From Davis to Hale

How black and silver came to be the Class of 1990's colors

Once upon a time, black and silver were an uncommon color combination. Sports teams almost always had white in their uniforms, and few used silver. And Anytown High's Class of 1957 picking black and silver for its class colors was less likely than, say, Don Knotts being cast to play Hamlet.

Then came the Oakland Raiders. They were one of the eight teams in the new American Football League in 1960. They were the first team in professional sports history to use black and silver in its uniforms. As the Raiders became winners--they had 16 straight winning seasons from 1965 to 1980, during which time they won their first two Super Bowls--new generations would pick up on their rough play and rebellious image.

In 1984, two years after they moved to Los Angeles, the Raiders' popularity shot up following their 38-9 rout of the heavily-favored Washington Redskins in Super Bowl XVIII. Against the Raiders, the Redskins looked like a bunch of rookies. Mere mortals everywhere saw black and silver as colors of invincibility.

A few years later, during the 1987-88 NBA season, Raiders owner Al Davis sent black-and-silver Raiders sweaters and T-shirts to the Detroit Pistons as a tribute to their tough, physical basketball play (notably that of center Bill Laimbeer and power forward Rick Mahorn). During this time, the Pistons were well on their way to establishing themselves as the "Motor City Bad Boys."

In 1988, after the Edmonton Oilers and Los Angeles Kings made the shocker of a trade that sent Wayne Gretzky to the Kings, Kings owner Bruce McNall unveiled new black and silver uniforms to replace the old purple and gold ones. Like the Raiders, the Kings' new logo included a crest. McNall sent out a loud and clear message: We didn't just get this great player. We also have a new attitude.

As the Pistons and Kings rose to higher ground in 1988-89, black and silver gained more popularity. But that wasn't the reason why they became the Class of 1990's colors.

In the fall of 1989, in Farmington Hills, Michigan, an Intramural Basketball Association team named the Wolf Pac began to undergo a transform of its own. The heart of that team--captain Craig Schneider, John LaBute and Ben Diclemente--got back together to form the next IBA team. But then their team received a talent windfall.

When the Harrison Hawks built the 1989-90 varsity basketball team, they left out one Scott Hale. "Sir Halestorm" had been on the '88-89 squad, but didn't make the cut in '89-90 due to the arrival of new and better talent. He would make sure that he got the last laugh.

Just as Gretzky helped revitalize the Kings, so did Hale give new life to the old Wolf Pac, who had narrowly missed the IBA playoffs in 1988. They were renamed the Raiders. And just as the Pistons got Raiders T-shirts, so did the IBA Raiders. Hale's--with the #25 on the back--boldly proclaimed, "AND I... GOT CUT."

These Raiders were unstoppable. In going 9-0, they dealt Tiny's Crew II their only losses, including the IBA title game.

A few months later, Hale joined with Tim Story and Brian Ellison to campaign for black and silver as the official colors of the Class of 1990. All three were, at that time, sports writers for the Catalyst. On the day of the voting, they told fellow seniors right and left to vote for black and silver. The campaign succeeded.

"A lot of people were upset with the colors and couldn't believe our class had actually picked something so untraditional," Story said.

Nevertheless, 1990 showed further proof that black and silver were actually a very timely choice of class colors. When the National Football League's Atlanta Falcons hired Jerry Glanville as their new head coach, they changed their helmets and home jerseys from red to black. (Glanville had always worn black when he coached his previous team, the Houston Oilers. Also, silver had already been part of the Falcons' color scheme.) On September 30, the Chicago White Sox unveiled their new uniforms, where black and silver figured prominently, in their final game at old Comiskey Park; their previous uniforms were red, white and blue.

All black and silver sports apparel sold like mad. According to a research study cited in the June 9, 1992 Detroit Free Press, the Raiders were #1 in football team apparel sales. In baseball, the White Sox topped the list. The Colorado Rockies, whose colors were purple, black and silver, were ninth, which was amazing when you consider that they hadn't even played a single game, as they were a 1993 expansion team. The Los Angeles Kings were hockey's second-best seller, behind the San Jose Sharks. (Although the Sharks had the worst record of the 1991-92 NHL season, and their primary color is teal, black and silver are also prominent in their uniforms.)

The research study also said that teenagers identified with the Raiders because they were seen as rebels, and that rap groups also helped with the surge in the popularity of black and silver.

But in the final analysis, we might have adopted a different set of class colors--turquoise and burgundy, perhaps--if not for the Raiders. Nobody in sports wore black and silver until they did. And those colors became ours at just the right time. From Al Davis of the NFL's Raiders to Scott Hale of the IBA Raiders, the history of black and silver is now indelibly tied to Harrison High School's Class of 1990.