ALTOONA, Pa. -- Over the course of Penn State's history, not much has been changed about the iconic blue-and-white uniforms, save for some slight tweaks and the occasional happy accident.
Against Iowa Saturday, the Nittany Lions will don their version of an alternate uniform, with features from different eras of the program.
The "Generations of Greatness" uniform ties together several eras with features such as numbers on the helmets, as they were from 1959-1961 and again from 1969-1974. The uniform also has a gray face mask (which was worn from 1970-1972), block numbers (worn from the mid-1950s to 1966) white stripes on the sleeves (worn many times over the years) and a blue strip down the pants, as a tribute to the 1952-1968 era.
Those pale alongside the most notable feature of the uniform: white shoes. The Nittany Lions have only worn white shoes a handful of times -- in "Generations of Greatness" games and the 1978 Sugar Bowl.
At Penn State, there's no better person with whom to discuss uniforms than Brad 'Spider' Caldwell, who began his career as a student manager in 1983 and served head equipment manager from 2001 until a brief retirement in 2013. Spider returned to University Park to serve as assistant director for club and suites in 2015, a position he still holds.
"I was a student manager and I'll never forget the first day. It was pure chaos," Caldwell said in a recent interview with DK Pittsburgh Sports. "Back then, we had 135-140 report to camp, and they all came at once. It was the first day to report and it was a zoo."
From that moment, Caldwell and Penn State uniforms became synonymous. And while the Nittany Lions have worn patches on their jerseys many times, including this year, it wasn't always the case. In fact, for much of the program's history, changes to the jersey were rare and unusual to say the least.
"I loved the jersey. When I first got to Penn State ... I just loved the iconicness of it, the plainness," Caldwell said. "I really got to know that and embrace that, (after) just being here for a short time, how the players guarded the jerseys in the '80s and '90s."
That plainness reflected the intent of Penn State's former head coach, the late Joe Paterno, with whom Caldwell worked closely throughout Paterno's tenure, which ended in 2011. The attitude was less-is-more for Paterno and the program, in regard to the jersey specifications.
"Joe was behind a reporter and I was behind him and he was asked why Penn State into the jerseys like the other teams and Joe went, 'Well, you noticed didn't you? Why do I need to change? You know it's us when we exit the tunnel.' '"
The uniform had to be perfect for Paterno, and it was up to Caldwell and the guys in the equipment department to make it happen, even if that meant long hours painting the team's shoes, a major part of the uniform's identity.
"Black shoes. For Joe, they had to be black. Nike started getting fancy in the mid-90s and late-90s. Their black shoe was half-white or had weird striping on it," Caldwell said. "I actually had to take the new shoe when it came out to Joe's office and he'd take a Sharpie and put an x on all the white spots he wanted to be painted."
Caldwell and his staff spent their Thursday nights painting the team's shoes to meet Paterno's expectations. They were spared that duty n the mid-90s by the Baltimore Ravens, of all teams, who also preferred an all-black shoe.
"Early in the mid-90s they (Nike) had their set lines and couldn't do it, but the Baltimore Ravens were complaining as well, they liked the jet-black, too," Caldwell said. "They called our shoe the 'Stealth' shoe."
The all-black shoes are an iconic part of the uniform, and hadn't changed much until recently. Even those changes were minimal at best; the most drastic of changes was made in 2012 under head coach Bill O'Brien: Names appeared on the back of the uniform.
"That was the mutiny, that was the tough one to swallow," Caldwell said. "The trim was one thing, but I'll never forget when the sanctions went down, Coach O'Brien really, to me, did an unbelievable job to keep the team intact."
To do so, O'Brien made two key moves, according to Caldwell. One was calling for the letterman to come back, and the other came after a conference call with the parents.
"Coach O'Brien had a conference call with the parents. It was the parents' idea to do the jerseys," Caldwell said. "Bill calls me the next morning and asks how I feel about putting the names on jerseys. I told him I wasn't real experienced in that, but he said he really wanted to do it and do something special for them."
It was pure chaos. The former players hated the idea, while the current ones loved it.
"The former players, there was some mutiny there, but once we explained to them why we added them -- to honor the guys who stayed here -- they were okay," Caldwell said.
Names on the jerseys lasted only a few seasons, giving those who wore the uniforms an even greater piece of the program's history, as the one were who stuck with the program during its darkest hour.
"If we just left them on, it wouldn't have made those guys special," Caldwell said. "Now, when you watch ESPN U and you see games those three years, that's the special team that stayed. Those are the guys who went through hell and were dedicated to Penn State and that's an honor to them."
The Nittany Lions honor the history of the entire program with their "Generations of Greatness" uniform, but the concept was developed under O'Brien before ultimately debuting under James Franklin.
"We always had an idea about doing a throwback uniform that would be simple, and I thought our fans would embrace it," Caldwell said. "It's just combining a couple different eras. One being the trim, another being the stripe on the pants and the number on the helmet. People loved the '60s and '70s; that era really got Penn State on the map."
The uniforms almost debuted to start the 2013 season, but O'Brien decided to wait.
"He debated about doing it for the Syracuse game that was played at Metlife Stadium in 2013. I had the uniforms in," Caldwell said. "All we had to do was put the numbers on the helmets and the stripe on the pants. We weren't going to do the grey face masks because we didn't have the time. Then we ended up not doing it."
It was a call Caldwell got from Franklin in 2017 that finally brought the uniform back to life.
"Coach Franklin called me up and gave me a heads-up they were going to do it and asked if I'd be involved, so when it was done, I saw the artist's concept " Caldwell said. "There were a couple of things I didn't know about, like the Lion Shrine and then the white shoes."
Ahh, the white shoes, which worn once prior to 2017, in the Sugar Bowl loss to Alabama in 1978 for the national title. It was the first and last time Penn State wore white shoes under Paterno.
"Joe said we'd never wear white shoes again," Caldwell said.
Having worked in the equipment department and been around the uniforms for so long, it's no surprise that Caldwell has a firm opinion about how it looks.
"Out of the whole uniform, I like the stripe on the pants," Caldwell said. "That look is just iconic, the Franco Harris days, the late '60s, early '70s. I think it looks cool. The only thing they missed, and it was just an oversight, was the trim on the collar."
