Fowler, Lowe Decide to Ditch Unpopular Jersey Design

09-10 Basketball AD & Department42

After a swift outcry from students and fans, the N.C. State Athletics Department has opted to scrap its new white jerseys for the men’s basketball team and return to a design similar to the one it used last year.

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09-10 Basketball AD & Department

42 Responses to Fowler, Lowe Decide to Ditch Unpopular Jersey Design

  1. WolftownVA81 09/01/2009 at 11:54 AM #

    I voted acceptable/middle of the road but I’m glad they went back to last year’s uniform instead of pressing ahead. Having said that, our reactionary decision making process sure makes the University look foolish. I long for the day when our atheletic department can get things right the first time.

  2. Girlfriend in a Coma 09/01/2009 at 12:04 PM #

    So much to say. I would love to know who made the actual decision to scrap them and who told whom that the NC had to go on there.

    But how odd is this quote?

    ““We certainly want our students and fans to come out and be supportive of our team, and we definitely don’t want that to be the reason that they don’t,” Head Coach Sidney Lowe said.”

    He would rather there be another reason that the students and fans don’t support the team?

  3. hoop 09/01/2009 at 12:04 PM #

    @WolftownVA81

    I completely disagree. This move makes the University look agile and willing to make the changes that need to be made. It is definitely a strength and not a weakness.

  4. RBCRowdy 09/01/2009 at 12:23 PM #

    If the athletic administration can hear outrage over a jersey, their ears will be bleeding after this basketball season ends.

  5. Master 09/01/2009 at 12:33 PM #

    Should we also get rid of the same tiny NC that’s in the middle of our block S? Let’s be consistant.

  6. PackMan97 09/01/2009 at 12:36 PM #

    @hoop,

    I would agree if it weren’t for the seeming utter hopelessness of our basketball team. It really seems as if they are grasping at straws to try and make fans happy.

    Here is a clue. W-I-N.

  7. LRM 09/01/2009 at 12:44 PM #

    “Fowler and coach Sidney Lowe said they were discouraged from only including the word ‘State,’ as schools such as Michigan State University have on their jerseys.”

    This is one of my fundamental criticisms of our athletics department administration. They lend more credence to what outsiders think than what their own — let’s just be honest here — overly-generous while under-appreciated fan base wants.

    Who are these brilliant people that “discouraged” the use of only ‘State?’ I know they are marketing types and probably good at their jobs, but they don’t know anything about the State fan base. And I could care less how marketable our “product” is to non-fans, because for true fans, “State” is far more than just a product.

  8. wolfbuff 09/01/2009 at 12:44 PM #

    I was middle of the road on the new design also. Didn’t much like the NC, but didn’t hate it. I’m glad they “listened” and are reacting. But they would have been smarter to come up with a couple of designs and let the students vote on it. As for Lowe’s comments, I don’t think the jersey design would have kept people out of the stands (unless they went back to the unitard). Another lazy, apathetic team will though.

  9. packbackr04 09/01/2009 at 12:45 PM #

    “Fowler and coach Sidney Lowe said they were discouraged from only including the word “State,” as schools such as Michigan State University have on their jerseys.”

    so the reason you arent just putting State on the jersey is b/c Michigan State already does it? thats crazy. they have green and we have red, its not like the officials would be confused b/c both jerseys say the same thing on them?

  10. LRM 09/01/2009 at 12:45 PM #

    Also, kudos to the admin for listening for a change. Reactionary or not, it was the right decision.

  11. highstick 09/01/2009 at 12:46 PM #

    As bad as this basketball team may be, why not put Carolina on it and color them blue just for kicks!

  12. wolfbuff 09/01/2009 at 1:23 PM #

    In our fight song, we say “Go STATE!” So what’s the matter with having it on our jersey. They can put the NCS logo on the pants or something. If they’re concerned about “outsiders” not recognizing us, who cares! If they see us on TV, it only takes a glance to the corner of the screen to figure it out. Who else would care? It’s not as if the team makes random public appearances in uniform all over the country.

  13. GoldenChain 09/01/2009 at 1:38 PM #

    Jed is doing us like I do my wife……
    he’s letting us have “our way” on something that doesn’t really matter so he can pull it out and whip us with it when the time is right….
    “Hey now, we scrapped those jerseys to make you guys happy so I get to keep coach xyz even though they’ve not been .500 in conference play in __ years.”

    If you know what I mean, Vern.

