Penn State considering uniform overhaul

[winghaz]

Giving Penn State a Steelers look, with the logo on one side, may be a classic look, but only to the Steelers. For other teams, it just looks bad. Heck, the Steelers' look was a mistake in the first place, but it became a classic for them, and just for them.

[BBTV]

Lost the "right" to wear a uniform without sleeve and collar trim? Really? Watching you deteriorate into an irrational loon over this PSU thing has been pretty sad. It's one thing to believe that they should scrap the traditional uniforms so as to separate themselves from a "false" era, it's another thing to say they don't have a "right" to wear something. For a while you were nothing more than a well-spoken troll in the other thread, then pretty much just a troll. Now, though, youve proved that you have nothing to add other than your agenda. A "right" to a trimless uniform? Come on, man.

Believe it or not, people are kind of really, really upset about what Penn State did (or didn't do, as the case is). Though the "lost the right to wear" plain jerseys is a bit on the ridiculous side, I get what Goth's saying. The plain uniforms, though they proceeded Paterno, are associated with him and his legacy. Now that the legacy's been rightfully torn down, a few changes to the uniforms wouldn't be the worst idea in the world to help distance the "new" Penn State program from the one Paterno became synonymous with.

Of course. Any rational person should be irate about it. I don't think I've ever disputed that. I'm disgusted by it just like everyone else. I just don't go into threads making ridiculously inflammatory statements just to prove how outraged I am or to provoke people into disagreeing. Nor do I coin phrases that I feel are clever or terms that I'm the only person to use ("what a Paterno.") I'm glad that the other thread has turned into mostly sensible, mature discussions. I think that has some to do with someone's recent lack of participation. If it seems like I defend Penn State, that's simply not the case. I couldn't care less about their football team or what happens to them - it affects my life 0%. I just (as in other threads as well) like to try and reason when "defenseless" posters are getting ganged up on (unless they really deserve it), or when opinions on a topic become so fueled with anger and become so one sided that nobody can post dissenting opinions without fear of getting flamed. I just try to keep things in check (when I feel like it.) And with that, a mystery has been solved...

[DC in Da House w/o a Doubt]

What a hero! We all owe you a great debt.

And you clearly do have at least some affiliation with the school. If it were Iowa State you wouldn't chip in your 2 cents on the subject THIS much. You may not be a Penn St fan but I'm willing to bet you know a few people that are. Your barber, your florist, your uncle, your bar buddy.. Someone.

Ipso facto, it affects your life in someway.

But hey don't let me stop your heroic crusade... God speed, oh watchful guardian.

[Kevin W.]

Why would anyone want to turn Penn State into an Oregon clone? That's a terrible idea and it's an incredibly reactionary response to this scandal.

[BBTV]

1344729286' post='1860945']

What a hero! We all owe you a great debt.

And you clearly do have at least some affiliation with the school. If it were Iowa State you wouldn't chip in your 2 cents on the subject THIS much. You may not be a Penn St fan but I'm willing to bet you know a few people that are. Your barber, your florist, your uncle, your bar buddy.. Someone.

Ipso facto, it affects your life in someway.

But hey don't let me stop your heroic crusade... God speed, oh watchful guardian.

Ok yeah that sounded pretty bad so I'll take that. And I have absolutely no affiliation with Penn State, and I absolutely don't care about the program. It's true if this was Iowa I might not be poking in these threads as much, but of course living in PA and knowing a lot of PSU alums, it's a subject of interest to me. Nowhere even once have I demonstrated any type of favorable view toward the school for how they handled this. All I've done is criticize dbags when they make foolish cor incorrect omments, much like I get it when I do the same.

As for uniforms, I really think that they should remain basically the same and let the school / team try and make them represent what everybody mistakenly thought they represented during the Paterno era. However, if they're going to be tweaked, I'd be more in favor of a complete overhaul. Doesn't seem much of a point to just adding a logo here or a stripe there.

[Epiphanic]

I think it's unfortunate that Penn State has to change their uniforms because of the tragedy that occurred there. It's been mentioned by others, but what better way to show that the school and the football program are bigger than Paterno than to keep the essence of their look the same?

Let's conduct a little thought experiment. If no atrocities happened and Paterno simply retired with his revered reputation, should Penn State football redesign their uniforms to "usher in a new era"? I'd venture to guess the great majority would say no. By saying no, that implies that the uniforms didn't represent the "Paterno era", but simply Penn State football. Heck, if I saw a replay of some Penn State game, upon seeing the uniforms, child rape would be the last thing that came to my mind. Penn State football didn't conduct those crimes. A drastic overhaul is unnecessary for that reason.

