For the emerging sport of football, the one event that gave rise to the need for protective football helmets was a rule created in 1888 that made it legal for a player to tackle below the waist. Without any real means of protection, the game of football full of fights, brawling, even fatalities, as teams wedged together around the runner, trying to block him. Gradually, they accepted pads placed in essential places for safety, with the leather football helmet being the last protective device incorporated into the football uniform. Leather football helmets, called head harnesses at the time, as they were simple straps of leather across the head, did little to soften the blows of impact. By 1938, the harness began taking on more of the appearance of actual football helmets, with a full cap and ear flaps containing vents to aid in hearing.

How Riddell Changed The Face Of The Sport

Gerry E. Morgan, an employee of Riddell Manufacturing, introduced a hard plastic football helmet and introduced it to the Chicago College All-Star Game of 1939. The plastic college football helmet created better protection, but World War II was underway, plastic was scarce and sometimes brittle, cracking on impact. A search began to create football helmets of a more durable quality. The future of Riddell football helmets began to look a little shaky, even though the plastic design allowed introduced the football helmet visor. As the technology in plastics improved, Riddell was able to produce a hard plastic football helmet whose face guard could be kept in place through the use of bolts. A new, computer enhanced technology went into the development of the Riddell Revolution football helmet, adding a superior suspension system and vital padding to the sides of the head.

Identifying Popular Football Helmets

Spray painting the helmets has always been a popular way of identifying the team, so that collecting the official football helmets of their favorite teams became almost as enjoyable a pastime to the fans as watching the game itself. The LSU football helmet carries the bright yellow team color with black stripes and the football helmet logo on each side. An autographed Peyton Manning Colts football helmet, with the Colts insignia on its sides, has a value of over eight hundred dollars. The Ohio State football helmet is scarlet and grey. The buckeye leaf refers to the sticker placed on the side of the helmet indicating a valuable player. The more sticker on the football helmet, the more valuable the player!

Along with creating college and professional football player helmets, Schutt football helmets are offered for youth and young adult teams, as well as producing exact replica mini-football helmets. Football helmet clip art can be quite detailed, illustrating your favorite team with color graphics or in accurate, black and white sketches. Football helmet clip art for children illustrate their favorite football helmets in simple, animated colors.