Nike Chain Maille Mesh technology

Nike:

Nike will celebrate the Ducks’ return to the Rose Bowl with the debut of its latest Nike Pro Combat system of dress – the most advanced football uniform system ever assembled.

This fully integrated uniform system, debuted in its first iteration by the University of Oregon during last years’ BCS National Championship Game, incorporates the pinnacle in performance innovation and design from the world’s most renowned athletic outfitter. The new uniform provides enhanced thermoregulation and more durability with the inclusion of Nike Chain Maille Mesh – a lightweight ultra-breathable material – used in both the jersey and pant.

While the uniform certainly makes the team more recognizable, it’s their commitment to innovation and building better athletes that allows the University of Oregon to take its place among the nation’s most elite programs.

“Nike’s relationship with the University of Oregon represents a forward-thinking approach to innovation and design. Our goal is to help build better athletes by providing them with state-of-the-art-innovation combined with a deep knowledge and understanding of their heritage” said Todd Van Horne, Nike’s Creative Director for Football. The latest Nike Pro Combat system of dress uniform delivers more on-field performance benefits than ever before while pushing the limits on creativity and design. The Oregon Ducks truly represent Nike's approach in developing athletes from the inside-out.”

“Oregon represents the gold-standard when it comes to merging science and innovation with athletic performance and we are excited to continue our partnership with Nike by unveiling the next iteration in uniform innovation for the Rose Bowl” said Oregon Ducks Head Football Coach Chip Kelly. “Nike always starts by listening to the voice of the athlete as they continue to bring the most intuitive technology to the game.”



INNOVATION

From the cleats to the base layer, to the gloves and helmet, the Ducks’ uniform represents the pinnacle in game-day innovation for speed. New this year is the development of Nike Chain Maille Mesh technology, the ultimate in breathable uniform design. These innovations coupled with durable, lightweight padding provide athletes with a complete on-field suit of armor. Performance benefits include:

• Eleven different materials in the Nike Pro Combat uniform (jersey and pant), and 16 different materials in the complete system of dress – each to address the specific needs of the athlete in game situations

• Nike Chain Maille Mesh material incorporated into the back and under the arms in the jersey, as well as down the sides of the pant for exceptional ventilation without sacrificing durability. The new Nike Chain Maille Mesh integration also emphasizes improved thermoregulation, including the Nike Pro Combat Deflex padding layer, which is constructed with fabric selected for its ability to help keep the body cool and wick away sweat – making the uniform, and player, lighter and dryer.

• Increased air flow with large open-hole woven construction for more ventilation

• A redesigned base layer that facilitates the uniform’s overall innovation, delivering the ultimate in lightweight protection for maximum speed. The base layer in the pant also features customizable protection that incorporates a thin, incredibly strong carbon fiber plate that can be placed on the thigh padding where needed.

• Strategically placed seams, pads and cooling zones that help minimize distraction and optimize protective coverage. Robust padding, without the bulk, has also been added to offer optimal low-profile impact protection specifically throughout the crucial “hit zone” between the knees and shoulders.

• Nike Pro Combat Deflex padding integrated in the hip and knee areas of the pant for crucial impact protection that stays in place

• A Flywire collar eliminating two layers of fabric for improved breathability, providing a more stable anchor to keep the jersey in place



DESIGN

The uniform wouldn’t be complete without combining these innovations with a nod to the Duck’s rich heritage. Design elements include:

• A completely re-designed number system boasting an iridescent sheen similar to that on a mallard’s feathers. The larger, bolder numbers shift in color as they move.

• An armored wing design resting on new material engineered for maximum strength along the shoulder area

• A new look for the helmet featuring bright wings atop a mirrored appearance using a LiquidMetal black finish never before seen on the field. Though the wings are featured on the side, the iconic Oregon "O" still appears on the helmet located in a unique top-center placement.

The black and yellow uniforms Nike created for Arizona State were terrific, also.

ESPN Magazine cover

Striking, albeit somewhat confusing ESPN Magazine cover. Via.

Link roundup

1. Michael Lewis's latest great article. Does it even matter what it's about? Here's a taste - - the main subject of the article grew up Jewish in World War II:

On weekends Danny and his mother would watch the bus stop from their house, waiting for his father’s bus to arrive. Each time was a cliff-hanger: he knew his father was in constant danger and was never sure that he would come home. “I remember waiting with my mother, and as we waited we darned socks,” he said. “And so darning socks for me has always been an incredibly anxious activity.” His relationship to his father, whom he adored, was further queered by a mere typo; in the phony identity papers his father procured for them there was a mistake. Danny’s last name had been printed as “Godet”; his father’s had been printed as “Cadet.” Because of this typo Danny was required to address his father as “uncle.”

2. Detailed explanation for why Andrew Luck shouldn't even be in the Heisman discussion. Relatedly, USC's quarterback has him beat in almost every important statistical category.

