Uni Watch: Memorial patches - ESPN Page 2. The NFL, notoriously rigid about enforcing leaguewide uniform standards, has been surprisingly flexible about one uni- related element this season: The Sean Taylor memorial . So some teams have been wearing it and others haven't. And then there are the Giants, who removed the decal for Week 1. Grey Ruegamer, who was Pat Tillman's teammate at Arizona State and doesn't think anyone should be getting a more extended memorial tribute than Tillman got. The NFL's atypically laissez- faire approach here is no doubt partially due to all the negative publicity surrounding the Pat Tillman situation in 2. Tillman by wearing a . Explore Ashley Nicole's board 'Wildflower gardens' on Pinterest, the world's catalog of ideas. Police & Fire Solebury Couple Killed In Route 202 Crash Authorities have identified the couple who died Tuesday evening in a head-on crash in Solebury. How to Plant Wildflowers. The most natural garden is one composed of wildflowers. If you have the room, you can sow wildflower seeds over a large area of your land. Marguerite Clark (born Helen Marguerite. She made her first appearance on screen in the short film Wildflower. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch: Lovey Mary. Nature's Seed is a top seller of North America’s best grass seed for lawn, pasture and wildflower seed solutions. The wildflower patch is starting to. I had assumed that they all hated the Isle of Wight and died just to disoblige me but that doesn. But it's also a measure of the increasing role of uni- borne memorial gestures. Mourning graphics used to be fairly rare and were usually limited to a black armband, but that's all changed. Nowadays, as soon as the assistant coach's third cousin's mother- in- law dies, everyone immediately starts speculating about whether the team will wear some sort of memorial and what it will look like (well, everyone who reads Uni Watch). To see how ubiquitous and varied grieving via uniforms has become, look at the response to the April 2. Virginia Tech. In the days immediately following the tragedy, Allen Iverson wore a sleeve patch; several MLB teams wore the VT logo on their caps or sleeves; some MLBers even wore VT caps (including Joe Saunders, baseball's only VT grad); several college football teams wore VT helmet logos for their spring scrimmages; and literally dozens of golfers, NASCAR drivers, and other athletes wore VT logos. When the fall sports season began, the Hokies themselves wore a black patch with an orange ribbon, and all other ACC football and basketball teams added small black memorial strips, although there was no uniformity regarding their placement: For football, they appeared primarily on the chest or shoulder; for basketball, here, there, and everywhere. It's like the entire sports world went into . Aside from wearing black to a funeral, most of us don't wear remembrances on our clothing. Ah, but many people used to - - the custom of wearing black crepe or a black mourning band on the left arm goes back centuries in several European cultures, and it was once fairly common in America. In fact, it extended all the way up to the Oval Office: Calvin Coolidge wore an armband after his predecessor, Warren Harding, died, and FDR did likewise - - for an entire year! According to Hall of Fame historian Tom Shieber, the first memorial to appear on a big league uniform was in 1. St. Over the next 6. In the early days, when jersey sleeves were long, the band was sometimes worn fairly low and was often extremely thick; as sleeves receded, the bands migrated upward and eventually got thinner. The next major development came in 1. Pirates memorialized Roberto Clemente by wearing a sleeve patch with his uni number instead of an armband (probably because their jersey design already featured black stripes on both sleeves). This simple gesture opened the floodgates for the wide variety of memorial formats we've seen in more recent years - - initials, first names, last names, full names, nicknames, portraits, quotations and more. The history of uniform memorials in the other major team sports isn't as well- documented, but here's a brief league- by- league breakdown. Nowadays, helmet decals and chest patches are the standard formats. So the standard memorial motif has usually been a simple black shoulder strip, with chest patches reserved for very special occasions. Unfortunately, the league's best memorial patch - - for George Mikan, in 1. Lakers' and Timberwolves' warm- up suits and shooting shirts, not on their game uniforms. The earliest uni remembrance Uni Watch is aware of is the black . Jersey patches are more common these days, like the one worn by the 2. Devils after team owner John Mc. Mullen passed away. There's no such thing as a . But some are definitely better than others. Here are 1. 