It was a road trip years in the making. Finally last month Dr. Sap and I headed down to Capitol Varsity Sports in Oxford, OH to visit shop owner Bob Fawley and winged helmet artist Russ Hawkins. Uniform gurus probably know that it is Capitol Varsity that has done the bulk of Michigan helmet reconditioning over the past four decades, and it is Hawkins who’s personally created the winged design that you see on many of the helmets each Saturday. Of course, Bo and equipment manager Jon Falk came from Oxford-based Miami, OH and that’s how the bond between the company and U-M was formed & maintained over the years. The Wolverine tie is clearly important to the Ohio company–winged helmets, schedule posters and photos of U-M dignitaries are found around the facility. (And no, despite being an hour from Columbus they don’t do any work for the Buckeyes. Without saying as much, you can tell there’s some bitterness in the air about that.) They even have a shrine to U-M and Jon Falk in their offices: A couple of notes: As implied above Capitol Varsity isn’t the only firm that handles the reconditioning of the helmets for Michigan as the Riddell helmets are handled by Riddell in Elyria, OH. On a disappointing note for me, Capitol Varsity did not…