Lion Legend and Lore: The Penn State Uniform
by Mark Harrington
Perhaps the greatest part of college football is the tradition of the game. From helmet
designs and marching formations to crowd chants and mascots, every team has its
traditions, passed down from generation to generation and embraced by players and
fans alike. It’s what sets college football apart from the professional ranks and the glue
that binds alumni and fans so closely to their teams. Traditions are what make the
college game day experience an event that can’t be missed by any true blue fan.
With all of the traditions around Dear Old State, we often get questions from fans asking
about the origins of different traditions. For this reason, Lion Legend and Lore, a
periodic column, will look at some of Penn State’s traditions more closely to reveal the
history behind different aspects of the Nittany Lions’ game day experience.
Dress for Success
Few schools immerse themselves in tradition like Penn State. After all, this is a team
that has not changed their uniform style for the better part of a century. These simple
blue and white uniforms worn by our Nittany Lions are perhaps one of the most well
known traditions at Penn State, which is interesting considering that they were really
never intended to be a tradition at all, but rather a just simple defiance to change.
Not many teams are so distinctly identified by uniforms that are so indistinctive in their
appearance, so what is the history of this Penn State uniform that is so plain in
appearance yet so identifiable by college football fans everywhere?
In 1887 The Pennsylvania State College, the school’s name at the time, took its first
steps onto the gridiron and into college football history. The school’s first intercollegiate
game occurred on November 12th of that year against Bucknell, a school ‘just down the
road’ from State College. Penn State won by a decisive 54-0, but more important was
the legacy that first win left for Dear Old State.
Despite the continued early success of the football team, only students seemed
interested in the sport, with faculty and alumni all but ignoring it. At the time, baseball
and boxing were the sports with which most of America was enamored. Football was
young and only held a minimum of interest, mostly from college students who simply
followed their school’s team.
Due to this lack of interest, the duties necessary to continue the football team fell on the
shoulders of the student athletic association, a group of students responsible for the
funding and scheduling of games for the team. Funding the squad was a tall order
considering these early games charged no admission to spectators. In order to build fan
interest games were free and all were invited to watch.
In fact, the budget for the team was so small that players had to provide their own
uniforms and equipment in order to play. With this, many early teams had a wide variety
of colors and uniform styles due to the individual tastes of the players furnishing their
own wears. This had the tendency to confuse players and make it difficult to identify
their teammates during fast game play. Sometimes players would mistakenly throw or
handoff the ball to an opposing player, unsure of who exactly was on their squad.
In order to combat this potential error, Penn State players decided on matching colors
prior to that historic Bucknell game of 1887. For the sake of team unity, and to help
identify who was who in the heat of battle, the team chose pink and black as their very
own. Though, no one is exactly sure why these colors were selected…
Our True Colors
Over the course of the next few seasons, repeated washings bleached the pink to white,
while the sun seemed to lighten the black to a majestic navy blue and history was made.
In 1890, the student athletic association decided to change the team’s colors to blue and
white, reportedly due in part to budgetary decision to avoid having to buy new uniforms.
The student body voted this combination as the official colors for the school later that
year.
As time passed, the equipment for football changed dramatically to better protect the
players, from stuffed shirts and leather helmets to pads and facemasks. Although the
equipment improved, the uniforms of many schools, including Penn State, did not
change significantly. Often schools only had colors to identify them on the field. It was
rare to see logos or even lettering on many uniforms. Once in awhile a team may have
a single letter representing the name of their school, but at the time, this seemed to be
the exception rather than the rule.
Around the time of the Great Depression many teams started to adopt numbers for their
players. This not only helped players to identify each other, but also made officiating the game
easier. In accordance with this trend, Penn State undertook one of the biggest changes to its
uniforms up until this time by adding numbers to the front and back of their jerseys, with no
numbers placed on the sleeves. However, the basis for the uniform, colors and designs, remained
the same.
1950s to 1970s: A Time of ‘Change’
Perhaps the biggest change ever in the uniform took place in the late 1940s. During this time the
blue of the uniform changed under Coach Joe Bedenk. It went from the navy blue to a lighter,
more royal blue. The color reportedly shifted back to the traditional dark and pure navy blue in
the late 1950s under Coach Rip Engle. The exact reason for this shift back is unknown, although
it has been speculated that Coach Engle wanted to bring the traditional Penn State color back to
the uniform.
Aside from this color shift, there were also other changes to the uniform from the 1930s to the
1960s. These changes were primarily in the form of stripes. In the mid 1950s PSU added a blue
stripe down the side of the uniform’s white pants, while three white stripes were added to the
sleeve of the blue home uniform. That later changed to a single white stripe for the blue jersey
and a single blue stripe for the white jersey in late 1950s.
