Were these the best practice jerseys, ever?

 

Boyle County Seniors, 1972. Photo by Bill or Larry Vaught

Also depending on the aggression during practices (2 and 3 aday's). You would end up going through 4 or 5 a year lol.

Not when your coach outfitted the defense with black mesh jerseys.? When it's 90+ (and there weren't as many heat rules), it was hot regardless of the type of jersey you wore. 

There were a lot of teams where I'm from that in the 80's that wore similar (with a little nicer printing) as game jerseys.

The worst were the even older, 3/4 sleeve nylon/durene or cotton/wool jerseys that were not only hot, but absorbed moisture like a towel making them hot, heavy and uncomfortable in the summer. I had the privalege of wearing those in the early 80's in my Pop Warner league.

I still love the look of them. And they're durable as all get-out. As someone who practiced in them from my pee-wee football years all the way through high school, and they did help keep you cool. But the definite flipside of that was that (1) they sucked when you wanted to pull up the shirt-tail and wipe sweat away from your face when it was hot, and (2) they didn't do a damn thing as a barrier from the weather when it was cold.

So they look awesome, yes, and they were super durable, but realistically I don't think they were all that great.

Here's a picture with the mesh practice jersey's Cov Cath used to use. This is the starting defense from the 1997 season. No idea why they used the offensive line chutes to take a picture of the starting defense, lol. Back row, left to right, is Jason Voorhees, Tommy Fowee, and Tommy Beechem. Middle row standing is Matt Reardon, Timmy Woolf, Pat McDermott, Ryan Pfeiffer, and Greg Hammond. Kneeling is Nick Germann, Eddie Grout, and Mark Applegate, and seated is Jason Arlinghaus.

They tried to give blue jerseys to full-time defensive players, and then white was for anyone who got time on offense. I think those practice jerseys were legitimately 15 or 16 years old by the time we got them in the late 90s, so they were missing some of the colors and the blue/white scheme didn't always work out. Beechem and Applegate weren't ever in on offense, and Voorhees was raaaaarely a two-way player.

I liked them.  My biggest complaint was that I usually lost a fingernail or two over the course of a season during practice.  Didn't have very long fingernails, but those things could really grab them from time to time.  

My Sophomore year (1979) Coach Rall got us new yellow practice jerseys.  We loved them so much that we played our first game against Washington County in them.  Coach handed out new ones every year and I used the same jersey for all 3 seasons.  The other 2 are still brand new today.   (photo by Larry Vaught)

 

2 minutes ago, Rebel said:

My Sophomore year Coach Rall got us new yellow practice jerseys.  We loved them so much that we played our first game against Washington County in them.  Coach handed out new ones every year and I used the same jersey for all 3 seasons.  The other 2 are still brand new today.   (photo by Larry Vaught)

 

@Hatz said you wore them the first two games in 1979. Then, just wore in practice because it was too hard to see the numbers on film. 

I did a poor job describing the jersey in the picture/original post. Those jerseys were like a fishing net. They were transparent.
 

Later, evolved to the more common mesh seen from the late 70’s to the present day. 

3 minutes ago, ChiefSmoke said:

@Hatz said you wore them the first two games in 1979. Then, just wore in practice because it was too hard to see the numbers on film. 

Hatz is always correct.  

6 hours ago, Rebel said:

Hatz is always correct.  

Very cool picture... and believe that was a pretty good football team. 

I wore this for my last two seasons at Boyle in the mid 80’s and then my son started wearing it in practice MANY years later. I now have a 1 year old grandson that I hope will wear it in a few years. 

Cov Cath's game jerseys were mesh from the 1981-1984 seasons. And looking at the bottom picture, Simon Kenton was rocking the mesh game jersey look in at least 1984 as well.

1981








1982




1983






1984

12 hours ago, BEChargers said:

I wore this for my last two seasons at Boyle in the mid 80’s and then my son started wearing it in practice MANY years later. I now have a 1 year old grandson that I hope will wear it in a few years. 

#64 was a prime number for OL/DL @ Mason County. You were the stud for the Rebels back in the day! ?

16 hours ago, ChiefSmoke said:

Very cool picture... and believe that was a pretty good football team. 

79 team went 9-1 on the season and ended up Central Kentucky Conference Champions.  Back then only district champion went to the playoffs.  We lost a heartbreaker to Russell County on a very muddy field.  That was the day Boyle learned that they had problems placing the football field on top of a old farm pond.  It took 18 more years for Boyle to lose another muddy heartbreaker to Dudley's Bourbon County team that made the decision to look into ways of getting a turf field installed.