Getting Shoulder Pads Ready for Battle in Seattle

One of the things we do each Thursday during the day is put two way (double stick) tape on certain shoulder pads. The reason we do this is so we can tape the jerseys to the shoulder pads on game day.

Since we do not wear shoulder pads on Thursdays at practice this gives us a jump on work that eventually needs to be done. The managers will pack the pads in the player travel bags tonight after practice.

On game day, the managers will peel the blue off of the tape and then make sure the jersey sticks to that part of the pad. The reason we tape jerseys to the pads is so the opposing team can not grab the jersey of our players. Players try to grab the jerseys of the opposing team to gain an advantage. That is why we wear our jerseys as tight as possible and then tape them to the pads.

For years, equipment managers and players would use simple carpet tape and put tape all over the pads. This was very sloppy and messy. Most of the time it would be almost impossible to get the carpet tape off of the pads.

For the past 10 years or so, we have been buying this custom cut tape from Creative Football Concepts Inc. Mark Monica is the president of that company, and he and his brothers are equipment geniuses!!!!! This tape saves so much time and makes our jobs so much more effective. They have a great website: www.creativefootball.com

You can start to feel the excitement for this weeks game up in Seattle! The coaches and players have been working very hard in getting prepared for this very tough game against the Huskies.


First thing managers do is use a checklist provided by Tim and go get the pads from the player's lockers that need tape on them:

Robert Lloyd was first manager to arrive, so he laid out all of the different pieces of tape that was needed to complete the job:

Like everything we do in the equipment room, we even use a checklist to make sure each player that needs taping gets tape on their pads:

Robert Lloyd prepares a piece of tape that goes on the shoulder pads:

Ben Hulka concentrates as he pulls the backing off of the tape:

Robert Lloyd carefully puts tape on a set of shoulder pads:

Ben Hulka carefully putting tape on a set of shoulder pads:

Ben Hulka (left) and Robert "Crabtree" Lloyd busy earlier today putting tape on pads:

Mike Baranowski enters info into the computer using our inventory control software. Each manager issued their drafted players a set of workout sweats today: