It was truly 2 1/2 of the greatest years of my life. I had worked as Assistant Equipment Manager in Houston(Oilers) for Coach Phillips' last 2 years and thought that was neat with Campbell, Stabler, Jack Tatum, Casper, Barber, Billy Johnson and the rest. But...
1984 was the greatest most satisfying year of my football life. Coach Allen was a great man as well as coach. I have the greatest respect for him and he even mentioned me in his book, "Strategies for Winning" from the McGraw-Hill Publishing Co. which was co-authored by Mickey Herskowitz, on pages 19-20 in a great story about me and my pet poa constricter. It was a great laugh. The book has recently been re-released, and is in Barnes & Nobles everywhere.
It was an almost impossibility keeping those (1984)white jerseys clean and usable for 21 games. By the time we reached the USFL Championship game with Philadelphia in Tampa, those things looked awful. The Stars came out with new, red jerseys (we couldn't of course) and we had these old ratty-assed white ones that were patched and somehow semi-white. Tom Thayer, who later went on to the Bears, was the worst...
About the 1984 "dark jerseys". Tommy McVean was the Head Equipment Manager for 1984 when the Blitz came to Arizona. He was the Equipment Manager and, basically, Coach Allen's man Friday. As Roman Gabriel told my parents one time, "Tommy takes care of Coach; Spanky takes care of the rest of us." Still Tommy was great to me and I think of him fondly.
Anyway, we wore Medalist-Sandkit uniforms then regardless of what the league edict about Champion was. Champion was a cheaper product then, not the quality as now, and Tommy chose to go with Sandknit instead (decidely as better product). We received the white jerseys because our first three games were at home vs Oakland, Tampa Bay and Washington. So Tommy told Medalist to take their time getting us the RED ones, because we wouldn't actually need them until our March 18 game with the Michigan Panthers.
He showed me the RED away jersey. Where the white one was white, this one was red; where the white one had the blue and red trim, this one had blue and white piping. The numbers were white with blue trim and names were in white also. It had the branding irons on the sleeves just like the white home jerseys. I actually held the RED one in my hands in the equipment room at East High School on 48th Street(in Phoenix). We even had sketches that someone had made of Kit Lathrop wearing a white 70 and a red 70. But for some unknown reason to this day, we never wore the RED away jerseys and I only saw that one.
There are about three reasons that I think we didn't:
- 1. Since the league was a Spring league, the
white jerseys would always be cooler, regardless of where we played.
2. Coach Allen knew of the Dallas Cowboys fondness for wearing white nearly 100% of the time-maybe a slight tweak to his old rivals.
3. The main reason I think- Money or lack of... whether spending or saving.