0 of Uni Watch's favorites (along with some additional info for some of them), some of which made the list because they're clever, some because they're gorgeous, and some just because they're interesting. DALLAS COWBOYSAfter Tom Landry died, the Cowboys saluted him by depicting his trademark fedora as a jersey patch. Brilliantly simple, timelessly dignified, this is the standard against which all other uniform memorials must be judged. Ironically, Landry wouldn't even be allowed to wear his cherished chapeau in today's NFL, because of the regulations requiring coaches to wear officially licensed Reebok products. So in a way, this patch marks the passing of an era as much as the passing of Landry. Postmortem: Landry isn't the only coach whose haberdashery tastes have been reflected on a memorial patch. When Ottawa Senators coach Roger Neilson died in 2. Sens came up with a patch playing off of Neilson's penchant for colorful neckwear. A nice gesture, but Uni Watch doesn't like memorial patch designs with signatures - - feels a little creepy, like the deceased is signing the guestbook at his own funeral, or giving an autograph from beyond the grave. CHICAGO CUBSBroadcaster Harry Caray had a unique visage that was ripe for caricature. So when he died in 1. Cubbies commissioned a portrait that perfectly captured his spirit in just a few loops and squiggles. It was worn as a sleeve patch throughout the '9. An inspired tribute to an inspired character. Postmortem: The Cubs ended up memorializing another broadcaster that same year: Jack Brickhouse, whose personal catchphrase was worn on the team's other sleeve. More recently, the default design trope for broadcasters' memorials has been the inclusion of an old- timey microphone, as used with varying degrees of success by the A's (to mark the passing of Bill King in 2. Blue Jays (for Tom Cheek, 2. Twins (for Herb Carneal, 2. Not a bad motif, but Uni Watch wishes teams would show a bit of imagination instead of just copying each other. PHILADELPHIA EAGLESIt's one of those unwritten rules of football: You can slap all kinds of decals on the back of your helmet, but don't mess with the front or sides. The Eagles ignored that dictum, however, when quarterbacks coach Doug Scovil died in December 1. Postmortem: The Eagles had actually worn a front- helmet memorial on one previous occasion. Pittsburgh and wore an . And if you look closely at that photo, you can see that the Cowboys wore the same decal that the Eagles had worn, but they put it on the back of the helmet instead of the front.)4. IOWA HAWKEYESInstead of adding something, sometimes it's more effective to take something away. That's what the Iowa football team did on Nov. The Hawkeyes honored the fallen by removing all the logos, stripes, and other graphics from their helmets for their game against Ohio State. They played with blank helmets again at the 1. Alamo Bowl, as a tribute to linebacker Mark Mitchell's mother, Diane, who died in an automobile accident on the way to the game. Postmortem: The NCAA didn't even allow football teams to wear memorial decals or patches until 1. Iowa's choices were somewhat limited. Just goes to show that sometimes less really is more. TORONTO MAPLE LEAFSThen again, sometimes more is more. That was the case in 1. Maple Leafs eulogized former star and longtime team employee King Clancy with a spectacular shoulder patch. Take a close look at this baby: four colors (none of them black!), loads of little iconographic details, magnificent embroidery - - it's a masterpiece. Fit for a king, indeed. TEXAS LONGHORNSIt's hard to sum up a person's life in a simple graphic icon, but the Horns got it just right with their tribute to Lady Bird Johnson. The former First Lady, who died last July, had devoted much of her life to the planting and preservation of wildflowers, so the team memorialized her with a wildflower helmet decal. PHOENIX SUNSBlack is the traditional color for mourning bands. But when Cotton Fitzsimmons died in 2. Suns played off of his name by wearing a white shoulder strip - - unique yet understated. Nicely done. Postmortem: Other teams have sometimes been forced to use white memorial graphics, thanks to the advent of black alternate jerseys. When White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf's longtime assistant Sheri Berto died prior to the 1. Sox wore a small black diamond on the left sleeves of their home and road jerseys, but the team's black jersey got a white diamond. Same goes for the Blue Jays' Tom Cheek memorial patch, which had to switch from black to white. CHICAGO BEARSWhen George S. Halas died in October 1. Bears honored him with a jersey patch - - nice, but arguably a bit garish, no? The following year they took the unprecedented step of continuing to salute Halas for a second season, but not with the patch - - instead, they incorporated his monogram into their left- sleeve striping, where it has remained ever since. The font has changed over the years, and the lettering is now a bit smaller, but the initials are still there. Some might find this perma- memorial ostentatious, but Uni Watch likes how it's become part of the Bears' identity - - sort of the Eternal Flame of uniform remembrances. Postmortem: To Uni Watch's knowledge, only two other people - - both of them, like Halas, team owners - - have been memorialized for multiple seasons. The Padres wore Ray Kroc's initials from 1. And the Browns have implicitly compared Al Lerner to Halas - - which is really pushing it - - by copying the Bears' approach: When Lerner died in the middle of the 2. Lerner's initials on the left sleeve, where they remain today (look closely and you'll see there's also a script . CINCINNATI REDSThe advent of vest baseball jerseys presented a remembrance riddle: How do you wear a memorial sleeve band if your jersey doesn't have any sleeves to begin with? The Reds solved this problem by eulogizing team owner Powel Crosley with black piping on their left armhole opening, a unique approach never tried by any team before or since.
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