About last night's whole jersey situation
At Streak Talk, we take requests seriously. So when I heard from a handful of readers who wondered what I thought about last night’s slate-and-white jersey ensemble, I knew it was time to pop open a doc and get to work.
Here’s the thing—I don’t necessarily hate this look. I think there’s even a world where this look maybe even approaches cool, and I’m not even talking about the world from the first half of The Giver. It’s one of the cleanest looks at this year’s jersey set we’ve seen, although that’s probably because this year’s locker is pure chaos. This jersey appearing on adidas.com with absolutely zero context was not a fair introduction. These jerseys are not great but I’m probably not going to remember them for being disgusting, either.
This brings me to what I’m actually irritated by—the context itself, and it involves the Helms National Champion designation. I’m all for KU basketball celebrating its vast history—one of my KU grails is a good condition denim HAWKWEAR “100 Years of Basketball” shirt in my size, and it’s endlessly cool that KU basketball has been around 100+ years—but celebrating Helms titles from the ‘20s right now feels like a rreeaalllllll stretch. We’re talking pre-integration, pre-Tournament, pre-automobile. It’s silly as hell, and the fact we’re treating it as a real thing is disturbing to me, even though we’ve been hanging those banners for as long as I can remember.
Here’s why: the Helms National Champion designation actually wasn’t awarded until the 1940s. A baker named Paul Helms—along with his buddy Bill Schroeder—founded the Helms Athletic Foundation in 1936. It wasn’t actually a foundation in the traditional sense; Helms bankrolled the whole HAF through his Los Angeles-based bakery. In the ‘40s, Helms and Schroeder ceremoniously went back through the history books to retroactively award (via their calculations, whatever those were) National Championships to college basketball and college football teams. This self-appointed task had more to do with publicity than history.
Now, my skepticism of the Helms title is not necessarily a sign of disrespect for those Phog Allen-coached Kansas teams. I would just like to point out that, while KU’s 1922 roster contained legends like Charlie Black, Paul Endacott and future racist UK coach Adolph Rupp, they tied for first in the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association, and actually had a worse record than the team they tied with, which will remain nameless.
The modern challenges of the current program notwithstanding, I am greedy for banners, and something like this celebration makes that hunger much more intense. (HANG THE 2020 NATTY CHAMPS BANNER ALREADY!) Busting out jerseys to commemorate the probably dubious Helms title is just the latest case study outlining why we flat-out need to have more banners! Let’s freaking get some!!!
Whatever you thought of last night’s jerseys, our night lookin’ like Pleasantville had a saving grace. At least we weren’t rocking this fit!!!!
Rock Chalk. Oh yeah… we looked pretty good last night! The defense showed up. 10-2 in the conference is Good for Jayhawks. See you guys on Friday.