• Maize Helmets (1927) & The Canary Disaster (1928)

    Given the buzz around the prospect of your beloved Wolverines opening the season in a maize alternate uniform, you should know it’s not the first time.  Readers of this site are aware of the canary disaster of 1928, but here’s a refresher: I first read about all this thanks a tip from Bruce Madej, the legendary U-M SID, who reviewed the Uniform Timeline sent over a ditty from his book, Champions of the West.  Within a section of the book talking about Fritz Crisler and the launch of the winged helmet at Michigan in 1938, it gets into a little uniform history— including this spicy meatball: The only change in the typical blue uniforms before 1949 came in 1928.  As Michigan planned to play Navy in Baltimore, the Midshipmen refused to wear any other color than their traditional blue.  Therefore, Michigan came out in bright yellow jerseys with blue numerals.  The team was said to look like canaries, and the uniforms were put away after the 6-6 tie. Here’s the description from the November 8, 1928 Michigan Daily: Fast forward to today, and we can see that Navy did indeed have a uniform that resembled the gear the Wolverines wore back in the 1920s.  (But note, FWIW, I think that happened a lot back then).   Anyway – Via eBay, here’s…