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It is a good thing I check my SPAM folder. Otherwise, Andrew Seagraves's submission for his Oklahoma City Rattlers would have never made it to okiraqi.org. Mr. Seagraves found our contest on Uni-Watch.com, so thanks again to that site. They've referred over 10,000 unique visitors to our site. We appreciate it. Our original post asking for logo submissions is: NFL in OKC? Here is what Seagraves had to say about his design: "Dear fellas, It's not Roughnecks but I like the design and concept. Here's his full entry:
Skott Schoonover sent in his Roughnecks design this week. According to him, he completed it entirely using Microsoft Paint, so bravo Mr. Schoonover! It looks too good to be done with that platform. Here's what Schnoover had to say about his submission:
Keith Good designs logos at his Web site: keithisgood.com, and tweets from @keithisgood. He sent in this Roughnecks design, and we appreciate his work. Here's what Mr. Good had to say about his design:
Our latest design submission for an Oklahoma City NFL team comes from George Burnett. Mr. Burnett found our contest on SportsLogos.net. He named the franchise the Spirits: "Here is something that I did last year around this time. There are several images to build the case and they will be in order. Burnett did a good job letting his images speak for themselves. Overall, I like the concept. He also broke the cardinal rule by not naming the team Roughnecks. But he presents something that would be uniquely Oklahoma. The colors match well with the state flag, the Native American influence is noticeable without being offensive, and the name is not used in any other professional sports league. Because he did such a thorough job explaining his concept through his images, I will just post those with little comment. I like that the Native American influence is based on genuine examples of that culture and not a caricature of the people that Oklahoma was named for (Oklahoma is a Choctaw word meaning "red people"). I should note that this looks genuine and respectful to me: a lily-white male with zero percent Native American blood. I can't speak for Native Americans, so I'd be interested in hearing other opinions on the design from that aspect.
We asked for logo designs for a hypothetical Oklahoma City NFL team. And, after 12,000 unique visitors over three days, we received our first Roughnecks design. It came from Blake Campbell, who saw our contest link on OperationSports.com. Mr. Campbell owns and runs Friday Night Design. His Web site is still a work in progress, but he has some great work he plans to display under the Fantasy tab. But Campbell had his reservations about Roughnecks. It's understandable for anyone who is not from oil country. Campbell worked through his apprehension though: "I must admit, I initially felt the task of branding an NFL team on men in the oilfield was a daunting one. But the more time I spent pondering the idea, the quicker my imagination began to run wild. I hope you and your readers will enjoy the design that I've put together. Let me explain my design. I love the idea. My only criticism is that the clay color looks a little close to the burnt orange used by the University of Texas. The Longhorns are not very popular here. I shared this concern with Campbell, and he agreed to modify the clay color to more accurately represent the "red dirt" that is famous in Oklahoma. But I love the overall design, so I'm posting the submission anyway. Back to Campbell's design though: HelmetCampbell's helmet design is clean and simple.
After Uni-Watch linked to our logo submission post again, our site traffic went through the roof. By 2100 CST, over 5,000 unique visitors read our site. And we received our second design submission. David Firestone also broke the first rule of the contest (by not naming the team the Roughnecks), but that's just fine. We're happy to have another submission. Mr. Firestone chose the name Crazy Eights: "I created an Oklahoma City design called the Crazy Eights. The theory behind that is that Oklahoma is the 8th largest city in the US by area, and the 8 is a graceful and simple design. The white and silver color scheme is based on the Oklahoma Wranglers, as they were the last pro football team to play in Oklahoma City. I couldn't choose between red over silver, or silver over red, so I went with silver over red on the right side, and red over silver on the left." Thanks to Mr. Firestone for his submission. Love it? Hate it? Tell us in the comments. And don't forget to share the contest page on social media. Send your own submissions to OklahomIraqis@gmail.com. The last two posts on the OIL blog discussed the possibility of a future NFL franchise in Oklahoma City. As a reminder, the OIL's hypothetical OKC NFL team is named the Oklahoma City Roughnecks. Because the end is nigh, I have been thinking about this hypothetical team more than I should. What would it look like? How would it be marketed? I reached out to Paul Lukas at UniWatch to see if he would help start a design contest for the logo or uniform of this hypothetical franchise. I chose UniWatch because: 1. it has the largest audience of uniform-obsessed fans; and 2. their design contests are legendary. Just look at this one UniWatch hosted for what became the Thunder. Well, UniWatch obliged and linked to our post on its blog dedicated to "the obsessive study of athletics aesthetics." Located in the Grab Bag section of its February 1 blog post, UniWatch does the OIL a solid: So, there you have it. Send submissions to oklahomiraqis@gmail.com. For reference purposes, we are talking about oil field roughnecks. I will post updates as submissions come in. I hope to see many different stylings on the theme. But this is a small blog dedicated to a small group of soldiers who love fantasy football, so I don't expect too much. And, who knows? Maybe the contest winner will receive officially-licensed OklahomIraqis merchandise as a prize. Everyone else will have my eternal gratitude for indulging this hobby of mine. There are tons of Super Bowl stories making the media rounds, but I couldn't care less for most of them. We've spent an entire season discussing the strengths and weaknesses of each team. Instead, I like to read stories that delve into a little NFL history or discuss issues that the talking heads are not covering. I found a few of those stories, focusing mostly on Seattle and wanted to share them. Apparently, the original Seattle NFL expansion bid was to be named the "Kings." Over at SportsLogos.net, there is a great story about that ill-fated expansion bid. It also takes a stab at guessing what the Kings logo would have evolved into after rebranding in the 1980s and 2000s. And, even after being awarded a franchise after all, Seattle almost lost that franchise in the 1990s. The Seattle Times wrote a lengthy article on that issue back in October. It is also worth checking out. I hope SportsLogos.net or some other site publishes an extensive history of the 1993 expansion that gave us the Panthers and Jaguars. Baltimore, Memphis, and St. Louis were the other candidates that year. While looking up information about that expansion era, I found a great site for archiving NFL expansion candidates for each state. I highly recommend checking out that site and following SportsLogos.net if you're into the history and evolution of sports uniforms and logos. The OIL members who were on the 2006 mission that started the OklahomIraqis League know that no fantasy football league is large enough to include every good guy on that mission. That problem was magnified in the wake of the death of one of our own. Before, during and after the funeral service, the commissioner was asked about the OIL. And a handful of guys had already asked about joining the league before that. After lots of consideration, the commissioner and co-commissioner have decided to start a second OklahomIraqis League. www.okiraqi.org will soon be home to the OklahomIraqis Leagues, as the new league will be incorporated into the existing site. The new league will mirror the original one. It will have the same league settings and will also consist of 14 teams and a 13-week schedule. It will share the same logo as the OIL as well. As of now, it will be referred to as the "OIL 2" or the "OIL 2.0." Which trophy it will award is to be determined. We also don't yet know if the OIL 2.0 will be a member of the DBFA, but the commissioner hopes that it is. For now, these are the confirmed members:
The remaining members are to be determined. Please help recruit potential members. The ideal candidate is one who was in the 158 and was in Iraq with the 158 during either the 2006 or 2008 mission. It would be helpful for each candidate to have a ready-made "rival" as week 13 in the OIL is Rivalry Week. In the meantime, please contact the commissioner with your candidates for membership. |
March 2023
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