As the self-appointed fashion critic for The Daily Collegian sports staff, I found myself condemning those awful-looking outfits that the Minnesota Golden Gopher football team displayed on Saturday.
For those uniforms alone, Minnesota deserved to lose 56-3. Or worse.
Now before you tell me that a sports writer has no business telling anyone how to dress because you've seen some of my colleagues and boy do they dress bad, I will politely tell you to be quiet and let me make my point.
A uniform needs only two things. One is a number, so that individual players can be recognized for their doings. The other is a color of jersey that can distinguish one team from another. In Vinny Testaverde's case, the latter still doesn't help much.
The Golden Gophers did meet my basic requirements. However, someone in the hierarchy of the University of Minnesota athletic department (without my consultation, I might add) thought it would be quite nice to add a gold stripe that encircled the shoulders of the jersey and formed an "M" on both the right and left corners on the front of the jersey.
The uniforms, which formerly beared a resemblance to those of the Eagles of Boston College, are part of an agreement with Apex, an athletic apparel manufacturer. The Apex deal will supply uniforms to Minnesota in football, men's basketball, hockey and baseball.
"It means about $300,000 in cash and merchandise for us," Men's Athletic Director Dr. McKinley Boston told The Minneapolis Star Tribune. "Apex also will put Gopher merchandise into stores around the Twin Cities. In the past, people who wanted to buy a jersey or other Gopher apparel could only find those things in Dinkytown."
Now for those non-Minnesotans unfamiliar with midwest geography, Dinkytown is an actual place and not just a sufficient description for a location near a school which has just been defeated by 53 points on its home turf.
For the good of college football and men's fashion, the uniforms -- nicknamed the "M and M's" by those in attendance at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome -- would be better off left in Dinkytown.
If only Minnesota athletic department officials had the good sense to leave well enough alone.
Take their Nittany Lion counterparts, for example.
Penn State players model a design based on the basics.
" 'We are Penn State,' we chant, to remind ourselves of our special symbols: those black shoes, those plain uniforms with no glitter and no names," Nittany Lion Coach Joe Paterno wrote in Paterno: By the Book. "A Penn Stater doesn't have to let the whole world know, by putting six Nittany Lions on his helmet, that he made six big plays."
Paterno takes pride in his team's wardrobe. And rightly so. You surely won't see Penn State Football selling out in this day and age. Even when the University has lowered itself to multi-million dollar sell-out deals with corporate types Pepsi, Barnes & Noble and AT&T.
The white practice pants. The plain helmets with only a blue stripe up the middle. Black shoes. Plain jerseys with no names, just the numbers on the front, back and the shoulders. Right next to the little patch . . . with the word "NIKE" and its swoosh trademark.
