Cyclones All Suited Up And Ready To Go


The Cyclone football team not only has a new football coach 
this season, it also has a new look. 

Coach Dan McCarney benched the bright yellow pants and red 
jerseys and added a new accent color to dress his Cyclones 
for success.

This season, fans will see a lot of red and white, and a bit 
of gold and navy. The new uniform includes a darker red 
jersey and helmet, white pants and the new Cyclone logo.

Coach McCarney is not the first ISU football coach to make 
significant changes in the players' uniforms, said Paul 
Brunkow, athletic equipment manager from 1969 to 1985. Most 
uniform changes over the years were made by new coaches. 

"Generally, a new uniform is psychologically important 
because the object is to make players realize that this is a 
new beginning," said Brunkow, now retired.

Student Ira Brownlie organized, coached and played on the 
first football team at ISU (then Iowa Agricultural College) 
in 1892. Black and white photos make it difficult to 
determine the color of those first uniforms, but they likely 
were some combination of silver, yellow and black--the school 
colors. 

In 1899, the student newspaper reported that the athletic 
council had complained about the school colors, particularly 
the difficulty of dyeing letter sweaters to those shades. 
Soon thereafter, the council chose cardinal to replace silver 
and black. Gold replaced yellow as the accent color.

George Veenker, football coach from 1931 to 1936, may have 
veered from university tradition when he failed to suit his 
players in either of the school's official colors. He did, 
however, use the official accent color.

In Cyclone Memories: 100 Years of Iowa State Football, author 
Roger Steward reports that Veenker, who came from Michigan 
University, had the Cyclone football squad "dressed in blue 
jerseys with gold numerals." J.C. Schilletter, who taught 
horticulture for 20 years and later was director of the 
Memorial Union and director of residence, recalls that 
Veenker's Cyclones definitely "looked more like Michigan" 
than Iowa State players.

Cyclones sported two different helmets under Jim Criner's 
tenure, from 1983 to 1986. According to Roger Gade, head 
equipment manager, the gold helmet was the standard and the 
red helmet was used as a reward. 

The system, which Criner used most of his four years at ISU, 
didn't work out too well because the red helmets drew 
opponents' attention to the Cyclones' key players. The NCAA 
later required uniformity in helmet colors, Gade said.

Gade said this year's trend in football uniforms is pants 
without stripes, which puts the Cyclones right in style. The 
only mark on their bright whites is the new logo. 

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contact:  Jennifer Henrich, News Service, (515) 294-6881
updated:  9-28-95