Football Equipment Guide

Posts Tagged ‘history of the football helmet’

Kinda funny video by the museum of the obvious. Experiment #5 The obvious invention of the football helmet.

Kind of funny I guess.
But seriously, as I outlined in a previous posting about the origins of the football helmet, the first “football helmet” was designed by a shoemaker for Admiral Joseph Mason Reeves. Turns out the Admiral was knock, knock, knocking on heavens door if he sustained one more serious head injury.

In his battle to dodge death and some tacklers, Reeves commissioned said shoemaker to fashion him up a total piece of crap made out of moleskin.
However, the real breakthrough in helmet history wasn’t until 1917 when a man named Bob Zuppke, a coach from Illinois, came up with the idea of ’suspension’. He put together a helmet that cradled the skull away from its leather shell, and in effect, away from the detriment of football’s battery. Here, he used straps of fabric to form a pattern inside the helmet while absorbing and distributing impact. Even better, ventilation was created, allowing the head to breathe while amplifying its protection. It was at this point that Rawlings and Spalding, football entrepreneurs of the millennium entered the picture.
After much thought and design, Vern McMillan introduced a face mask, the final stage of the leather helmet’s production. Fastened in the 1930s, it was a simple rubber-covered wire mask attached to the face of the leather helmet. Meant to put an end to the horrendous amount of broken noses and teeth resulting from the game, it produced another problem. Men soon grabbed at each others masks, forcing penalties because of their intimidation attempts.