  14. ldr of the pk 75 09/01/2009 at 1:45 PM #

    If our Basketball team could perform, we wouldn’t care a whole lot, at this point, what the jerseys said or looked like. The Holes had a similar fashion miss a few years back, though I can’t remember the year. They moved back to a more traditional scheme. Funny, they play big time roundball and nobody much cares what the unis look like.

    It seems the real teams in Basketball and Football don’t have to mess much with their uniforms, all fans know who they are watching. And they are big time because they are spending more time on business on the court or field than they are worrying about the uniform.

  15. thekind 09/01/2009 at 2:30 PM #

    It’s funny to me that students and fans outcry can ditch a uniform and not an AD.
    You can get rid of both if you ask me.

  16. Wulfpack 09/01/2009 at 2:45 PM #

    They got it right — for once. Now if we could only field a decent team.

  17. bradleyb123 09/01/2009 at 3:01 PM #

    So we’re not putting just “State” on our jerseys because “Michigan State does it”???

    Since when do we operate based on what some other school does or doesn’t do? We wouldn’t be COPYING them if we did that. We had “State” on our jerseys dating back to the 1950’s, and maybe even before that.

    If we just happen to want “NC” on there in some capacity, that’s one thing. But it’s downright SILLY to put it there JUST BECAUSE another “State” school happens to have “State” on their jerseys. Especially if we were doing it first.

    (I don’t like the NC on there because it’s almost like we’re conceding that no one will know who we are if we just put “State”. I would prefer us to be confident enough in our school and our history that we could put just “State” and know that most people will know or be able to figure out who we are.)

  18. bradleyb123 09/01/2009 at 3:03 PM #

    Also, someone mentioned being consistent and removing the “N” and “C” from the “block NCS” logo. But I don’t think that’s the same thing at all. That has always been our logo (well, for as long as I can remember anyway), and it hasn’t really changed except for making the N and the C a little fatter and on top of the “S”, rather than being completely contained inside the upper and lower curves of the “S”.

    IMO, I kinda like that block NCS logo like it is, keeping the “N” and the “C” a part of it. Even though I know it represents State, it would look just like the Stanford “S” without the N and C there. I realize this contradicts my previous post about doing or not doing something because of what another school does. But I just like the block NCS logo like it is. It’s kinda unique.

    Plus, the Stanford “S” is red. If we had a big red “S”, there’s not much to differentiate the two. At least with Michigan State, their school colors are green. So our uniforms could both say “State” and we could tell them apart.

    Unless one is color blind. 😉

  19. Clarksa 09/01/2009 at 3:07 PM #

    Is it really that hard of a concept? I don’t have the greatest photochop skills…but here is what it could have looked like:

    http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/4836/newuni.jpg

  20. highstick 09/01/2009 at 3:11 PM #

    Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I believe it was Sheridan who came out with the block NCS. I don’t remember anything but the block S prior to that. Granted there’s some similarity to Stanford’s S, but I don’t think a lot of people confuse it.

    I never did like changing to the NCS and that was one of the things I’m glad Chuck changed.

  21. bradleyb123 09/01/2009 at 3:12 PM #

    Nice job, Clarksa. I would love that jersey!

  22. bradleyb123 09/01/2009 at 3:15 PM #

    highstick, I’m not correcting you because I can’t remember for sure. But I THINK we used to just have a big red “S” on our football helmets before Sheridan. Or was it Sheridan that changed us to that “diamond NSC” logo? Or was that MOC?

    I really can’t remember. I think MOC did the diamond thing, and Amato went to the block NCS with the fat “N” and “C”.

    But outside of the football helments, hasn’t there always been a block NCS logo (since way back when) that had a skinny “N” and “C” fully contained inside the upper and lower curves of the “S”?

  23. WV Wolf 09/01/2009 at 3:19 PM #

    Back when we played Michigan St in the 1959 Dixie Classic the uniforms were State vs State

    http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=558754df785f06e5&q=North%20Carolina%20State%20source:life&prev=/images%3Fq%3DNorth%2BCarolina%2BState%2Bsource:life%26hl%3Den

  24. Clarksa 09/01/2009 at 4:05 PM #

    I’m pretty sure the Sheridan era was the diamond S shape modeled after the Furman logo…When Coach Amato came aboard, they wanted to “standardize” the logo for all the teams and went to the block S with the NC…which looks really sharp.

  25. packbackr04 09/01/2009 at 4:18 PM #

    thats it Clarksa— seriously, thats all they have to do to make the fans happy… that and win more than 5 conference games a year.

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