Chicago Bears logos, uniforms, and mascots

Main article: Chicago Bears

Logos

The club has had few official logos throughout their history. The first was introduced in the early 1940s with a bear running with a football. The next logo featured a navy blue bear on top of a football. The team kept this until 1962, when the Bears trademark 'C' logo was first introduced by the team.^[1]

The change in their logo from the black bear was due to the addition of logos on helmets, which pro football teams started adding in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Unlike some NFL franchises that have had many different looks over time, the Bears have kept the wishbone 'C' for over 40 years. In 1974, the team decided to keep the same white 'C' logo but to change the color of it from white to orange with a white trim. This is the current logo to this date; however, the club has experimented with some alternative logos throughout the past decade, including a navy blue bear inside of the orange wishbone 'C', introduced in 1995, and an orange bear head, introduced in 1999.

Uniforms

In 1920 the team introduced the official team uniforms containing brown and blue stripes. This design of vertical stripes was a popular trend for football jerseys of the 1920s. The stripes were made up of strips of material that helped players grip the football. This was necessary because the standard football then in use was slightly fatter, rounder, and more difficult to handle than a modern football. The players' jersey number was displayed only on the back.^[2] In the 1930s, the franchise's team uniform underwent some substantial alterations. After many subtle and not-so-subtle changes, by 1933 the Bears donned all-orange jerseys with navy numbers and matching navy blue helmets. George Halas, by all accounts, adopted the navy blue and orange colors in honor of those of his alma mater, the University of Illinois. In 1936, they modified this design into "an early version of psychedelia" by adding three orange stripes to their helmets, changing the color of the jerseys from orange to white, complementing the new white jerseys with fourteen navy and orange alternating stripes on the sleeves, and introducing socks with a similar striped pattern extending from ankle to knee. Due to poor response from the fans and the media, this design lasted only one season.^[3]

Chicago Bears Uniform History (1920-2005)

By 1949, the team was wearing the familiar navy blue shirts with white, rounded numbers. In 1956, the team added "TV numbers" to the sleeves. By 1957 the NFL, in part for easier television viewing, ordered home teams to wear dark, primary-colored jerseys and road teams white; the Bears' white jersey featured blue numerals with orange trim, and the three parallel sleeve stripes, the top and bottom blue and the middle orange. By 1960 the team's home jerseys had added orange trim to the round white numerals (which became slightly smaller); the blue socks gained white borders to the orange stripes. In 1961 the orange sleeve stripes were given white borders. The Bears 'C' logo first appeared on the helmets in 1962. (The "C" is in the same font as the "C" long worn on the Cincinnati Reds' baseball caps). The logo changed from white to a white-bordered orange logo eleven years later, and has remained unchanged ever since. The Bears added the initials GSH to the left sleeve of their jerseys after the October 31, 1983 passing of George Halas.

For most of the 1940s through the late 1960s the Bears, unlike most all NFL teams, wore helmets and face masks made by Chicago-based Wilson Sporting Goods. This headgear was of a slightly different shape than that of the Riddell company, the principal supplier to NFL teams. (Gale Sayers's mid-1960s flared-ear Wilson helmet and white face mask with angled vertical bars are familiar to football fans). In 1982 standard gray face masks became dark blue. For decades, the team was known as the only NFL team to wear jersey numbers that were not the traditional block-style numbers. Although a handful of other NFL teams such as the early-1960s Pittsburgh Steelers and the Houston Oilers during their early AFL days experimented with rounder jersey numbers, by the mid-1960s the Bears were the only team left to continue wearing rounded jersey numbers, though on a few occasions in 1971 and 1972 the team appeared in jerseys with plain block numerals. Since the mid-1990s, however, several teams have shifted away from the block numbers in favor of numbers that match a specific team font (e.g. Denver Broncos, Baltimore Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles, etc...) or in the case of the Pittsburgh Steelers, match the jersey number font with the helmet numbers while otherwise leaving the jersey design alone.

Other variations to the Bears uniforms over the years include the addition of navy blue pants as a part of the road kit in 1984. During the 1994 season, the Bears – with most of the other NFL franchises – introduced throwback uniforms to be worn in the honor of the NFL's 75th Anniversary. These uniforms with brown and blue stripes resemble the original uniforms worn by the team in the 1920s. On October 7, 2002 the Bears wore navy blue pants with their navy blue home jerseys for the first time, and lost at home to Green Bay before a national Monday Night Football audience. The Bears did not wear the all-blue combination again until the 2006 regular season finale against the Packers, also a loss, on December 31.

Also, the Bears wore all-white uniforms during their final two road games in the 2006 season, and for all of the 2008 season. On November 13, 2005 and October 29, 2006 (both times in games against the San Francisco 49ers), the Bears introduced an orange alternate home jersey. The orange swaps roles with the navy blue on this alternate jersey, as it becomes the dominant color while the navy complements. The Bears also donned the orange jerseys on October 28, 2007 against the Detroit Lions, a game that they lost 16-7. The Bears again wore the orange jerseys for the fourth consecutive year on October 19, 2008 when they hosted the Minnesota Vikings. The Bears previously wore orange jerseys as part of a throwback uniform in a Thanksgiving Day game at the Dallas Cowboys in 2004. For the 2010 season, the Bears introduced throwbacks representing the original Monsters of the Midway of the 1940's. They wore the uniforms against the Green Bay Packers on September 27th, 2010 and against the Vikings on November 14th later that season. Both of those games were wins for the Bears. The classic look of the club's uniforms has given it the title of one of the best uniform sets in the league.^[4]

Mascots

Before the introduction of Staley Da Bear, the club had two unofficial mascots named "Rocky" and "Bearman". "Rocky" was a man who donned a "1" Bears jersey, carried a megaphone, and started chants all over Soldier Field during the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. There is no known source of who "Rocky" was, except that he disappeared from Soldier Field in 1996 and presumably lived in Northwest Indiana.^[5] Don Wachter, also known as "Bearman", is a season ticket holder who decided in 1995 that he could also assist the team by cheerleading. The club allowed him to run across the field with a large Bears flag during player introductions and each team score. In 1996, he donned his "costume" of face paint, bear head and arms, and a number 46 jersey. "Bearman" was forced to stop wearing his costume with the introduction of Staley Da Bear in 2003; however, in 2005 Wachter was allowed in costume again.^[6]

References

1. ^ "History of the Chicago Bears Logo". Chicago Bears. Archived from the original on 20 May 2005. http://web.archive.org/web/20050520013751/http://www.chicagobears.com/history/uniform.jsp. Retrieved 1 August 2005. 
2. ^ http://www.chicagobears.com/tradition/Uniform.asp
3. ^ "History of the Chicago Bears Uniform". Chicago Bears. http://org-www.chicagobears.com/history/uniform.jsp. Retrieved 1 August 2005. 
   
4. ^ "Jay Mohr: Breaking down the best and worst NFL uniforms". Sports Illustrated. 2005-11-09. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/jay_mohr/11/09/mohr.sports/. Retrieved 9 November 2005. 
5. ^ "Rocky". Bearshistory.com. http://www.bearshistory.com/sidelines/chicagohoneybears.aspx. Retrieved 3 May 2006. 
6. ^ "Bearman". Bearshistory.com. http://www.bearshistory.com/sidelines/chicagohoneybears.aspx. Retrieved 1 May 2006.