In 1966 Joe Paterno took the reigns of the program. With no intention to change the standards or
traditions set forth by his predecessors, including Rip Engle, Coach Paterno did not make any
immediate changes to the uniform.
However, in 1968 the team modified the look of its helmet by adding the player’s jersey number
to the sides of the headwear. This modification was not the first time it appeared for Penn State
though. Helmet numbers reportedly first made their short-lived appearance for the Nittany Lions
in 1961, only to disappear at the conclusion of the 1962 season.
This change of the helmets was apparently for better identification of teammates since players
were getting larger and the game was getting faster, making it more difficult to quickly identify
players on the field. It seemingly also allowed for the quarterback to identify receivers with
greater ease based on the numbers on the side of their helmets.
Several other teams added jersey numbers to the sides of their helmets during this time period,
including Big Ten teams like Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State, Iowa, Ohio State, Purdue and
Wisconsin. Many of Penn State’s traditional foes, including Syracuse, West Virginia, Maryland
and Notre Dame also added jersey numbers to the sides of their helmets during this period.
Like most teams during the 1970s, Penn State removed the numbers from the helmets in 1974 and
returned to the traditional white helmets with the single blue stripe down the center. The only
team presently who kept these helmet numbers as part of their uniform from the 1960s to present
day is Alabama.
1980s to 1990s: ‘Big’ Changes
The single white stripe for the blue jersey and a single blue stripe for the white jersey that
appeared on the sleeve in the late 1950s disappeared during 1970s, only to reappear on what
seemed to be a permanent basis in the early 1980s.
Beyond this, not many major changes have occurred to the uniform’s looks. In fact, only three
‘major’ changes (by PSU standards) have occurred to the Penn State uniform since the 1980s:
1987: The teams’ helmet facemasks changed in color from gray to navy blue, in order to better
match the color sequence of the uniform.
1993: Penn State signed a $2.6 million, three-year deal with Nike, which added a white ‘swoosh’
to the sleeve of the blue jersey and a blue ‘swoosh’ to the sleeve of the white jersey. To many
modern era Lion fans this was one of the most dramatic changes ever to PSU’s uniform.
1994: The ‘swoosh’ was moved from the sleeve to the upper left chest portion of the jersey but
remained white on the blue jerseys and blue on the white jerseys.
There have also been alterations to the style of the jersey, along with some modifications ‘naked’
to the fan’s eye, such as an embroidered blue on blue and white on white ‘PSU’ in the team’s
traditional lettering font on the sleeve of the jersey.
What It Represents
When you ask most Penn State players what it means to wear what is essentially the same jersey
as every player before them, many say it embodies a big reason why they came to Penn State –
the tradition. It is said that Penn State’s uniforms are the way they are, devoid of flash or
brilliance, because that reflects on the team’s style of play - all business with no pomp and
circumstance or slick dance moves after a successful play.
It has also been said that Penn State leaves the ‘flash’ off their uniforms in order to save it for
their game play. Perhaps this theory hasn’t held as true in recent years, but it seems to be one that
has spread throughout the various ranks of college football. It is this lack of flash that has helped
to make Penn State’s uniform among the most recognizable in all of college sports. In fact,
ESPN has ranked Penn State’s uniform in the Top 5 in all of sports, college and professional.
This ‘lack of flash’ is the foundation behind the opening statement heard in the Emmy Award
winning production The Penn State Football Story. As the show states in its opening credits:
“They put on college football's most distinctive uniform, thinking about those before them. The
walk-ons, the All-Americans, the legends who made sure to uphold the tradition. They are the
black shoes, white helmets and plain uniforms of one of America's most successful programs.
They are heroes, they are winners, they are Penn State football.”
Aside from the absence of logos and fancy designs on the uniforms, what Penn State’s uniform
may be best known for is what it is missing – names on the back. The basis for this is that the
Nittany Lions believe that football is a team sport where overall team accomplishments should
take precedence over individual performances and honors. This is a belief that is embrace
throughout the program, by coaches and players alike.
Nike actually ran an advertising campaign around this very concept in 1994. The ad pictured
Penn State’s explosive Heisman Trophy candidate Ki-Jana Carter standing alone on the Beaver
Stadium turf in his uniform with his back to the camera. The caption below the picture read,
“When you don’t have your name on the back of your jersey you have to find other ways for
people to remember it.”
Coach Paterno, a scholar of ancient literature, among other many things, has stated that he views
the Penn State uniform like that of the Argonauts of Greek mythology, who assisted Jason in his
quest for the Golden Fleece. The Argonauts wore the same uniform in order to appear larger
together to their foes, many of whom were giants and dragons of great size. This has reportedly
been the basis of Coach Paterno’s embracing of Penn State’s uniform, a uniform that has seen
some changes over the past 117 years, but essentially has remained the same.