Diabolical--The Extreme Makeover of Arizona State's Uniforms Says a Lot About What's Wrong With College Sports

I have to admit that I've always had a soft spot for "Sparky," the pitchfork-wielding imp, who until last season, was emblazoned on the Arizona State University Sun Devil's football helmets. It wasn't because he was particularly demonic. On the contrary, Sparky looked pretty harmless; despite his weapon, he appeared to be wearing a red Hoodie Footie Snuggle Suit and bore a passing resemblance to Jon Lovitz's Mephistopheles from Saturday Night Live. But what he lacked in ferocity, he made up for in biography. Legend has it that, in the late 1940s, Bert Anthony, an ASU alum and former Disney employee, modeled Sparky's mischievous face after his former boss, Walt Disney. I'm not totally sold on that tale, but regardless of its veracity, it's still a great story. The possibility that a school's mascot may actually be a satanic caricature of one of America's most beloved entertainers is part of the romance that makes college sports special.

Apparently, Arizona State's not much for romance. Last week, the school effectively put a pitchfork in Sparky, opting for an Arena League-esque football uniform (and complete range) designed by repeat uniform desecrator Nike. Sparky has not been consigned to the underworld--he'll remain the mascot and will appear on one side of the back of the football helmet--but it's a pretty big demotion. And for what? ASU traded 65 years of homegrown history and a good urban legend for a trendy redesign (complete with obligatory, all-black alternate strip) authored by a company started by a famous alum (Phil Knight) of a conference rival (Oregon University). Talk about selling your soul to the devil.

In deference to tradition, most schools celebrate the uniqueness of their outdated or obscure nicknames and uniforms. That's why we still have Elis, Hoyas, Cornhuskers and Boilermakers. Thankfully, that's why we don't have any schools nicknamed the Mighty Ducks or Raptors. That same reverence of the past is also the reason why we have ancient uniform designs like those of Alabama, Michigan and Princeton. Lately, though, thanks to the remarkable turnaround enjoyed by Oregon University's football program, which roughly coincided with its adoption of gaudy, DayGlo unis, schools like Washington State and now ASU seem more willing to forsake history in an attempt to "shake things up" or inject a "new attitude" into a flailing program. Schools are obviously free to remake their image, but dodgy uniforms and esoteric nicknames are part of the charm of college athletics.

The more that kind of tradition is eroded, the further college sports creep towards professionalism, where, except for a handful of franchises (e.g., the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox) it's really just the product on the field that counts with most fans. The problem with that is, as the Tostitos BCS National Championship Game and the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Final suggested, the quality of college athletics, even at the highest level, isn't all that good. Different colored fields, ridiculously designed basketball courts and gimmicky uniforms are all masking an ever-widening gap in quality between the professional and collegiate athletics. When all that's left to college athletics is the product on the field, there won't be much of a reason to watch. Each time college athletics loses a Sparky, it takes one step closer to its own kind of purgatory.