SMU: Did Ford name the Mustang in honor of SMU football?

Legend has it that there is a connection between the Ford Mustang and the SMU Mustangs. At first glance it would seem wishful thinking on the part of a small private university in the Southwest. However, on further inspection this legend might have some legs. Then again, it may all be coincidence.

In 1960 Lee Iacocca took over as Vice President of Ford's car and truck division. Iacocca later went on to be President of Ford and later Chrysler where he engineered what could be called in sports terms "a late fourth quarter comeback" to keep Chrysler from going out of business. But back in the early sixties Iacocca was trying to find the right concept car to increase Ford's sales volumes. Work on a small sports car initially resulted in the T-5 concept car which was a two-seat mid-engine roadster that was about the size and shape of the '80s Pontiac Fiero. That concept car was given the project name of Mustang and in later years was referred to as Mustang I. As Iacocca mulled the release of this car, he was reminded that although people loved to look at the two-seated '55 Thunderbird, not that many people bought the car. In addition, the company would be taking on the daunting task of beating the European makers at the roadster game, so the concept became bigger with additional seating in the rear and a larger engine. Like the Model T, the focus was to bring a car to market for the "everyman" at a price under $2400. The car that eventually rolled off the assembly line in April of 1964 was an immediate success and over a million units of the car were sold by the end of the year.

So what about the name? The concept of a smaller, sportier car to thrive where the Ford Falcon and Ford Fairlane were faltering was being kicked around in the late '50s. John Najjar (one of the chief designers of the T-5 concept) is credited to be the first to float the name because of his love for the P-51 Mustang fighter plane of World War II. There are other stories that point to Robert Eggert (a Ford market research manager that bred quarterhorses) who lobbied to include the name in the company's focus group testing. In either case, the name Mustang appears to have been attached to the T-5 project very early on and there is plenty of photo evidence to prove that. When the project went back to the drawing board to become a 2+2 it seems the name was really up for grabs. Prospects included Cougar, Thunderbird II and Torino, among others. The designer preferred Cougar and Torino and there are photos from 1963 that show what we know as the classic Mustang bearing the Cougar name and badge. How the final determination was made is not exactly clear, but it's said that the Mustang name tested best in those focus groups we mentioned earlier. All we know is that when the car was revealed to the press in September of 1963 it was bearing the Mustang name and the name stuck.

Now, why does SMU think they had a hand in naming the Mustang? Because Lee Iacocca said so. Turns out Haden Fry's undersized Mustang team traveled to The Big House in Ann Arbor in September of 1963 to take on a typically imposing Michigan squad. Although they lost 27-16, the team apparently gave the Maize and Blue more than they bargained for. Following the game Iacocca made his way to the Mustang dressing room and addressed the team. According to all sources he said, "Today, after watching the SMU Mustangs play with such flair, we reached a decision. We will call our new car the Mustang. Because it will be light, like your team. It will be quick, like your team. And it will be sporty, like your team." There are even stories of Fry receiving one of the first models that came off the line. Supposedly it was blue with a red top, just like the mustangs blue jerseys and red helmets of the day.

When we triangulate these stories, it's obvious that Iacocca entered the stadium that day with a pretty good idea that the new car would be the Mustang. Did SMU's performance put the decision over the top? Maybe, but his mind was probably already made up by this point. But for an old school marketing genius to walk into a room full of well-to-do college boys in the new car's target market and not share a convenient truth would be a sin in the business world.

