The Springfield Middle School Bulldogs recently learned the team was one of 10 chosen as a winner of Riddell’s Smarter Football program, a news release said. The recipients of a $10,000 equipment grant, the team was notified with a congratulatory message from Riddell brand ambassador Peyton Manning.
One Arkansas school recently bought new football helmets with quite the advanced equipment. Lonoke High School purchased Riddell InSite Helmets for every 7th through 12th-grade football player. The helmets help monitor for potential concussions, with special sensors that'll alert coaches or staff members if a player sustained a hit within the 95th percentile of hits.
Kell Walker plays without fear, whether it’s running the football on the edge or dodging tacklers on kick returns. Yet Walker feels more protected than ever this season thanks to a switch to the latest Riddell helmet. Assisted by Army’s equipment staff, Walker was fitted with a safe helmet as a freshman last season. His head was too big for a medium helmet and too small for a large one. Director of equipment Nick Determan and his staff sought a helmet for Walker this season that was more advanced. When Riddell reached out and offered four of its Precision-Fit models to Army, Determan jumped at the opportunity.
Back in June I did an ESPN column about Riddell’s Precision-Fit helmet program. As you may recall, the Riddell people showed me how the program works by scanning my head to create a series of 3-D digital images. Normally, the next step would be to use those scans to create a helmet with custom-fitted interior padding. But as I noted in that ESPN piece, Riddell had a limited Precision-Fit capacity this year, so there were no plans to make a sample helmet based on my head scans, because that would have used up one of their available helmets for this year. Later on, however, the Riddell people said they could produce a helmet for me after all, so I could feel for myself how good the fit is. They even offered to make it a Uni Watch helmet. It recently arrived here at Uni Watch HQ.
With youth participation waning and football facing increased concerns over head trauma, the future of the game could well come down to the work being done in a windowless room in a generic suburban Chicago office building. That’s where Riddell, the nation’s largest football equipment manufacturer, is testing out design innovations and racing its competitors to build a safer helmet.
Hearing Peyton Manning speak of the East Thunderbird football team seems like a prize enough on its own, but for the Anchorage prep program it was just the beginning. Chosen as one of just ten programs across America, the East High School football team earned a $10,000 grant from Riddell for their efforts in implementing safety on the football field.
The Monument Blizzard are on Cloud 9. The Pop Warner football team from the Tri-Lakes is one of ten nationwide recipients of a $10,000 grant from helmet-maker Riddell. The announcement of the prize was made by future NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning. "It was an honor that he took the time out to make the video and address us personally," said Dan Hembree, president of the Monument Blizzard Association. Two months ago, Hembree submitted an essay to apply for Riddell's Smarter Football Program. Some 700 other football programs across the country also applied. "I knew it was a long shot. Lots of people from youth all the way up to high school apply for it," Hembree said.
Riddell brought out Peyton Manning to star in a new documentary into its Precision-Fit process to support the launch of its first fully-customizable football helmet, Riddell Precision-Fit. Riddell noted that this football season, marquee players across major college football and the NFL are sporting the helmet. Precision-Fit is a state-of-the-art 3D head scanning process used to build a custom-fitting, player-specific helmet liner system. Players’ head shapes are as unique as a fingerprint, so the custom padding added to Riddell’s SpeedFlex model allows for maximum protection, comfort, and improved sightlines.
