Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Jacksonville Jaguars Owner Wayne Weaver made a special presentation today at the Touchdown Club inside Jacksonville Municipal Stadium as he unveiled the club’s updated logo as well as new home and road uniforms and new-look helmet.
Weaver was joined by head coach Jack Del Rio and representatives from Reebok, JDSU and the NFL. Ten Jaguars players, including Maurice Jones-Drew, David Garrard and Rashean Mathis modeled the uniforms. Long snapper Joe Zelenka served as the emcee of the event.
“There will no longer be mixtures of black and teal or all black,” Weaver said in describing the new uniform look. “So when people see the Jaguars on television, that’s who we are. So I’m excited about that. I’m also excited about what we did with our logo. We think we’ve taken our logo and tweaked it in a way that it gives it a little bit of a modern flair but still a classic look, and one that we think will stand the test of time.”
“In taking part in some of these meetings in terms of design and looking at it and visiting with Mr. Weaver, it was apparent that there was a real desire to get back to a real clean look,” Del Rio said. “I think when you see the uniforms you’re going to see that. A real clean look, something that we think will have a timelessness about it, and so we’re excited about that. I think anytime there is something new, it’s fresh, it’s exciting and obviously it ties in perfectly to be unveiling our new uniforms along with the draft coming up this weekend. We’re going to have a freshness about us.”
“I like to look at this uniform system as a classic revolution,” said Chris Gallo of Reebok. “We looked at the old system and we wanted to of course keep it clean and keep it classic and timeless, that was very important, but we also wanted to bring the best technologies that we can offer to the football field from a design standpoint and also from a development standpoint. So we’re offering in this whole new uniform system new technologies. We reduced the weight of the jersey 30% from the uniform of last year, which is real important. It’s going to be more of a compression fit from a performance standpoint, all moisture management technologies in the mesh fabrication, anti-microbial technologies. And also what we’re really excited about, we partnered with this company and we have this new technology called cold black and it’s very interesting. Especially down in Florida where darker colors, for instance, when you wear the teal, if you have the teal fabrication without the cold black, with the cold black technology on the fabrication, the fabric will not retain heat. So it’ll be 10 to 15 degrees less in heat compared to the fabrication without it.”
“We’re making a little bit of history today,” said Rick Salomone of JDSU as he described the new technology in the helmet paint scheme. “The first time ever for any NFL helmet, we’re adding an optical element to the helmet that is in the form of a chromatic pigment that gives it its light glitter and mirror-like effect. This is something that was born out of the automotive industry when designers and color engineers were working on it, and the challenge for us wasn’t could we create that look but how do we shape these little micron-size flakes in such a way that it would stand the durability and the impact over and over again in a long grueling season?”
JDSU worked with the Jaguars over the past year to produce a SpectraFlair® Bright Silver pigment to create a sharp and unique look for the club’s new helmets, face masks and decals. SpectraFlair® is an ultra-thin pigment that produces a rainbow-like effect and allows the helmet to shift from one color to another depending on the angle of light. The Jaguars helmet remains black, but with a teal color shift.
Fans wishing to purchase the new jerseys or other merchandise featuring the new logo can visit Football Fanatics located in the Orange Park and Avenues Malls today through Saturday, or the Jagwear portable stand located outside the West Touchdown Club on Thursday from 1:00-5:00 p.m. and Friday from 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., or by visiting jaguars.com. The new items will be available exclusively at these outlets until Saturday, April 25. The merchandise will also be available at the Jaguars Draft Day Party at the Jacksonville Landing on Saturday, April 25.