Okay. But what about the Mustang logo? The team has sported a Mustang almost identical to that of the Ford product for years. Who sported it first? Who gave permission to who? Well, it appears that the iconic Mustang logo was designed by Phil Clark leading up to the car's release in 1964. Clark provided roughly nine versions of a galloping mustang to choose from. After some feedback from designer John Najjar, the design was put in the hands of Waino Kangas who carved the Mustang in mahogany. That carving was used for casting the emblem that has appeared in the grills of Mustangs for over 45 years. In 1968, the SMU Mustangs and the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League both for the first time wore red helmets that sported white mustangs on the side that were dead ringers for a silhouette of that Clark/Najjar/Kangas version of the mustang. Both organizations today license products with that mark under their own registration. In 2006, Ford made headlines for agressively pursuing legal action to protect the Mustang name by demanding all after-market parts companies who had Mustang in the name to remove it or face legal wrath. However, it's not apparent that Ford has ever taken steps to enforce any type of protection of the Mustang logo. It's possible that Ford figures that their prospective customers are football fans and the use of the logo only cements goodwill in the minds of these future Mustang owners.

So there you have it. No other Ford tie-ins. That is, except for the fact that SMU now plays at Gerald J. Ford Stadium...no relation.

Be sure to check out All-American Sports Art's full line of officially licensed SMU artwork.

Notre Dame: Is there real gold on those helmets?

If there is anything that tends to be a consensus in college sports, it's that folks love Notre Dame's helmets.  There are several reasons why.
1)  Less is more
2)  Deep rooted tradition - they've worn the same look since the late '50s
3)  The helmets pay homage to the iconic dome that is atop the school's main building
4)  The gold thing


For those that aren't an Irish fan or were dozing through the helmet painting scene in "Rudy", the Irish have a long-standing tradition of repainting each player's helmet before each game.  In the old days each player only had one helmet, so the entire process took place the night before the game.  That really never allowed enough time for the paint to cure before contact, not to mention the time intensive process of dismantling, masking, sanding, painting and reassembling.  The crew charged with maintaining the tradition are the Student Managers (all 85 of them).  If anyone has welcomed the concept of the practice helmet it's this crew.  With a second set of helmets on hand, the crew can now begin work on the helmets at the beginning of the week instead of the end.  This is especially handy for home games where 105 players suit out versus the 70 players that normally travel to away games.


So, what about the gold?  Legend has it that the Student Managers paint the helmets with gold dust.  Really?  Doesn't that seem a little much?  Well, in this case the legend is fact, not fiction.  And not just any gold dust.  They actually paint the helmets with a lacquer that contains gold particles reclaimed from the iconic dome we spoke of earlier.  It turns out that the dome is gilded with 24K gold leaf - a process that was first completed in 1886.  Gold leaf is incredibly thin and is prone to wear over time from weather, bird droppings, etc.  As a result, the dome is periodically scraped and regilded.  This regilding has taken place ten times over the years with the most recent application coming in 2005.  That year "Notre Dame Magazine" did a very insightful and detailed piece about the regilding process.  In that piece, one of the workers talks about the folly of this gold dust just kind of blowing away as he's scraping and his gloves being covered with precious metal.  This article never mentions anything about trying to save the dust.  However, there are reliable sources out there such as Ivan Maisel at ESPN.com who have documented this story.  In a Maisel article from 2006, he interviews a Student Manager named Matt McQueary who confirms the 24K gold from the dome as the source and then adds, "We store it in a 5-gallon bucket...We store it in the stadium. We keep it hidden away. We take a vat of regular gloss and mix in the gold dust. We use four level spoonfuls of gold dust."  EXCUSE ME?  Did he say a five-gallon bucket of gold?  


Now,we've got some pretty nerdy guys around here and this five-gallon bucket of gold got us thinking.  What's the street value of what's going on here?
Let's say the bucket was full:
5 US gallons = 0.668 cubic feet
24K gold has a density of 1204 pounds per cubic foot
There are 14.5833333 troy ounces per pound
That's 11728.97 ounces of gold
Based on August 22, 2011 spot price of $1898.49 per ounce, that would put the value of the bucket at $22,267,325.87.
That number is way too big, right?  Probably.  Maybe a metallurgist can weigh in on whether gold dust has a different density than solid gold, but from what we can find density is density.  
Of course he never said they had five gallons of gold, he just said that they kept the dust they do have in a five-gallon bucket.  All right, maybe there is only one gallon being used in that five-gallon bucket, that's still ringing up as $4,453,465.17.


