Nike Pro Combat Uniforms

If you haven’t been following the latest in college football fashion wear…

Here are the Nike Pro Combat Uniforms — ten college teams selected to receive special uniforms and helmets from Nike. Of the ten teams, three are from Florida, with the University of Florida in the center in blue.

Florida will be wearing the special uniforms in their game Saturday against FSU. FSU (in the garnet) wore their special uniforms last weekend against Maryland. No doubt, Nike wants to maximize the coverage of the uniforms by not having two teams wear their Nike special unforms in the same game.

Nike truck

Today the Nike truck was on campus, right behind the College of Journalism and Communications, as I walked to lunch. The truck is like a rolling store, complete with displays, clothing racks and cash register.

Nike had wanted a gathering of UF students wearing Gator colors to be there for the truck’s arrival at 11 a.m. With about 12 hours warning, one of our enterprising journalism students (Steve Johnson) rallied the troops with some late night phone calls and Facebook. At 11 a.m., 60 students were there in orange and blue to greet the truck.

Game day T-shirt and special jersey

When I arrived at the truck, students and reporters (from The Alligator and The Gainesville Sun) were talking to the Nike sales staff — getting a story or getting a shirt.

The gal I talked with explained that the “Finish the Mission” logo was in reference to Tim Tebow leading the Gators to their third National Championship with a Roman numeral III on the sleeve. The jersey is loaded with all kinds of special stitching and fabric to enhance performance, wick moisture, resist tearing, etc.

So I took the photos with my iPhone, e-mailed them to myself, downloaded the photos onto my computer desktop and imported them into my PowerPoint so I could use the photos today in our discussion of how advertising, public relations and marketing are merging. A very timely example and one that really had the students’ interest. We did end the second lecture five minutes early so that all the students who had picked up promotion cards could dash back to the truck to see if they’d won a free T-shirt.