TCU Football Helmet – A Story

TCU football helmets have a storied history dating back more than 50 years. They have had a combination of player numbers, pictures of a horned frog, and the letters TCU over the years. They have been white, purple, silver and sometimes black. The 1960s saw four different helmet designs. Much of that period, the helmet was white or purple with the player’s number (e.g. 88) on the side of the helmet, either in a sans serif or block font. During 1966, the helmet had a strange-looking horned frog head. The following year, the letters TCU were on the hull; it was similar to the modern Texas A&M logo with a large T and a smaller C and U on each side. In the 1970s, the letters TCU reappeared on the helmet, in a stylized serif font with T, C, and U in a downward diagonal path from the facemask side to the rear.

Perhaps one of TCU’s most beloved and famous logos appeared in 1977. The “Flying T” had a large T running from front to back. C and U were below. It had an ESPN logo kind of feel. As a template, the C and U were not completely connected. They were 3 and 2 unconnected blocks of text. The original Flying T hull was silver, but in 1980 it was purple and remained that way until 1991. For 1992, management apparently wanted a new look and decided to retire the Flying T; although as recently as 2010, there were posts on Facebook asking them to bring it back. In 1992, the helmet remained purple, but transitioned to three equal-size TCU capital letters. They had an upward slope on the T, a level slope on the C, and a downward slope on the U. The following year the hull was changed from purple to silver and the TCU letters outlined in white. This design was stable for 2 years before being replaced with a black outline and black face mask. A horned frog was added below the lettering, the color returned to purple, and this design remained with some minor tweaks from 1998 to 2010. In some specific games, Nike made a custom black or silver helmet with frog blood on it. red (with horns). frogs spit blood from their eyes to scare off predators) and a frog-like scale. Finally, during the 2011 Rose Bowl game, the frog had a rose in its mouth. The latest helmet marks a return to the frogless TCU lyrics. Looking at the last few years with so many changes and adjustments, it’s unlikely to last without some changes soon.