June 10, 2013
New football helmet designs have become so commonplace that they hardly
warrant much attention anymore. But a new facemask design, of all
things, has taken hold of the collective attention of the college
football world.
The following picture of an Arizona
helmet with the traditional block ‘A’ embedded in the facemask started
circulating on Twitter on Sunday:
Threw some color on it.BadAss Masks
—
are huge fans of the #ArizonaWildcats.
#beardown
#doinitdifferent
#thankyou
twitter.com/Badassmasks/st…
BadAss Masks(@Badassmasks) June
9, 2013
In the time since, it’s
generated a whole lot of conversation.
“So far, it’s
been polarizing,” said Alan MacFerran, the facemask’s designer and
founder/owner of BadAss Masks. “People either love it or they don’t love
it.”
The questions were plentiful. Where did it come
from? Is it real?
Let’s start at the beginning.
MacFerran made his first custom facemask last year for his son. That
garnered some local attention — MacFerran lives in Memphis, Tenn. — and
not long after, Florida State linebacker Nick Moody asked to have a mask
made to wear in the East-West Shrine Game, a nationally televised
showcase for NFL draft prospects. The request: something that would
invoke the character Bane from the latest Batman
movie.
“It came out
pretty cool,” MacFerran said. “Then, when I put that up (on social
media), it kinda took off.”
It was apparently that
mask that caught the attention of an unnamed Arizona football player.
That player contacted MacFerran about creating a custom mask, and at
that point the two looped in UA director of football operations Matt
Dudek. MacFerran and Dudek did some brainstorming and came up with four
ideas that would be produced — as display models
only.
“They’re (real facemasks), but they’re for
display models,” MacFerran said. “That Arizona ‘A’ is not gonna be on
the field.
“I did a scripted ‘Cats’ one and then I
did a facemask that looked like fangs or a cat’s teeth for them. They
have not come out yet, not publicized it, but I’ve been putting it on my
Twitter feed. And this one just caught a lot of
attention.”
The fourth mask
has not yet been finalized.
Arizona confirmed that
the helmets were not being considered for on-field use — not yet, anyway
— with a spokesperson saying there was “no chance” of them seeing the
field. But there has been no official statement on exactly what the
helmets featuring the new facemasks will be used for. One possibility is
prominent placement in the brand-new Lowell-Stevens Football Facility,
which will open this year as part of a massive renovation project at
Arizona Stadium.
“He wanted to be sure (Arizona) was
the first university that was gonna do anything like this,” MacFerran
said of his conversation with Dudek.
While on-field
use would seem to be the logical next step in a college football
landscape in which uniform ubiquity is considered the worst thing ever,
one of the holdups is getting the facemasks certified by NOCSAE, the
standard safety certifier for athletic equipment such as helmets.
MacFerran said he is “in the process” of getting certification for his
facemasks.
“The plan is to get them on the field, but
gotta jump through hoops.”
But in the meantime,
Arizona will have a potential recruiting tool that no other program can
claim — yet. MacFerran said he has spoken to a few other major Division I
programs about producing facemasks with custom designs, although
between the schools’ equipment contracts with major helmet makers and
the need for certification, there’s still some work to be
done.
That said, MacFerran’s goal is to get his
facemasks more widely distributed and on the field — both college and
professional — in the near future.
“The more masks I
get out there, the more leverage I might have,” MacFerran said of his
discussions with teams. “We’re getting there. But (right now) we’re just
a very small fish in our pond.”
-- Matt Swartz
