3E Presents: A Top 21 Things on the Internet: #17 The Helmet Project

One thing I like about the internet is that it lets everyone get their obsessions out in the open. Sometimes the results are just weird, but occasionally it produces a thing of usefulness and beauty. The first such site I can remember finding, from way back in the day, is The Helmet Project. It is old-school; a surviving, still active website from the 1990s is always a nice find. And none of that fancy flash; it still has the same clunky frame design it had when I found it.

The Helmet Project has inspired about a million imitators, including some very direct inspirations, which I think attests to its magnificence. What makes it so outstanding is that it is not limited to simply the current or historic NFL, or the major conference college football teams, or to particular region. It is as much as it can be universal, as the author Charles Arey throws around with oddly placed square quotes, an "atlas" for college and professional football helmets.

Take a look, for example, at the most recent updates to the site (N = new helmet, H = historical helmet, C = current helmet). It contains, by my count, two D-I teams, a D-II team, a D-III team, one NAIA team, and seven junior colleges:

JUN 29 - Illinois College (H) (NCAA Division III Midwest Conference)
JUN 25 - Michigan Tech (C) (NCAA Division II Great Lakers Intercollegiate Athletic Conference)
Blinn (C) (NJCAA)
Iowa Western C.C. (C) (NJCAA)
JUN 21 - Culver-Stockton (N) (NAIA Heart of America Athletic Conference)
Fond du Lac (C) (NJCAA)
Harper (C) (NJCAA)
Holmes C.C. (C) (NJCAA)
Pearl River C.C. (C) (NJCAA)
JUN 20 - Joliet J.C. (C) (NJCAA)
JUN 18 - New Mexico State (N) (Western Athletic Conference)
Hampton (C) (Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference)

The site has become in its way as much an official institution as YouTube or Google. In less than a month (July 27, to be exact), the site will be celebrating its ten year anniversary, and may it celebrate many more decades.

If any ADs or NFL owners read this blog (they don't), please, contact this guy about your next uniform switch. Or at least devote an afternoon to his site to see what you shouldn't do. Tasteful football fans everyone appreciate it.