Saturday, September 3, 2011

Taking the "Mc"key, 1979

Another item of note in the recent the Green Bay Press-Gazette Packers/Chiefs 1979 photo gallery is the Name on Back (NOB) worn by cornerback Mike McCoy, seen here trying to block Jan Stenerud's kick.

Press-Gazette archives

At the time, the team used one size letters with a space for the Gaelic prefix. The Packers haven't had a "Mc" on the roster since Mike McKenzie left in 2004, but at that time they used a small-cap "c" without a space to set it off. It's hard to find documentation, given McKenzie's singular hairstyle, but you can just about see it here:

Perhaps McCoy's space, like the distinctive number "5"s in use then, was standard from the uniform supplier of the day. There was a time when teams adapted their number styles to fit the manufacturers' catalogue, rather than the other way around.

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