[BBTV]

I think if they had the death penalty and were coming back in 1-4 seasons, that would be an appropriate time to debut a new look, since it really would be a new era.

[SilverEagle5]

Here are the road nameplates:

Here's a video that shows the home nameplates:

[Ted Cunningham]

...make foolish cor incorrect omments, much like I get it when I do the same.

The real question here is, how did that C get all the way over there?

[SCL]

I think it's unfortunate that Penn State has to change their uniforms because of the tragedy that occurred there. It's been mentioned by others, but what better way to show that the school and the football program are bigger than Paterno than to keep the essence of their look the same?

Let's conduct a little thought experiment. If no atrocities happened and Paterno simply retired with his revered reputation, should Penn State football redesign their uniforms to "usher in a new era"? I'd venture to guess the great majority would say no. By saying no, that implies that the uniforms didn't represent the "Paterno era", but simply Penn State football. Heck, if I saw a replay of some Penn State game, upon seeing the uniforms, child rape would be the last thing that came to my mind. Penn State football didn't conduct those crimes. A drastic overhaul is unnecessary for that reason.

Changing the uniforms significantly would be yet another way of showing that the University is now bigger than football and the previous legacy. The current uniforms are synonymous with Joe Paterno and altering them would be a great signal to alumni and fans that a new era has dawned and things won't be the same as they once were.

[OnWis97]

I think it's unfortunate that Penn State has to change their uniforms because of the tragedy that occurred there. It's been mentioned by others, but what better way to show that the school and the football program are bigger than Paterno than to keep the essence of their look the same?

Let's conduct a little thought experiment. If no atrocities happened and Paterno simply retired with his revered reputation, should Penn State football redesign their uniforms to "usher in a new era"? I'd venture to guess the great majority would say no. By saying no, that implies that the uniforms didn't represent the "Paterno era", but simply Penn State football. Heck, if I saw a replay of some Penn State game, upon seeing the uniforms, child rape would be the last thing that came to my mind. Penn State football didn't conduct those crimes. A drastic overhaul is unnecessary for that reason.

Changing the uniforms significantly would be yet another way of showing that the University is now bigger than football and the previous legacy. The current uniforms are synonymous with Joe Paterno and altering them would be a great signal to alumni and fans that a new era has dawned and things won't be the same as they once were.

I've been on the fence, but that is a good point. I'm moving a step toward the "change" side...

[Gothamite]

A couple years ago, I would have agreed wholeheartedly. And from an aesthetic perspective alone, I don't see any reason for them to change. But we cannot fully divorce this conversation from its context.

But the reason Penn State never changed its uniforms before is important. It was another signal sent out by Paterno and the University that they were an old-fashioned department, that they didn't buy into the hype and flash (and scandal) of modern college football, that the brand of football they played, that the program they ran, was somehow above all that. It was an appeal to our best wishes for college sport, that at heart it should be about the molding of boys into men. They cloaked themselves in those ideals, and I don't think you can separate the deliberately and distinctively old-fashioned uniforms from that.

Well, Penn State has lost the right to make such claims. We know now that they have long been false. And because they've lost the right to pretend that they're somehow above the petty concerns that embroil other programs, there's no reason for them to keep the cloak of respectibility. I put it inartfully upthread, but that's what I meant. Penn State lost the right to pretend that its intentions were somehow from a nobler age. Time for a change.

[Lights Out]

Why would anyone want to turn Penn State into an Oregon clone? That's a terrible idea and it's an incredibly reactionary response to this scandal.

Woah, there's a HUGE difference between changing to a more modern uniform and becoming Oregon 2.0.

[BBTV]

A couple years ago, I would have agreed wholeheartedly. And from an aesthetic perspective alone, I don't see any reason for them to change. But we cannot fully divorce this conversation from its context.

But the reason Penn State never changed its uniforms before is important. It was another signal sent out by Paterno and the University that they were an old-fashioned department, that they didn't buy into the hype and flash (and scandal) of modern college football, that the brand of football they played, that the program they ran, was somehow above all that. It was an appeal to our best wishes for college sport, that at heart it should be about the molding of boys into men. They cloaked themselves in those ideals, and I don't think you can separate the deliberately and distinctively old-fashioned uniforms from that.

