

 - Champion Gold

 - White

Logos

 - Primary: Blue-and-yellow macaw with a beak that resembles Channellock's Parrot jaw pliers

 - Secondary: Channellock inspired Cussewago wordmark

 

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Background below:

Spoiler

          Cussewago has a more unique history, largely rooted in the industrial nature of its location in northwestern Pennsylvania. The school now located in Fredericksburg began as a vocational school, named French Creek Mechanical School, in Meadville in 1918 that produced machinists and mechanics. Many of the graduates of the two-year program would go on to work in Cleveland or Pittsburgh and led to the school establishing a strong reputation of good workers. In 1942, the school was contracted by the US military to train mechanics for the war effort. The government, highly satisfied with the results of the program and its graduates, gave the school a large grant in 1946, after the war ended. This led to the school expanding from a vocational school and relocated outside of Meadville to create a larger campus. In 1950, the newly established Cussewago Creek College began classes, offering engineering, mechanical, and machinist based degrees out of the 30 acre parcel, dubbed by locals as Cussewago City as it was built up like a downtown area with classroom buildings, shops, restaurants, and apartment-style dorms built next to each other. In the 60s, CCC began entertaining other degree fields before ultimately gaining university accreditation in 1968. Now named University of Cussewago Creek, they again looked for a government grant, this time from Lyndon B Johnson and his model cities program. While initially rebuffed, they were granted the money as the first and only college to receive funding through the program. Built on a company town model, the school had been built up to house single-family homes for employees, a grocery store, a movie theater and bowling alley, and even elementary and middle schools.
          In 1967, the school secured possibly the most important partnership in its history. When one of the young members of the DeArment family was choosing schools, they decided on UCC, as it was near Meadville and had gained a reputation as one of the best emerging engineering schools. Instead of paying for tuition in money, the school and family brokered a deal that made Channellock the exclusive tool provider for its employees and courses and gave the college 2% ownership in the company. Since this arrangement, the school and family have been close partners, with some family members holding positions on the universities board. 
          Cussewago has grown to be one of the premiere engineering schools in Pennsylvania and the nation, ranked in the top ten, usually behind longtime rival Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. This rivalry helped spur the late 80s expansion of the school and the later, even larger expansion in the 2000s that has seen the college boast an enrollment of 45,000 students and an engineering college of 8,000 students. Along with the growth was the decision in 1998 to change the name once again to just the University of Cussewago, as school officials felt naming the school after a local body of water was not becoming of a national brand. 
          Unlike most other top academic schools, Cussewago has a strong history in athletics. Seeing as the school began as a vocational school, the history is not that long, with sports not beginning until 1972. The first handful of years, Cussewago competed in the Mid Atlantic Conference, however, the football program would follow 8 other members in creating the Centennial Conference in 1981 with the rest of the sports following suit in 1992 once the conference sponsored more than just football. In 2006, Cussewago moved up to Division II, joining the WVIAC alongside Pittsburgh-Johnstown and Seton Hill, becoming the first schools outside West Virginia to join the conference. The WVIAC would be their last home until joining the AUIA as well as being their most successful period in athletics. The years in the Centennial were never bad, as football was able to win a few conference titles and make some deep runs into the postseason, however the success could never have amounted to that seen in the WVIAC. Football would only lose a total of seven conference games in their 6 seasons of play, basketball just losing 11. The only accolade that alluded the school was a national title, as the majority of their time there was during their probationary period and they were not allowed to compete in the postseason. Prior to the 2012-13 season, Cussewago had seen the writing on the wall that the WVIAC was being imploded from within, so they sought other conference homes. Unfortunately, no conference would bite and the WVIAC schools, having been under the mercy of the Clippers for six years now, took this opportunity to expel Cussewago for “conduct unbecoming of a member institution”. This left the school’s athletics without a home and luckily enough, the AUIA was eager to make the call to give them a new home. Since joining the Frontier Lakes Conference, their trajectory has remained the same. Football has won two national and conference titles and made the playoffs 5 times, although have not returned since 2017. Basketball started off strong, winning a national title, conference title, and reaching the playoffs twice within the first three years, but have not been able to reach that level since then. Hockey and baseball both have made the postseason a handful of times, but national titles have been hard to come by as those sports have a handful of extremely dominant programs who gatekeep national titles. 
          The branding of the school is closely tied with the Channellock company. The tool company’s signature blue color is borrowed by the school while the mascot comes from the parrot nosed pliers and the original name of Channellock, the Champion Bolt and Clipper Company. The specific type of parrot used is the Blue-and-Yellow Macaw with the costumed mascot being named Cletus the Clipper and the live mascot is Mack I, a 58 year old blue-and-yellow macaw. The colors are derived from their mascot, although for the majority of their history, the school was blue and athletic gold with hints of green. When they joined the AUIA, one of their conference mates was blue and yellow which led the school to become blue and green with hints of athletic gold.
          The macaw mascot led to the rise of the Parrot Heads, the nickname for the student section at home basketball and football games. The origins can be traced back to Jimmy Buffett performing at the 1989 homecoming game. He was invited back for the next two homecoming games before he decided to cement his legacy at the school by donating a sum of money to school, leading to his name being put on the football stadium. Every year, he would take part in the introduction videos for sports, leading to his hit song Margaritaville being played in between the 3rd and 4th quarters of football games (with the lyric Wisconsin replaced by ole PA). 

