Stripes on footballs

[Spoons]

Watching the NFL over the weekend and last night, I realized that NFL footballs have no stripes. Although I’ve watched football for years, it never struck me as strange–until I realized that US college games use striped footballs, the Canadian Football League uses striped footballs, and any footballs I’ve seen in sporting goods stores have had stripes on them.

When I played football years ago, we played with a striped football too, and just assumed that the stripes were there to make the ball easier to see. That made sense then, and still seems to, IMHO.

So assuming NFL players have the same eyesight as they did when they played in college, with its striped ball, I’m wondering: why does the NFL not use a striped football?

[yojimbo]

You could have answered your own question. It’s harder to see the ball when it doesn’t have stripes. Maybe the NFL have decided that pro.'s don’t need that visual equivalent of training wheels.

A example of this I do know about is snooker. In the pro. game the pockets are smaller and tighter than on a normal table.

[stuyguy]

yoj, snooker played on a “normal” pool table isn’t snooker. Pro, amateur or whatever. There are snooker tables, and there are pool tables.

[yabob]

[QUYOTE]yoj, snooker played on a “normal” pool table isn’t snooker. Pro, amateur or whatever. There are snooker tables, and there are pool tables.
[/QUOTE]

How about the other way around?

The campus center at a school I went to had two snooker tables and a billiards table in addition to a bunch of pool tables. It was one of those arrangements where you rented the balls at the desk, then took them to a table. For some reason the snooker tables were right near the front, and you would regularly see people attempting to play pool on the snooker tables, presumably after scratching their heads over the odd spots on the table.

As for footballs:

Q) Why do college footballs have half-stripes, but the NFL football does not?

A)All college and NFL footballs used to have full stripes. But players began complaining that their thumbs were slipping on the paint of the stripe. As a result, the NFL decided to eliminate the stripes from their official footballs all together. The NCAA® wanted to keep the stripes for two reasons:

1. the white stripes helped to illuminate the football and most college stadiums are not well lit,

2. by keeping stripes, the NCAA® was differentiating itself from the NFL. The NCAA® did decide, however, to change to half stripes (on the top half of the ball only) to eliminate the slipperiness of the ball.

The above was from the FAQ at the Wilson sporting goods site:

http://www.wilsonsports.com/football/fbFaq.html

[yojimbo]

Forget about pool. It’s a differant game played on a differant table( 12 foot x 6 foot ).

If you go to a normal snooker hall( not pool, snooker ) and play on a snooker table it will have pockets of dimensions x.

Now if you were playing in the world snooker championship you would be playing on a table with pockets of dimensions x-y (y being the amount they make the pockets smaller to make it harder for the pro’s)

Sorry for the hijack.

[yojimbo]

Proof read you fool, proof read !!!

different, different, different

[BobT]

The NFL hasn’t used striped footballs since the late 1970s or early 1980s. Last year, the NFL introduced special balls that have to be used for kicking plays. They are special in that they are brand new and haven’t been “broken in” by being kicked around before which would make them easier to kick.