Let's slice this a different way.  We don't know how much gold is in the bucket, but we do know how much gold they're scooping up for each weeks paint job, "four level spoonfuls."  Once again, more assumptions are needed.  Let's imagine we're talking about the one tablespoon scoop used for putting grounds in your coffee maker.  
One tablespoon = 0.90234375 cubic inches
24K gold has a density of 10.18 troy ounces per cubic inch
That would calculate to 9.1859 troy ounces per tablespoon
Four tablespoons would equal 36.7436 troy ounces per game
Again, based on August 22, 2011 spot price of $1898.49 per ounce, that would put the value of the gold used per week at $69,757.36.
Over the course of a season that would be $837,088.29 ($906,845.64 if there were a bowl game).
That would mean the cost of a helmet would be $180 acquisition cost plus roughly $8400 worth of gold applied over the season.


Before we start a campaign to liquidate the gold and build an orphanage somewhere, let's step back and remind everyone that we don't have some Deep Throat insider.  We really don't know how much gold is buried in the catacombs of the stadium and I would not suggest anyone trying to pull an "Italian Job" to liberate the gold.  In fact, the 2005 "Notre Dame Magazine" article referenced earlier said that the 2005 regilding only cost $300,000 including labor and materials.  If that means there's roughly $150,000 worth of gold on the dome, then there can't be millions of dollars worth of gold in the bucket.  


The only person that knows for sure is that Leprachaun guarding the bucket of gold.


Be sure to check out All-American Sports Art's full line of officially licensed Notre Dame artwork.

University of Texas: Where did the mascot name Bevo come from?

Many old traditions were not of particular note the first time they occurred, so there wasn't a detail of historians on hand to fully document who did what or who uttered some famous phrase the first time.  Such is the case with Bevo, but I believe I have cobbled together a timeline that is fairly accurate.  Of course, we're always open to the feedback of someone with better information.

The date was November 30, 1916.  In Austin, two bitter rivals took the field - the University of Texas and Texas A&M.  The scale of this rivalry really cannot be understated and will surely lead to quite a few posts here in the future.  Anyhow, the Thanksgiving Day game was the first matchup of the two schools in Austin since 1909 and it had been many years since the school had presented a live mascot on its sideline.  To provide that extra spark, former Texas football manager Stephen Pinckney raised $124 to purchase the steer and have it transported to the campus from West Texas.  It must have done the trick, because the Longhorns were victorious in their first game with the bovine on the sidelines.  These details are rather established.  We know when the steer showed up.  We know who bought him.  But that name - when did they start calling him that name?  And why?  The rest of the story may be as much legend as fact, but the story has stuck around for almost a hundred years and is certainly plausible.

The story goes that a group of "Fightin' Aggies" commandeered the steer not long after his arrival in Austin.  We can only assume that it was after the steer's Thanksgiving Day unveiling, but the story doesn't specify.  As legend has it, before returning the animal the Aggies branded the steer with the indelible digits "13 - 0" which was the score of the Aggie victory over the Longhorns in the 1915 contest in College Station.  What do you do when you've spent what would be roughly $2500 in today's dollars to buy an animal as a showpiece only to have a point of humiliation forever scarred on its backside?  Well, you take out your own branding iron and turn the "13" into a "B", the "-" into an "E" and try as hard as you can to squeeze a "V" in their before the "O".  BEVO.  Given the fact that there was a popular slightly-alcoholic beer named "Bevo" that went into production in 1916 when alcoholic beverages became prohibited by the US Military ahead of the nationwide prohibition in 1919, the name could at worst be a nod to a popular libation than a reminder of an Aggie victory.

When given lemons, make lemonade...or Bevo.

Be sure to check out All-American Sports Art's full line of officially licensed University of Texas artwork.