[kb105]

Colors

 - Colonial Blue

 - Buff

 - White

Logos

 - Primary: A Delaware blue hen, the colors were moved around to better resemble how the bird looks in real life.

 - School Emblem: The Lewes city seal inspired mark makes way for a cleaner shield that better resembles the branding of the school, as you will see in the uniforms. 

 

Football

          The football uniforms now utilize the diamond/argyle stripe from the basketball and hockey teams instead of the minimal design that mimicked the current Jacksonville Jaguars look. The application is similar to the old and now new FSU uniforms with the design on the collar and cuffs, although it is also used on the pants. Also added was a buff alternate, worn once at home and for select color on color games away from home.

          The helmets lost the gradient wings, instead using the blue hen head, that pops a bit better than before due to the color alterations previously touched on. Other helmet options include a throwback version of the wings, without the gradient and feather detailing of the previous look. This option is used often, sometimes up to three or four games. The other helmet look is the 1st logo, which is worn for the homecoming game and commemorates Delaware being the first state admitted to the Union, as well as Lewes being the first town founded in the state.

          The field also shows a bit more character, as the stripes replaces the text in the endzone. The design changes slightly for the buff jersey games, as the endzone and border are painted buff and the stripe is recolored accordingly. The stadium name has also been changed, as the corporate sponsorship was ended as the school no longer wanted the stadium that houses a chicken mascot to be named after a chicken processing company.

          Also seen on the new field is a better look at the conference logo. The diamond shape was changed to make it not as long, as well as changing the shape of the letters to fit better in the shape. 

 

Basketball

          The inspiration for the redesign remains mostly the same. The only real noticeable changes are colored collars and cuffs, arched wordmarks, and the bounding line colors being changed as well as being extended on the pant hem. The biggest change is the buff alternate, the program's first. The court is the biggest changer, as the paint area is simplified to just colonial blue and the diamond stripe moves to the baselines. Also, the staining remains mostly the same, just with the are inside the arc being a more traditional color than from before. 

 

Hockey

          Despite being one of the catalysts for the overall rebranding, the hockey uniforms become the biggest detractors from the main design. They get more color on the uniforms, as the previous look was mostly the base color, which looked plain in my eyes. Now, the stripes are more traditional and the arms still have the diamonds, although in the manner of the school emblem rather than the stripe. 

 

Baseball

          The baseball team finally gets in with the diamond action, as the uniforms use pinstripes consisting of small diamonds, similar to Japan's WBC pinstripes. The alternates use blank pants with piping instead of the home and road pinstripes pants as well as different hats. For midweek games the blue and buff CAG hat is worn while the 1st hat is worn for Sunday conference games.

          The stadium went through some reconfiguration as the walls were moved to create less foul territory as the 2019-21 seasons saw the  highest amount of outs in foul territory happened in the Sussex County Coliseum, mostly against the home team. The capacity was made the same despite the renovations.

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The original post can be found Here.

[kb105]

School has been keeping me busy, so no new teams quite yet. Instead, I have been working on updating some old teams and putting them on the new football presentation template as well as working on putting together football uniform matchups. Here is a snapshot of that work:

Spoiler

Acadiana - Update more so a template change, however the front bumper now has the academic emblem as well as the throwback socks being more retro in nature. 