Well, Penn State has lost the right to make such claims. We know now that they have long been false. And because they've lost the right to pretend that they're somehow above the petty concerns that embroil other programs, there's no reason for them to keep the cloak of respectibility. I put it inartfully upthread, but that's what I meant. Penn State lost the right to pretend that its intentions were somehow from a nobler age. Time for a change.

They have lost the right to pretend that they're above the petty (or not so petty) concerns that embroil other programs. That's certainly not even debatable at this point.

I don't know that their reluctance to modify the uniform really represented all the things that you say though. Or at least I'm not sure that was their explicit intent, but maybe that was how it was preceived by people. Either way, the uniforms represent their brand, and a brand (sports, a commercial company, etc.) includes certain ideals and values, and that brand is certainly tarnished now.

I'm trying to think of commercial companies that have gone through major scandals or had their reputation tarnished nearly to an irrepairable point (like a car company that became known for a big flop or safety recall or just for being crappy, or a financial company embroiled in scandals like we saw early in the century, etc.) just to look at which ones came back with a whole new look / brand, and which ones stayed the course. I'm kind of drawing a blank right now, but I'm probably going to think more about this.

I was originally in the "change it" camp, but now I think (as I've stated before, prior to other things) that changing up actually brings more attention to it and makes it harder to recover, since there's a constant reminder of it since it'll be decades before it becomes natural to see them in anything else. It's not like a company, where walmart* can just change their logo and move forward, because sports get replayed so often and there's so many visual reminders to the past, and people become attached (not just fans of a school or pro team, but just people who follow sports in general) or "used" to a brand. I think the right course of action would be to stay the course (maybe minimal mods, like the names) and sell it as it being a goal to truly uphold the values that the uniforms were supposed to represent.

I guess the point of contention here is that I don't correlate pretending to be above reproach with wearing plain jerseys.

I

[Lights Out]

I can think of a couple examples... GMAC Bank changing to Ally, Coca-Cola "Classic" in the wake of the New Coke disaster....

[Norva]

ValuJet becoming Airtran after a couple of high profile incidents is another example.

[kajeet]

And Dominos pizza just got a new logo and name.

[Gothamite]

A couple years ago, I would have agreed wholeheartedly. And from an aesthetic perspective alone, I don't see any reason for them to change. But we cannot fully divorce this conversation from its context.

But the reason Penn State never changed its uniforms before is important. It was another signal sent out by Paterno and the University that they were an old-fashioned department, that they didn't buy into the hype and flash (and scandal) of modern college football, that the brand of football they played, that the program they ran, was somehow above all that. It was an appeal to our best wishes for college sport, that at heart it should be about the molding of boys into men. They cloaked themselves in those ideals, and I don't think you can separate the deliberately and distinctively old-fashioned uniforms from that.

Well, Penn State has lost the right to make such claims. We know now that they have long been false. And because they've lost the right to pretend that they're somehow above the petty concerns that embroil other programs, there's no reason for them to keep the cloak of respectibility. I put it inartfully upthread, but that's what I meant. Penn State lost the right to pretend that its intentions were somehow from a nobler age. Time for a change.

They have lost the right to pretend that they're above the petty (or not so petty) concerns that embroil other programs. That's certainly not even debatable at this point.

I don't know that their reluctance to modify the uniform really represented all the things that you say though. Or at least I'm not sure that was their explicit intent, but maybe that was how it was preceived by people. Either way, the uniforms represent their brand, and a brand (sports, a commercial company, etc.) includes certain ideals and values, and that brand is certainly tarnished now.

I'm trying to think of commercial companies that have gone through major scandals or had their reputation tarnished nearly to an irrepairable point (like a car company that became known for a big flop or safety recall or just for being crappy, or a financial company embroiled in scandals like we saw early in the century, etc.) just to look at which ones came back with a whole new look / brand, and which ones stayed the course. I'm kind of drawing a blank right now, but I'm probably going to think more about this.

That's a great question, and I'm going to think about it as well.

I guess the point of contention here is that I don't correlate pretending to be above reproach with wearing plain jerseys.

Neither do I, in general. But in this case, I think Penn State's uniforms are inexplicably bound up with their whole philosophy. It wasn't an accident that they stayed put when every other school was experimenting with new uniforms. The uniforms weren't even tied to one glorious championsip era in their history that rendered them as untouchable as Yankee pinstripes or the Packers' green and gold.

[bosrs1]

And Dominos pizza just got a new logo and name.

They did?

[Gothamite]

And Dominos pizza just got a new logo and name.

They did?

I guess if you consider dropping "Pizza" from the official name, they did. New logo on the right.

But what was the scandal they were trying to dodge?