Inventing a new football fashion
By David Birkett, Of The Oakland Press September 25, 2001
September 25, 2001
Ferndale assistant develops alternative to taping shoes
FERNDALE - Rodney Hall will be the first to admit he's no fashion mogul.
He's never made a best-dressed list and his current wardrobe consists of more T-shirts and gym pants than Armani suits and $1,000 ties.
But on the football field, Hall is looking more and more like Ralph Lauren. A 30-year-old assistant coach at Ferndale, Hall is the mind behind the latest fad to hit the gridiron - Spatz, an alternative to tapping or spatting cleats, something football players and athletes in other field sports have done for decades.
"I played at Ferndale, I went to college, everywhere I went everybody did the tape thing," said Hall, who graduated from Ferndale in 1989 and signed with Iowa State before finishing his collegiate career at Livingston University in Alabama. "I saw tape companies come out with different colors, red, blue. Everybody did it."
Spatting cleats consists of wrapping each shoe with a roll or two of tape. While most athletic trainers agree the snug fit - a spatted cleat can get so thick it looks like a cast - does little for ankle support, it does serve a bigger purpose as a fashion statement on the field.
"It's just a look, a fashion thing that's been done for years, since the late '60s, early '70s," Hall said. "If you look on our website, that's one of our sayings, 'Look good ... play hard.' That came from that."
Instead of tape, Spatz blends nylon and Lycra into a thin boot that slips over the shoe and zips up to the ankle, exposing the toe. Available in white, black and gold and with more colors to come, Spatz gives the same look as tape only without some of the hassles.
"Every week we used to spend, five, six dollars on tape, sometimes seven dollars on tape," said Ferndale quarterback Eric Royal. "If we used the small roles I'd use two (roles of tape per shoe), but usually I used the big rolls and I used one role (a shoe). It'd take 30 minutes to tape them up. (Now), I put my shoes up, tie them and zip it up.
"It's a whole lot easier. Tape was a one-time use. You pay a few dollars and after a game you have to cut it right off. This, you can take them home and wash them."
Hall's creativity actually was sparked two falls ago when Ferndale head coach Charlie Morgan complained that spatting shoes was too time consuming and distracting to his team after a rash of problems.
"And then (the school district) has this ... policy where they don't want our kids to wear cleats on the bus," Morgan said. "So when they try to spat their shoes that's kind of tough. Kids try to come up with things to get around it. They were wearing old sandals and they take the old sandal and cover up the cleat part of the shoe. Here, they just put their shoes on when we get to the field."
Hall designed a prototype for his product the following spring and immediately put his wife's grandmother, a seamstress, to work sewing the Spatz.
"Actually my sister made the first one," Hall said. "It was an ugly thing. She was like, 'I can sew, I can sew.' It was ugly. I took the same thing to (my wife's) grandmother. She said, 'I know how to do it.' It was perfect."
The first model was introduced last fall when then senior Kim Thomas wore it during practice. Other teammates liked the concept and the look and began badgering Hall for a pair of their own. After patenting the project during the offseason, Hall began supplying Spatz to the rest of the team for games this year.
The look already has spread to other teams and players in the area. Most of Oak Park's team wears Spatz, and Hall has received orders from other teams.
Some NFL players even have opted for the product instead of taping their shoes. Oakland Raiders running back Tyrone Wheatley introduced Spatz to his teammates after he saw a player wearing a pair at Jerome Bettis' football camp this summer.
"I put mine on first and everybody was looking like, 'What is that you've got on your feet? They're pretty sweet,' " Wheatley said. "With the Raiders, our defense wears black, our offense wears white so mine looked kind of sweet. They were like, 'You've got that Johnny Unitas look,' that's what caught the coach's eye.
"Then when I gave Charles (Woodson) his pair, he was in all black, it really looked sweet on him. Then our head coach, (Jon) Gruden, Charles had made a good play in practice one day and he was like, 'Look that's the sheriff.' He was in all black from his head to his feet; his shoes were even shining. He caught the coach's eye."
Wheatley and Woodson wear Spatz in practice only as they have Nike shoe contracts to uphold. Wheatley said several other NFL players without shoe contracts also wear Spatz in practice only as they are not approved for game use. In the NFL, players face a $5,000 fine if they wear non-licensed products.
Hall, who has sold about 3,000 Spatz at $15 a pair from "the trunk of my car" since opening business this summer, said he has talked with Nike, Adidas and Eastbay about licensing and selling the product so NFL and college players can wear it at their leisure.
If that happens, Wheatley said Hall could indeed become the next king of fashion.
"In football, like anything, guys want to make fashion statements, guys want to look good," Wheatley said. "Some of the things they go through with their socks are incredible. They'll cut two or three socks up and they'll bunch 'em up, scrunch 'em up so they look a certain way. Same thing with spatting. Some guys do use spat as a secure tape job for securing an ankle, but for the most part spatting is just for the look. And that's where Rodney's Spatz come in handy. They're different colors, you don't have to use any tape, they come off easy. Bam. It looks better, I think, because of the material. It's flashy."
Copyright ©The Oakland Press 2001
