The Missouri High School Helmet Project

Coach Bob Fairchild introduced the black helmet with a red stripe in the middle and smaller white stripes on each side (no black between) in his first year, 1963. I think they were 1" and 1/2" wide.

Prior to that, the Hornets' helmets were white with a similar red stripe in the middle and smaller black stripes on each side (no white between), and with the players' number painted in black (2 inches?) on each side. Face masks were plastic; most were white, some were grey. Before that my memory does not extend.

The Chicago Bears' style white "C" was added in 1969 with the rest of the helmet remaining the same. Most of the face masks were grey (like the Kansas City Chiefs - separate connections above the eyes and at the earholes - I think they were made by Wilson) but there were still a few white plastic early "birdcage" masks.

A funny story, but NOT at the time: a manager (who was later an executive VP for Disney!) decided the open end of both "C"s should face forward, so about half of the "C"s on the left side were backward - and there weren't enough "C"s left to fix them. A few of the backward "C" helmets survived into the 1970 season but were fixed before the first game.

Sometime in the '70s or '80s the grey face masks were replaced with red ones, and the white stripes moved away from the red stripe, leaving a 1/2 inch or so of black showing between the red and white. I will try to find out when those changes were made and get some uniform info for you.

Mike, thanks again for all your work!! This is a great site!!

I'll get to them as soon as I can....I will post them here for verification before uploading them to the site....

Thanks

No rush. I'm just glad you're doing this project!

I did find out that the first non-leather helmets at Chillicothe were grey, with no stripes or face masks, probably 1951 or '52.

I'll try to track down some more definitive info