There is an excellent website dedicated to college and pro football helmets: www.helmethut.com This company has collected many authentic and important vintage helmets from college and pro stars but also manufactures authentic replicas - including several from LSU. If you go to the site, click on "college" and then click on "LSU." You will see photos of their reproduction of Billy Cannon's helmet as well as a late 60s helmet and one from the early 70s (the round decal). I don't think they are for sale, but they are great to look at and bring back good memories of the players who wore them. They also have some Saints helmets, including an original infamous black one from pre-season in the late 60s.
From Johnny Unitas helmut description: If John Facenda didn't say this he could have: Mr. Unitas is hunched well over the center as he calls the signals. His rail thin body is motionless from the neck down as only his head pivots quickly from side to side mimicking the body language of a wise old owl. In the split second before the ball is hiked he defines the word confidence and leadership to the rest of us mere mortals. He and he alone has drawn up the play (if it was ever sent in OLE Johnny would simply leave the field) and he will endure and overcome almost unrestricted punishment from the opposition in his quest to make it successful. And when it becomes successful we look back up the field always anticipating to find him in a celebratory posture but he has already began preparation for his next move probably wondering why anyone would ever get excited over something that has happened that they intended to have happen to begin with. I always wondered why anybody but a kicker would wear a helmut with a single bar facemask. This is what Joe Namath said about that: After breaking a bone in his face, Namath went to this full cage. He said "We've got a couple on our team wearing the one bar, I tell them they are crazy. It's ridiculous running around like that. It's suicide. And there's no reason for it that has to do with playing better. The only reason people wear a one bar mask is because they want to look like somebody wearing a one bar mask." "Broadway" Joe quickly found out that handsome young players became players with rugged good looks after a few years of pro football. To protect his face from injury and to preserve his movie star looks he had no problem discarding his conventional Riddell two bar mask for a linesman's style cage mask. After experimenting with various versions of contemporary "clip on" style cage masks Joe settled on a late 1950s bolt on "cowcatcher" style cage made by Schutt Manufacturing. He preferred this vintage style because the acute contour of the sides of the cage frame allowed him the freedom to move his head from side to side without obstruction from his shoulder pads. Of course in the old days of hockey the goalies didn't wear any mask at all.
I've always liked the round decal logo more than the current one. I guess they wanted to make the "LSU" more readable. Another good helmet website is http://www.nationalchamps.net/Helmet_Project/index.htm (It has drawings of helmets, not actual mock-ups.)
BayouBengal, now that is one uniform change I could live with. I'd actually like to see them bring the #s back, but then people would think we were trying to copy Bama.
Oooofff! I'll respectfully disagree with you on that one....the current logo is by far better than the old round one...In my opinion that is.
Yeah, I agree. I think the old round one looks too cluttered or something. I think the current design is my favorite. Now if we could just get rid of that silly media logo...
You mean the one that looks like the Cincinnati bengals mascot standing in front of a.....a.....what is that anyway?! A purple-shaped leaf??? The helmet logo looks good. Tiger looks rough and tough--classic. The new design makes the tiger look like he's playing with a ball of yarn or something....:dis:
