And of course, with the invention of the face mask came the invention of the face-masking – banned in 1956. That changed in 1955 when a single face bar was added to the padded plastic helmets. And almost all those open faces had black eyes, bloody noses, and swollen lips. Up to this point, all the helmets were still open faced.
#Facebar cleveland professional
(Note to people who get hit for a living: it’s always a good idea to add more pads.) Another important change came in 1948 when Los Angeles Rams halfback Fred Gehrke painted horns on either side of his helmet, making the rams the first professional team with a helmet emblem. Within a year, the error had been corrected and the plastic helmet was formally re-introduced to professional football just a year later, quickly followed by the padded plastic helmet. Remember that scene in Batman Begins where the cowl shatters? I imagine it was something like that.Īs a result of the faulty plastic, the NFL banned the helmets. After the war, the helmets went back into production, but there was a problem with the plastic mix that cause many helmets to break into pieces. Unfortunately, as plastics became more scarce during World War II, so did the more durable helmet. Riddel introduced the first plastic helmet. During the 1920s and 1930s, variations of the leather helmet appeared, but in 1939, the game changed –or at least became safer– when John T. But I digress.Īgain, it’s worth reiterating that helmets were not mandatory. Perhaps more importantly, these early helmets inspire the popular vision of “old-timey” football, not to mention such films as the underrated Leatherheads, starring George Clooney and John Krasinski. By the 1920s, hardened leather helmets were first worn, slightly increasing the level protection. In the early 1900s, soft leather skull caps appeared as optional headgear worn by few players. But the football helmet would see battle off the field as well – Reeve took the design back to the Navy and it was briefly used by paratroopers during the first World War. So it was that the helmet –I’m using the term loosely, here– was born.
Admiral Joseph Mason Reeve (“the father of carrier aviation”) had apparently been kicked and hit in the head so many times, his doctor told him that another hard impact could lead to “instant insanity.” Determined to play in the big game, Reeve went to his shoemaker and had him fashion a moleskin hat with earflaps. There are a few different stories about the invention of the football helmet but the earliest and the most frequently told dates back to they Army-Navy game of 1893. But the earliest football helmet looked more like a padded aviator cap than the high-tech crash-tested helmet used by today’s players. In professional football, the only line of defense against head injury –other than the defensive line– is the helmet.
0 kommentar(er)
