Let me put it this way: Anybody who has done public relations for a (women’s) fashion show is qualified — or at least entitled — to write about the clothes that people wear. Especially when it’s the clothing that athletes wear and includes a retrospective of how things have changed from the distant past.
This is not about uniforms…well, at least not players’ uniforms. It’s primarily about what coaches wear, specifically football coaches. Right about this stage of the season is when they start changing “uniforms” at the behest of meteorologists across Canadian football country — except where indoor stadiums make weather reports irrelevant, Toronto and Vancouver.
Elsewhere, coaches bundle up when being warm trumps being fashionable. Until then, the person in our household who does know something about fashion thinks that, by and large, the coaches are under-dressed. It’s not like coaches need recommendations from the Christian Diors or Ralph Laurens of today, they just need a little…well, coaching.
Take Mike O’Shea, which any football team would happily do in the interest of improving their x’s and o’s, not to mention their wins and losses. O’Shea stands on the sidelines and directs traffic wearing a Winnipeg Blue Bombers teeshirt. And shorts. Swap his headset for a red plastic cup and you could mistake him for a fan who just wandered onto the sidelines from the beer garden.
This is not just any teeshirt. It has Bombers signage, naturally, but it appears it’s shirt that missed the laundry basket, or at least the ironing board. O’Shea has just become the winningest coach in Winnipeg history but he’ll never measure up to the coach he surpassed, Bud Grant, even though Grant wasn’t exactly a fashion plate. He did wear a white shirt and tie when he became the Bombers’ coach at age 29, but he also swapped his helmet for a ball cap in an era when sports figures who wore caps primarily hit golf balls or threw curve balls, not footballs.
O’Shea has lots of company, because that’s what changing trends do. Across the field in Winnipeg’s last outing stood Corey Mace, the Saskatchewan head coach, in all his collar-less (and green) glory. Mace wears a sweatshirt most games and, according to my resident fashion expert, there’s a world of difference between teeshirts and sweatshirts that goes beyond the sleeves.
Now turn the clock back.
Frank Clair, of Ottawa and Toronto fame, almost always wore a fedora (yes, like Tom Landry in Dallas), preserved on top of his statue in Ottawa. He also wore a suit. Whenever that trend became passe, coaches in Canada were let loose. Leo Cahill of the Argos wore sweaters and no hat until the weather changed, then he slipped on a toque and winter jacket.
Jackets or sweaters and caps became the vogue for a long time, then just jackets. Then mostly sweaters (Wally Buono). Then sweatshirts. And now teeshirts, which could be the coaching attire for this year’s Grey Cup, since it’s under the dome in Vancouver.
All of this, of course, has nothing to do with what matters the most. Even if they’re wearing tutus and flip flops, the most important choice they have is what plays to call.
