new high school shirts?
 

Watching an Alabama high school football game on my local TV channel today. The officials had on a shirt similar to the NFL. Black shoulders and sleeves and wider b and w stripes. What's up with that? Anyone?

The officials working the Alabama Super 6 State Championship are wearing a shirt with black shoulders and sleeves and wider black and white stripes supplied by One Stop Sports.

Those shirts are awful.

I recall people saying the same thing the first time the NFL guys showed up in black pants.

I could see wearing those.

Me too!

1" stripes outdated, imho.

Either 2" stripes should be the standard, with the alternating width stripes preferred.

South Carolina is going to these next year.

http://www.schsl.org/2012/SCFOAShirt.pdf

I don't have a problem with them either. I could go for the AL or SC shirt. Either would look better with the black pants.

Leave the 1" stripes for basketball. Of course, here in NC, we no longer wear those either.

Those wide stripes look sharp! Dang!!!

You want new Basketball stripes? Ask and SC will deliver!

SK14SC South Carolina Sublimated Basketball V-Neck - Cliff Keen Athletic

Now that is hideous.

$50 a shirt! I see Cliff Keen shored themselves up a nice little contract with a quite captive audience.

I always liked the black pants. Never cared for the white knickers. I just think there is to much black on the shirt.

$50 for a shirt is insane. Esp for football. Competition will bring that price down.

Yes it is.

Peace

I totally agree. I hated the knickers and was glad to have just about anything to replace them. And most of all I hated what you had to do with the darn socks.

Peace

I just bought a new pair, rather then trying to darn them.

Yep, just threw my old football socks in the garbage.

That's funny.

I'm glad someone took the lead in some variation of the 2" stripped shirt. I also like the "built in" logos, if they must be worn.

Alabama is going to something very similar for next year, too. The Super 6 was a test run for the new shirts, and word is that those shirts or something very similar will be used for both football and basketball starting next year.

Alabama approved are available at PO for $43. Not sure I dig that look or not.

Purchase Officials Supplies - Alabama Logo Dye Sublimated Football Shirt

Reviving an old thread to a degree but WIAA (Wisconsin) approved the wide stripes this year.


"Below are the football mechanic changes including the new shirt in football which we will allow provided all on the crew are wearing:


1. The Five-Game Officials kickoff coverage positions have a major shift and additional responsibilities to cover new rules.

2. The signal for Targeting will be the current signal 24.

3. Announcing the number of the offending player is now allowed (not required) when the referee is using a microphone.

4. By state association adoption, game officials may wear a black and white vertically striped, long or short sleeved knit shirt with a maximum of 2 1/4-inch stripes, with a black knit cuff and Byron collar."

Interested to see what Rich and a few of my fellow Wisco partners think of the move on the stripes. I know the KO mechanics going back to the way they were is a welcome relief...that was horrendous IMO.

Our crew has already bought them. Will debut them on August 22.

Why is a gold trim flag standard? I thought a white trim was standard unless one was a veteran and thus entitled to a gold trim flag. Is this a big deal? Not really. But still...

The manual states that the maximum width is 2 1/4-inch stripes. If you want to get away from the 1-inch stripes, why not just go to a 2-inch style like the NCAA CFO? Is this a competition to see who can have the wider stripes? (Bet mine are bigger than yours. :D)

I personally don't have a problem with the 1-inch stripes. I don't mind being differentiated from collegiate football officials. But if you're going to make a chance at the HS level, why not just go up to the 2-inch stripe for consistency.

As for the black side panels, black shoulders/sleeves, and tapered stripe designs -- I personally don't care for them. Leave that for the NFL, that's just my opinion, FWIW.

I seem to recall hearing somewhere that the NCAA had placed a trademark (or copyright, or whatever) on the 2-inch stripe design that they use for the officials shirts, specifically so that they COULDN'T be used at the other levels.

It's entirely possible, however, that I'm remembering that incorrectly.

Both Gerry Davis and Purchase Officials (and countless others) carry the Smitty brand. One calls the same shirt 2" and the other shows the same exact shirt at 2-1/4". My guess is they're one in the same and a typo by some kid in the mail room revising the company web page. You could be dead on though on the trademark, but I don't know how one could or would regulate that.

I assume it's similar to how the striped black pants were listed when they came out of the gate. Some suppliers said 1-1/4" wide stripe and some showed 1" and I think I saw one that showed it as 1-1/2".

That's possible...

I don't have my new HS shirt yet (my white-hat has them, we ordered them all together as a crew to save the shipping costs)... when I get it, i'll compare it to my NCAA shirt and report back.

I stand corrected....shocking. They offer 2" and 2-1/4" - probably right on the head, JTheUmp. Maybe the "infringement" period lapsed.

Shirts - all - Purchase Officials Supplies

•NCAA Approved, and now approved for high school in many states including Arkansas.

Don't know about the NCAA but the NFL did copyright their uniforms so they could not be used in commercials by companies.

Other leagues use 2" so it was not the NCAA.

I certainly don't think these shirts will be coming to Illinois anytime soon. Heck, they won't even mandate the logo embroidered over the patch.

And the basketball shirts... yeah, no thanks.