3. And speaking of playing quarterback, a detailed explanation of what the 49ers have done to help Alex Smith succeed.

4. The new Superman iOS game is really fun (although shooting run of the mill crooks with heat vision seems a bit excessive) and is now on sale for 99 cents at iTunes.

5. And speaking of deals, Thor (the movie) is a 99 cent rental at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. Now here's a lawyer who knows how to specialize - - he's sued Allen Iverson three times.

2. How to keep a blog anonymous. Via.

3. "Everything You Need to Know About Using iTunes Match."

4. It's that time of year where USC and UCLA have to hide their school mascots - - "the Bruin Bear is enclosed by an approximately $5,000 box engineered like a jigsaw puzzle."

Illustration roundup

Kill Bill by Max Dalton on sale here.



Catwoman by Philip Bond, who has art on sale here.




Not many entries in Threadless's college design contest yet, but I like Terry Fan's design for Alabama.



Murders in the Zoo movie poster available at eBay. You can see several stills from the movie here.

Link roundup

1. Maybe it gets better later, but why would I keep playing Glitch when the first actions it makes me do are collecting a hamburger and watering a tree?

2. Speaking of games, here's three free games: Psychonauts iOS app; Team Fortress 2 demake; Broken Sword.

3. Joel McHale describes his college football career.

4. Walter Russell Mead:

Our educational system isn’t nearly user-friendly enough. Modeled after aristocratic and elitists institutions in Reformation England, American undergraduate colleges still accept as a default model four years of full time residential study. A deep confusion about different kinds of education means that the model of liberal arts education is stretched to fit subjects like “business administration” and “water safety management” which have much more to do with training than with education in the classic sense.

5. Thomas Barnett:

My advice here is simple: It is time for both Afghanistan and Pakistan to stop being our problem and ours alone to solve. The Bush-Cheney unilateralism segued right into the Obama-Biden version: We simply refuse to deal with the regional powers, all of which want a far bigger say in how this whole thing settles out. Instead of working with India, China, Russia, Turkey, and Iran — and accepting that their more vigorous management of the situation would mean "victories" for them and not us — we've chosen consistently to side with Pakistan, which not only wants but is committed to keeping the region unstable.

Win a copy of The Cartel: Inside the Rise and Imminent Fall of the NCAA

UPDATE: Dan won and has been contacted.



Now available as a Kindle single The Cartel: Inside the Rise and Imminent Fall of the NCAA by Taylor Branch:

"College athletes are not slaves," writes Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Taylor Branch in "The Cartel: Inside the Rise and Imminent Fall of the NCAA." "Yet to survey the scene—corporations and universities enriching themselves on the backs of uncompensated young men, whose status as 'student-athletes' deprives them of the right to due process guaranteed by the Constitution—is to catch the unmistakable whiff of the plantation."

Branch, best known for his award-winning trilogy about the civil rights movement, "Parting the Waters", argues that decades of greed and self-interest have finally caught up with the NCAA and that the organization is poised to collapse under the weight of its own hypocrisy.

From Reggie Bush and Cam Newton to Ohio State and the University of Miami, it's been one big sports scandal after another. But the true scandal, argues Branch in this gripping, deeply reported narrative, is the parasitic structure of college sports, a business that generates billions of dollars in revenue every year yet fails to provide even workers' compensation for its young performers. The outrage, he writes, is "not that students are getting illegally paid or recruited, it's that two of the noble principles by which the NCAA justifies its existence—'amateurism' and the 'student-athlete'—are cynical hoaxes, legalistic confections propagated by the universities so they can exploit the skills and fame of young athletes. The tragedy at the heart of college sports is not that some college athletes are getting paid, but that more of them are not."

A portion of "The Cartel" was first published in different form in the October 2011 issue of The Atlantic, and it set off a firestorm of controversy and an avalanche of praise. Sports Illustrated's Frank Deford, speaking on National Public Radio, said Branch’s story "may well be the most important article ever written about college sports."

Now the full, landmark story is available. "The Cartel" is classic investigative journalism of the highest order, by one of America's most admired historians.

You can download it now at Amazon.

I have a digital copy to give away (through Amazon). For a chance to win, just comment on this post and include your email so I can contact you. One comment per person. I'll pick a winner Sunday evening. This contest is open worldwide.

Link roundup

1. Kickstarter to support Brandon Boyer's new video game blog Venus Patrol. Rewards include some cool-sounding video games.

2. I didn't realize that Maryland's uniforms were so obnoxious because they're a marketing ploy by Under Armour. (It's really a fine art to create a uniform that gets noticed, but that's also tasteful. After the BCS nightmare, Nike nailed it with this season's Oregon uniform.)

3. How to transfer music from an iPod/iPhone to a computer.

4. Reuters: "Loyalists of ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi crossed into Niger late on Monday in a convoy of vehicles, carrying gold and cash, officials from Libya's interim ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) said on Tuesday."

