TOSSS users give athletics redesign a solid B minus

With a few days left to vote in the poll, TOSSS readers are giving a decent grade to the athletics redesign.

Overall, our poll is showing a 2.6 on a 4 point scale, a solid B-. Personally, I'd give it an A- or B+, with especially high marks for volleyball.

If you haven't voted yet, be sure to do so.

MSU unveils new uniforms, Nike-inspired branding

By James Hensley, Special to The Other Side of Spartan Sports

The unveiling of the new Spartan uniforms started in much the same manner that the public first learned about the branding campaign—with a leak on the internet. The Facebook group “The Old Spartan Logo” released a link approximately an hour and half before the beginning of the official press conference. The link was taken down within minutes of being posted, but the commentary on the new age of Spartan jerseys had begun.

By the time the press conference started there were already many different opinions about the jerseys posted on Facebook.

The opening presentation of the press conference had MSU Athletic Director Mark Hollis stating that “MSU is a sleeping giant and we’re waking up the sleeping giant” to create a uniform identity for MSU Sports. Mark Vanhorn from Nike said his mission was to “respect the past, represent the future.”

Hopefully, you agree with his vision of MSU’s future.

Hollis commented that a driver of this mission was that at one point there were nine different greens in the uniforms of MSU’s 25 teams.

MSU has now trademarked green, silver, bronze colors, as well as typography, that cannot be used by any other school or organization.

Implementation and Olympic sports

The Athletic Department unveiled the uniforms that will start being used in Fall 2010 with models from the Football, Basketball, Hockey and Volleyball teams. When questioned about the implementation schedule for the teams, he responded that only the five teams shown today will be sporting the new uniforms next year.

MSU and Nike will continue to design and roll out the same template designs to other non-revenue teams as the teams need new uniforms. This will limit the implementation cost of the uniform changes to regular asset purchases already budgeted for by the departments.

Football

The basic rundown on the football jersey is that the jersey has been updated with the new green and the font has been standardized.

The rear pant legs for the uniform now feature a splash of green. Already, the football jerseys have sparked a bit of a backlash on Facebook, with a majority (but not all) comparing the design to a toned-down version of the over-the-top Nike uniforms of the University of Oregon.

Hockey

Considering that this branding mission was designed to present a unified Spartan Image with national recognition, it is hard to miss the white elephant in the room: The two home and away jerseys do not have similar base designs.

The home jersey features the traditional Spartan head logo, but lacks the traditional hockey lettering of “Spartans” or “Michigan State.” The return of the Spartan head to the home uniform marks an end to a 40-year-old absence from the hockey uniform. The away jersey may be the first in the ice hockey world to include the players number on the front and lacks conformity with its home jersey mate by using the traditional “Michigan State” across the top.

When asked what he thought about the new bronze in the hockey uniforms, goalie Drew Palmisano responded that he really liked the accent color and was looking forward to repainting part of his goalie helmet to match. Torey Krug said he felt that the two different jersey styles for hockey would not detract from the team’s image when playing road games.

Men's and Women's Basketball

The uniforms for the basketball teams drop the last Nike branding attempt of “State” in italics and replace it with “Spartans” in the new font with the new trademark colors. Given that MSU basketball seems to change uniforms every three years, these changes will likely be well received by the Spartan basketball community.

MSU basketball stars Durrell Summers and Kalin Lucas modeled the basketball jerseys, with Lucas sporting a foot brace as he recovers from recent surgery.

How the decisions were made

Both Nike’s Vanhorn and MSU’s Hollis said that community values and focus groups had consisted of MSU administrators, the Athletic Advisory board and student athletes. This effectively means that no alumni and only one non-student athlete was allowed input during the design phase of the project.

This lack of community involvement was one of the causes of the logo scandal that led to over 80,000 Spartan fans to protest changes to the logo.

Since the Athletic Department and Nike kept much of the design process under wraps, the change could provoke some initial resistance about the addition of the bronze color and the changes to some of the jerseys, especially football and hockey.