Arizona Southern - Similar to Acadiana, the uniforms are mostly a template change. However, the field design sees a major change as the primary endzone design, seen on the left side, uses the diamond stripe design while a throwback design is added that uses the richer gold shade of the throwback uniforms.

Huey Tech - The Hogs receive a more wholesale change as black is deemphasized and the tusk collar deign is made to fit inside the collar. The orange faux-back uniforms take all instances of black away as well as using the T tusk logo and turning it into a new Tech wordmark.

SWOzarks - Another color simplification as all black elements have changed colors. The overall design remains mostly the same, however the crown fills up more horizontal real estate on the sleeve cap. The team also only utilizes one shell color and now has the helmet stripe match the pant stripe with the crown topping the wide stripe.

UTHC - Mostly just template changes, although the striping and numbers are simplified with the removal of bevels and shading. Also added is a throwback logo that mimics other UT-system schools of the time. The field also sees a considerable design change as the midfield logo is now the U/Horseshoe logo that was added for the 2022 season for the city of Uvalde while the endzones are painted with Palominos text.

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HERE is the link to a google drive folder with uniform matchups for the 2022 season and will be updated when possible. It will also be posted on the topic post along with the topic map. 

[kb105]

Finally got some time to catch up a little bit on some concepts with classes winding down (Four math heavy classes suck!). I've got a handful of fully completed schools with a few more football teams done, so I'm gonna start teasing schools a head of time with just logos. Also the logo presentation image will be more akin to a logo slick than before.

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First up is another school named for a famous author, although named for his pen name rather than his real name.

Logos

 - Primary: Straight from the ancient land of Carthage, Wilbur the War Elephant is prepared for battle with his tusk swords and head armor.

 

Spoiler

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Background below:

Spoiler

          Located a hundred miles north of St. Louis, Twain State’s history mirrors much of the second-tier public institutions in the state of Missouri. Originally named Eastern Missouri Normal College, Twain State was founded in 1870 by a group of professors under the tutelage of Joseph Baldwin at what is now Truman State University. As the name suggests, EMNC was a teacher’s college and after First District Normal College (Truman State) was established as the first state teacher’s college, Eastern Missouri Normal Junior College was brought into state regulation as a quasi satellite campus. In the 60s, the school became more diverse in its curriculum and the name changed to Missouri Eastern State Junior College before becoming a state university in 1983, then named Missouri Eastern State University (MoES). While Truman State had become more liberal arts and sciences focused at the time, MoES focused on political sciences and criminology. In the 90s, MoES grew to have an enrollment of 7,500 and the state legislature passed legislation to rename the school after one of Hannibal’s most famous inhabitants, Samuel Clemens, more famously known as Mark Twain. Mark Twain State University moved into the new millennium with multiple construction projects as the campus size was doubled in acreage as a residential development was purchased and converted to academic and student residential space. Today, the school retains one of the nations best criminology programs along with the state’s top law departments. Enrollment hovers around 12,000 with future expansion planned by the 2030s. 
          On the field, Twain State has a less illustrious history. Sports began in 1983 with their ascension as a state university. They subsequently joined the MIAA along with most of the other Missouri universities. They held multiple rivalries within both the state and conference, most notably with Truman State. Despite the heated rivalries, rarely did Twain State ever really threaten in conference standings, staying at or below .500 during their stay in the MIAA. In fact, the AUIA did not initially offer Twain State in 2012 during their first rounds of contact, only getting in touch after other St. Louis area schools had declined. The struggles continued into their time in the AUIA while playing in the Plains States Conference, which was a problem of its own in the beginning. Twain State is one of three AUIA programs in Missouri and thus believed they would be placed with those two, especially seen as that conference had a much weaker football coalition compared to the other surrounding conferences. Unfortunately, due to numbers and being geographically closer to schools in the PSC, that is where Twain State was placed. 
          When athletics began in ‘83, there were many avenues for mascot selection. The top two inspirations were from the author Mark Twain, along with his multiple books and characters, and the namesake of the city of Hannibal, Carthaginian general, Hannibal Barca. Ultimately, the latter was chosen and specifically, the Carthaginian war elephants led to the nickname of the War Parade. In this case parade has a meaning both as a group of elephants as well as alluding to the number of troops and supplies that travel during both war and peace times. 
 

Spoiler

 

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The next team will be from Brattleboro, VT

[Blindsay]

Great to see you back!

 

and I concur that high level math hurts