Embarrassing football trophy

"The new trophy designed for the winner of the annual Iowa-Iowa State gridiron showdown was scrapped Tuesday as organizers acknowledged it had too much to do with corn and not nearly enough to do with football."



Here's the old trophy:







Via.

Link roundup

1. I mentioned before that I actually preferred Last.fm to Spotify because it does a decent job streaming songs you might like, while Spotify is just a big library. Well, here's Lifehacker's recommendations for how to get a similar service at Spotify.

2. I'm not sure if I've posted about this before, but Boise State's college football team has enjoyed an unfair advantage for years - - they wear blue uniforms and play on a blue field, which makes it very difficult for opposing coaches to study their formations (the players blend into the background). Well, they can't wear the uniforms on that field anymore.

3. Japan is drilling for "burning ice," hoping it will replace nuclear power.

4. Free ios games (at least as of this moment): Allied Star Police by Popcap, To-Fu: The Trials of Chi. Via.

Link roundup

1. How to move a Blogger blog to Wordpress. Via Blogger.

2. "Justin Bieber Takes A Picture Of Traffic, Instagram Usage Explodes."

3. I realize they have a new coach and that Ohio State's implosion has helped, but still, in light of Michigan's recent failures, it seems notable that they have the top-ranked recruiting class.

Link roundup

1. Reggie Bush has apparently decided not to turn over his Heisman trophy after all. (Good, let them explain some more why he shouldn't keep his trophy, but Cam Newton can.)

2. A primer on the NBA contract negotiations (it's pretty optimistic that a deal will get done).

3. Age of Conan is now free to play.

Link roundup

1. Georgia's crackdown on illegal immigrants has apparently led to millions of dollars' worth of crops rotting in the fields.

2. That didn't take long. Recruiting scandal at Oregon. Via.

3. Scott Beale is determined to suck up more of my free time with a photography tumblr.

4. Very accurate description of introverts (or me, at least).

5. Sword & Sworcery is $1 for the iPod today. Peggle's free for Android at Amazon, but my wife's Droid (still under its initial contract!) is apparently too antiquated to download and run it.

Link roundup

1. "Take a look at perhaps the most unusual prison job rehab program in the country. Here, convicts are trained to become deep-water divers and graduate to well-paying — and sometimes dangerous — jobs upon their release." Via.

2. One absolutely stunning claim about John Thompson after another. I can't imagine how this guy has a job if this stuff is true.

3. I sure hope this Ask Me Anything Request at Reddit gets fulfilled: "An Olive Garden employee who has been sent to Tuscany by the company to learn the art of Italian cooking."

Link roundup

1. An unidentified SEC school complained about Alabama objectifying women to announce its new football recruits.

2. 74 people have been injured by hunters in Italy in the last four months:

The annual bloodletting is a result of the unusual freedom allowed to shooting parties under Italian law. They can go on to private property and fire anywhere not within 50m of a road or 150m of a house.

Via.

3. There's now an official Blogger app for Android.

*Buy Android phones at eBay.

Alabama is using a woman in a cheerleader's uniform...

Alabama has a livefeed showing incoming faxes from football recruits. A woman in a tiny cheerleader's uniform collects the faxes. Keep it classy Alabama. Via.

Those Oregon Ducks uniforms

Before


and after the game promotional images by Wieden + Kennedy for Oregon and Nike


Here's a long explanation (defense?) by Nike about why the uniforms looked that way.

*Buy mascot bobbleheads at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. Joe Montana says the movie Rudy was fiction.

2. Horrible Logos, $5 each. Via.

3. Last Exit to Nowhere is giving away a shirt for the worst film quote today.

*Buy NFL bobbleheads at Amazon.

Papercraft Santa (link roundup)

Papercraft Santa and Martian by Matthew Gilpin from "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians"



Download Matt Hawkins' alien Santa paper toy here.



Download this Santa paper toy by Marshall Alexander here.

And a few more links:

1. One of the ideas in my almost free gift guide was making microscale Lego Star Wars vehicles. Here's another huge gallery of microscale Lego spaceships, along with instructions. Via these sites.

2. Squirrel massage animated gif.

3. List of swag college bowl game recipients receive. Via.

*Previously: Disturbing ads for massage balm.

*Buy Star Wars Lego minifigs at eBay.

His cold made my temperature rise! (link roundup)

You're going to have to click through to see what's being advertised in this vintage comic strip ad.

And a few more links:

1. Gregg Easterbrook shines a spotlight on college football teams with sleazy schedules, picking Penn State as having possibly "the single phoniest schedule any football power has ever cooked up."

2. Steve Valdez was unable to cash a check at a Florida Bank of America because the bank required a thumbprint, and he has no arms. Via.

3. Good explanation for why the NFL story to watch will be Michael Vick and Donovan McNabb in Philadelphia.

*Previously: Temperature change tea kettle.

*Buy NFL bobbleheads at eBay.