Every year, Adidas comes out with some truly atrocious college football uniforms that its schools are forced to wear.
In 2014, the company tried to make Tennessee wear a “Smokey Grey” uniform that was so ugly the school just said no.
So what happened to those uniforms? Apparently, thanks to a New England Patriots camp, we found out that they were donated to a youth football team in Israel.
Game time! But first… pic.twitter.com/cAwLct9Xrf
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) June 16, 2017
How in the world did that happen? The Washington Post did some investigative work:
Tom Satkowiak, Tennessee’s Assistant Athletics Director for Media Relations, said former Vols punter Dale Schneitman orchestrated the donation in 2015. At the time, Scheitman’s church, First Baptist Church Morristown, did a lot of missions and outreach work with another church in Israel.
Schneitman knew Tennessee was in the midst of making the switch from Adidas to Nike and reached out to a good friend of his — Tennessee’s equipment manager Roger Frazier — to see if there was any excess gear the Vols would be willing to donate to his church.
There was. Frazier said he would hate to see the unworn 2014 Smokey Grey alternative jerseys go to waste, so they decided to send them over to Schneitman’s church. From there, the church was able to send it to Isreal, where it was donated to an Israeli youth football team.
At least the uniforms went to good news! Now there’s just one more college apparel mystery that needs answering: How did an Iowa football helmet end up in a smash K-Pop hit in South Korea?