Finances

The department has continued to say this was not a financially motivated project, but the hockey uniforms not having a base design seems to contradict the consistence attempt. Nike’s fingerprints of “over the top” design are hard to miss on all but the Volleyball team’s uniforms.

According to Hollis, the design process has not cost the university any revenues or money, but an interesting fact to consider is that Nike will be the only authorized replica jersey vendor. Since the colors and front are trademarked with MSU and Nike, there will be no cheap replicas for fans looking to save money and show team spirit during these economic hard times.

Something to look forward to is that Mark Hollis commented that sales of old used team jerseys could go on sale to the public as early as this fall, but would not rule out a garage sale before the 2011 Spring Football game, as has been done in the past.

First peek at MSU's new uniforms comes and goes

MSU posted a photo gallery of the new uniforms for football, basketball, hockey and volleyball, but quickly pulled it after it was linked to on a number of MSU sites.

We'll let MSU unveil things for itself, and we'll have a full report from the press conference later today.

New Spartan Green A Darker Shade

The color we know as Spartan green just got a little bit darker.

The new color, Pantone Matching System Color 567, was approved by the Board of Trustees this morning. It will be uniform across Michigan State, from signs and uniforms to flyers and university websites.

It's part of the universal branding scheme being undertaken by the athletic department and Nike, and the plan is for all uniforms to be of this shade of green. The new threads will be unveiled in April.

Currently, the MSU green is Pantone 341, which is the green we presently use on TOSSS.

The Lansing State Journal quotes President Lou Anna Simon as saying that the change will be gradual in some areas, like signs, because the university isn't going to pay for the immediate overhaul immediately. You'll see that in things like letterhead, where the existing supplies will be allowed to run out, then replaced by the new stuff.

Making a single shade of green uniform across the university will be a great step forward for the MSU's branding, given the disparate mess we currently have. I, for one, welcome this change with as much passion as I decried the proposed Spartan head change.

This time, MSU and Nike have gotten it right.

MSU Picked as Away Team for Alamo Bowl

Texas Tech will be the home team at the Valero Alamo Bowl, meaning MSU will likely take the field in it's away whites.

There isn't a chance of color overlap, as the Red Raiders' home uni is black with red accents. MSU has two away unis - white jersey and matching pants or white jersey with green pants. Personally, I'm a fan of the white-on-white

The color palate should make for good viewing, unlike when Indiana and Wisconsin play and it's a red-and-white fiesta. Differing colors just make for a better visual experience.

Equipment Manager Gets Game Ball for Making Nike Uniforms Look Good

It had to happen, just like a stuck clock happens to be right once a day, but someone has finally figured out how to make a new Nike uniform look good.

The person who did was Texas Christian's equipment manager, who came up with this look. The front of the jersey says "Horned Frogs", inside the collar says "Don't Back Down". There are two red lines on the helmet, representing the twin streams of blood a horned frog shoots from its eyes as a defense mechanism. And, of course, there's the incredible charcoal gray pants - a highly underutilized color in uniforms, I think. For comparison, compare the new uniform at left to TCU's old uniform. It's not even close.

In fact, the change was so good that TCU's coach gave a game ball to the equipment manager who designed the new unis.

I'm not usually a fan of changing MSU's traditional home uniform (green shirt, white pants, green helmet with the Spartan logo) too much, but I am one of those Spartan fans that doesn't mind a third color in the black/gray scheme - and wouldn't mind us trying those charcoal gray pants.

MSU's men's basketball squad occasionally rocks the newest Nike designs - those tight-hugging shirts for example - and while sometimes they'll have a few nice features, you'll never look at the jersey and go "whoa."

Perhaps that kid from TCU would be free to lend a hand on a new design.

New Men's Basketball Uniforms

Freep today reported that MSU will wear new uniforms during the tournaments. I personally am always wary of change that is not initiated by the team. If this is something that Nike forced on MSU, then I would tend to not be in favor (simply because I like tradition, not change) and I can be slightly superstitious. Why change a good thing, right?

That said, these shoes are sweet.