Attention Dolphins - Uniform Code
The year was 1971 and our newly acquired magazine, which would evolve into Gold Coast, needed serious work. The book was filled with people dancing for disease and ads for those trying to sell them real estate and interior design. It obviously needed broadening. One expansion route was sports. The area had a new football team, the Miami Dolphins, and with a successful coach Don Shula, it was beginning to create interest. The team was called the Dolphins, not a creature associated with aggressive behavior desirable in football, and had unusual colors, aqua marine and orange, which seemed a bit effeminate for a big-league team. We followed the team that season and were impressed by its rapid improvement and emerging stars such as Larry Csonka, Bob Griese, Paul Warfield, Nick Buoniconti and Larry Little. Just a year later this group became the only undefeated team in NFL history. The aqua marine color now stood for the essence of masculine success.
The 1972 Dolphins made aqua a championship color.
Miami Dolphins new uniforms revealed. Dolphins Deloser look is bluer than the old classics.
When a team becomes that successful, its uniforms become part of its legacy. Fans expect them to always have that winning look. Fans buy replica jerseys, and its logo appears everywhere from pennants to coffee cups. Thus, it attracts our attention in a bad way when a winning team messes with their winning look. This happened in an egregious way recently when University of Miami, in an apparent salute to our military, came out in the ugliest suits ever seen on a college team. Playing against a mediocre SMU team, the Hurricanes did not look like themselves, and sure did not play like themselves. They suffered a giant upset, that devout people might associate with God's displeasure.
Miami is not alone in messing with their uniforms. Notre Dame created a fuss on the internet early this year when they came out wearing white pants instead of their traditional soft gold. But that was nothing compared to a few years ago when they disgraced the Golden Dome by dressing for a game like praying mantises. The white pants got immediate criticism on the internet. Fans complained that it looked like they were watching Navy or Georgia Tech. In a more recent game, Notre Dame returned to its traditional gold pants against Syracuse. It is doubtful they would have scored 70 points in those stupid white pants.
Speaking of Navy, it has been experimenting with all blue uniforms that look like a bad abstract painting. Interestingly, they dressed as in the days of Roger Staubach and played Notre Dame tough for a half in a recent game.
Back to the Dolphins. Back in the glory days of the 1970s we never recall the team wearing anything but all white on the road. They never wore aqua pants. Dark pants make players bottom heavy and deprive them of their best form. But in recent years the Dolphins have worn dark pants often and paid the price. Compounding that sin is the fact that their base uniform color, although still officially aqua marine, was changed a few years ago to a light blue. We first thought it was a color problem with the TV. until we noticed that the numbers on white jerseys were still the original aqua. Why the Dolphins gave up their iconic aqua is a mystery, but we wonder if the decline of the team in recent seasons is punishment for this egregious act. There are names for many shades of blue, some of them with French accents. So let's call this one Deloser blue.
As one who saw firsthand the Dolphins make aqua marine a record setting color, we strongly suggest the Dolphins honor that legacy by returning to that color. If they look like champions, maybe they will play that way again.