Nebraska has a deal with cliff keen...their shirt 21/4 in. They strongly hint that next season they may be mandated...our crew went to order new shirts...back orderred until October...guess we will live with 1in stripes.

Our football advisory board is allegedly in favor of changing to 2". NC decided not to mandate a change statewide but is allowing each region to decide on their own.

Admitting I was wrong initially on the whole black pant switch, I don't see the need to widen the stripes. I still believe a lot of this is supplier driven to enhance revenue.

I'm sure it won't be long before the "Big H" strikes a deal with Raleigh to force the use of the wider stripes statewide.


As for the rumor that the NFHS would force the uniform change, I find that hard to believe. The 2014-15 Officials Manual still lists knickers as the official pants for football officials, with the black pants being permitted by "state association adoption". If the NFHS still hasn't made the black pants mandatory, even after the majority of states have, I'd be surprised that they would make wider stripes mandatory any time soon. But I could certainly be wrong.

Even if the NF said that black pants were apart of the uniform, states do not have to follow what is in the mechanics book. It is long been understood that NF mechanics book and statements about officials are mostly "recommendations" and the states can come up with any policy or requirement they want outside of the NF. And that is why states have decided what can be worn by their officials and nothing happens to the state organization. This is not like rules change or application that a state ignores or changes.

Peace

Although having proven to be universally popular and extremely practical, there are always unintended consequences to change, and like it, or not, the change to black pants makes it noticably more difficult to quickly find field officials, especially on the sidelines in front of team box areas.

As always, better more pronounced, consistent and deliberate signalling will help reduce any problems and assist timing accuracy.

Just as urprisingly, the use of the wider striped shirts further helps to negate the problem, of picking out the game officials on a crowded sideline, somewhat.

Just as an observation for someone's consideration, after watching a Canadian Football Game on TV, the wing officials patrolling those crowded sidelines wearing white hats seemed a lot easier, and quicker, to locate.

Easy now...You're treading in dangerous water....this gets out to the wrong people and we'll all be wearing neon colors like some of the soccer guys before long.

I really could care less overall on what to wear at the HS level, however....the knickers and socks look was brutal. The pants not only look much MUCH better (in my opinion) they're a lot more comfy...and my wife says black is "slimming."

Its actually a trademark on the design. The 2" stripes, once used by the NFL and sold on shirts for years isn't so trademarked. However, CFO, I believe, has asked the state associations not to adopt the 2" stripes as used in college. The South Carolina, Alabama, and soon to be Texas shirts have gone off the 2" design with a 1 3/4 to 2 1/4" stripe and other designs, including patches and flags, that differentiate themselves from the college shirts. However, they pretty much all look a hell of a lot better than the 1", especially against the black pants.

The new shirt is optional next year in Texas, but I'm fairly sure that's all anyone will be wearing after this year.

This is not only false, but if you uttered even the hint of this to a supplier, he'd probably bust your chops.

Do you know how many suppliers have knickers they can't give away? Texas suppliers will soon have a similar problem with not only the 1" striped shirts, but the 1" stripes that have sublimated (word?? sp??) logos on them that will not be used after 2015 AT ALL. You see where I'm going here? Suppliers do not care what we wear but have to manage their inventory to the extent that they want to know what to buy. They don't want to be stuck with gear they can't sell, but also want to have what they need when they get an order. That can be an extremely difficult course to manage.

The change is shirts is NOT at the bequest of the supplier. Guys need to quit asserting that.

I was told at a conference a few weeks ago that Honig's has over 25,000 pairs of knickers sitting in their warehouse - the source was pretty good too.

Maybe they can cut them and hem them to make shorts and dye them black...

Dick Honig himself (at his clinic) joked that he could give us all a really good deal on knickers.

Heard from a very reliable source Illinois will NOT be changing shirts in the near future

That has been stated rather publicly for some time now.

Peace

LOL... my source wasn't Dick; but it wasn't too far from him. He joked about that too. He also said he hopes there are a lot of throw back games scheduled for the future! haha

My crew has actually (somewhat jokingly) considering donning the knickers for a game this year, since they're still an approved uniform.

And we've (even more jokingly) talked about combining the knickers with the 2 1/4 stripes.

Maybe if we get a state tournament game (which we won't... newly put-together-crew + first-year white-hat = no playoff games)

The knickers were not only the old style but old material. The new shorts are a much lighter weight material. I think Dick and the boys just need to dump their supply of knickers onto some third world country, or give them to an outfitter who will cut them off for shorts and THEN dump them on some third world country (except Louisiana). Who knows how many pairs of socks are still floating around in boxes.

As far as states and shirts, a bunch of states swore they'd never switch to black pants. Is there anyone that doesn't have at least a cold weather pants option? By the end of this decade, I'm betting the 1" stripe on football shirts will be all but obsolete. The one thing that may keep it going is pee-wee. New shirt designs will be state association adoptions to be worn for their games only, so guys working youth leagues on Sat. morning may still wear the 1s.

That's a good point. Didn't TASO come out and say no wearing of the TASO patch for youth games?

I wonder if that will change now that they're requiring youth assigners to be officially recognized by a chapter for our insurance to cover us while working those games?