Return of the Powder Blues: How They Came to Be

Sept. 28, 2014

By Austin Miller, OleMissSports.com

PHOTOS: Week-Long Timeline of Powder Blues

OXFORD, Miss. -- As part of the weekend's festivities honoring the life and spirit of Chucky Mullins, the Ole Miss football team wore powder blue helmets, replicas of the ones worn by the Rebels in 1989, the year Mullins was injured and paralyzed during the Vanderbilt game.

At the start of fall practice, Ole Miss announced the celebration of Chucky Mullins set for the Ole Miss-Memphis football weekend that included the dedication of Chucky Mullins Drive and his posthumous induction into the M-Club Hall of Fame.

It also included the introduction of a navy helmet with Mullins' No. 38 on the left side, but spurred on after the watching the debut of the SEC storied "It's Time," centered on the inspirational friendship between former Vanderbilt football player Brad Gaines and Mullins, Ole Miss wanted to take the next step in honoring Mullins.

"The Memphis game was going to be the celebration of Chucky," said Ole Miss Athletics Director Ross Bjork. "We had talked this summer about doing something around the powder blue. Coach Freeze and I talked the week of the Vanderbilt game. He brought it up and said, `What do you think if we wore powder blue for the Memphis game to honor Chucky?' I said, `It's a great idea, if you want to do that and the team would be excited about it.'"

The powder blue helmets were worn from 1948-77 and then again from 1983-94. To match the color of the helmet Mullins wore, equipment manager Ken Crain sent a helmet from the 1994 season to Riddell, Schutt and Rawlings for production and Batesville's Tucker Manufacturing for painting of the replica helmets.

"Coach Freeze and I are big believers in tradition," Bjork said. "That's our staple. Gray pants, red or blue jerseys, white jersey on the road, traditional helmet, but in this particular case, it was about honoring Chucky."

The helmets came in on the Monday before the Memphis game, and Crain immediately stashed them at his home garage. Freeze revealed them to the players in a team meeting Tuesday and swore them all to secrecy.

"Coach Freeze always comes into the team meetings with a gift, and he pulled out this box," sophomore wide receiver Laquon Treadwell said. "And then he pulled out a blue helmet. We were all shocked. We didn't say anything. And then we went crazy."

To get used to the new helmets, the team practiced in them Wednesday and Thursday behind closed doors and black curtains on the doors to the Manning Center, so people would not see them. Media are normally permitted to attend portions of practice on Wednesday, but that access was canceled this week.

"We provided no real explanation, and thankfully no one in the media investigated the decision," said Kyle Campbell, assistant athletics director for media and public relations.

Keeping the helmets a secret, Bjork said, started with the team.

"We trust our student-athletes," Bjork said. "Telling them on a Tuesday and not having anything out there is a testament to them. That's where it starts. You have managers, training staff and football staff, too. It speaks to the trust and family atmosphere we have here."

The plan was to unveil the powder blue helmets when the team ran out of the tunnel prior to kickoff. The team wore the navy helmets with Mullins' No. 38 on the left side in pregame warmups. Even the captains came out for the coin toss carrying the navy No. 38 helmets before the big reveal in the tunnel.

"We loved them," senior safety Cody Prewitt said. "They really popped with the red jerseys. It was a nice change. We had to find some way to keep it quiet from everybody."

"We talked about `How do we do it,'" Bjork said. "Do we warm up in powder blues, or do we warm up in navies? We decided this needs to be a surprise until the very last minute, so we warmed up in navy helmets with 38 on the side. They go back into the locker room, and before the team runs out of the tunnel onto the field, they switch into powder blues."

A lot of the credit also goes to the student managers, Crain said, who helped him, assistant director of equipment operation John Ross (Possum) and assistant equipment manager Andrew McDowell in the week leading up to and including game day.

"The student mangers did a great job of working by putting together the helmets, face masks, chinstraps, eye shields, and putting decals on all the helmets," Crain said. "On game day, they put out the Navy No. 38 helmets, then they put out all the powder blue helmets and had carts ready to go collected the navies and then collected the powder blues after the game."

Playing with a lot of emotion, Ole Miss went on to defeat the visiting Memphis Tigers, as the defense allowed just 104 total yards in a 24-3 win.

"Chucky would have been proud of the helmets and particularly, how the defense played," Freeze said. "He would have loved that. We'll continue to honor his character traits: his selflessness and his attitude about life and against adversity."

Fittingly, graduate student linebacker Deterrian Shackelford, wearing the No. 38 jersey in Mullins' honor, led the Rebels with eight total tackles, including four solo tackles, and one tackle for loss.

"Everything this weekend was for him and the way he represented this program and the way this community has flocked to him," Shackelford said. "Everything was about him. I'm glad we were able to come out and play well for him."

Ole Miss will continue his legacy with the launch of a new website -- IWear38.com -- where contributions can be made to the Chucky Mullins Scholarship and pictures can be shared via social media.

Plans are also being made to auction off a few of the powder blue helmets through the IWear38 website.

Austin Miller is a writer and blogger for OleMissSports.com. He joined the staff in June 2013 after serving as sports editor of the Daily Mississippian. Follow him on Twitter @austinkmiller.

RebelsCalendar

Players Mentioned

Laquon Treadwell

The University of Mississippi Athletics