Be forewarned, this is going to be a bit long.

I know this isn’t a make-or-break proposition for the program, but I was really looking forward to seeing the teams pick up the home-and-home tradition. Besides being a neat tradition, it just looks really cool.

I know I’ve mentioned before one of the ways, in my opinion, that European football (soccer for my football-adverse American brethren) is superior/different than American sports.

I think these strict uniform rules again illustrate how, in at least one way, Europe got it right. In professional football, there’s no requirement that one team wear white or some specified color when on the road. Here, every major sport has such a rule:

MLB: Home whites, away grays (except for SD with their sand aways), and colored alternates
NFL: Home colors, away whites (with some exceptions, but one team must be in white)
NBA: Home whites (except for LA with yellow), away colors
NCAA FB: Same as NFL
NCAA BB: Same as NBA

It’s such a strict regiment. On one hand, we’re so used to, you can instantly tell by a quick glance at the TV screen who is at home, who’s away, and if you’re really on the ball, what day of the week it is (Lakers wear white on Sundays, MLB teams wear colored alternates on Sunday).

Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand why we have such rules. First, it helps players quickly identify who is on their team and who isn’t. That’s kind of crucial. Second, it give the teams/schools a chance to sell not one, but two (and sometimes three) different jerseys to the fan base. Don’t ever underestimate the drive to merchandise and sell crap to fans.

But both reasons aren’t compelling enough to erect an absolute bar to allowing something like the CRN-Cheety Peety revival of the home-and-homes.

As for the first reason, being able to quickly identify your teammates (and to a lesser extent, for fans to identify which team is which), I’m sure some of you older BN’ers have kids who play or played youth soccer, Little League, Pop Warner, etc. Now, when I was a kid (about 15-20 years ago), in every sport I played, we got one uniform. Just one. No home. No away. Just one uniform. Whoever was in charge of coordinating uniforms made sure every team ended up with a different color uniform. I’m pretty sure nothing has changed since.

So, it seems reasonable that if 5-10 year old kids can wear colored uniforms and be able to tell who is on their team and who isn’t, that professional athletes, grown men and women, should be able to do the same. In fact, professional athletes have already proven it can be done: those of you who caught the UEFA CL final saw United, in their famous reds, put Chelsea, in their blues, to the sword. If a bunch of guys, who all don’t even share the same first language (Utd’s starting eleven that night includes a Dutchman, a Frenchman, a Serbian, six Englishmen, an Argentine, and a Portugese), can wear colored uniforms against another team wearing colored uniforms and not have problems, there’s no reason it can’t be done here.

But, what of the second reason? Surely, American owners will be reluctant to give up such a regime since it guarantees multiple uniforms and thus, expanding merchandising opportunities. Again, that shouldn’t be a problem. I’m going to again borrow Man Utd (which if you can’t tell by now, is my team of choice) as an example. Utd has an estimated 330+ million supporters. By comparison, the Census Bureau estimates the U.S. has a current population of around 304,712,000+ as of the date I post this.

So, one would think United, being a large club, owned by Americans (the Glazer family, who also owns the TB Bucs), would engage in the same kind of uniform merchandising that is done in the U.S. And, well, they do. In fact, Utd just unveiled both a new away kit (soccer’s word for uniform) (which is rather ugly in my opinion) and a new third alternate uniform (which is okay, I suppose). Nike (who makes Utd’s uniforms) and the Glazers are pulling out all the stops in an all-out war to merchandise, just like they do here in the States for our teams. And, English fans, being much more die-hard than their American counterparts (except for maybe the Raider Nation), will, of course, comply and buy up these other uniforms, despite the fact, and this is key, United wear their “home” reds every game, except for when they are away and the opposing team also wears home red or a shade close to red (Liverpool, Arsenal, West Ham, Aston Villa).

To be short: United has no problem merchandising their away and third kits, despite the fact that Utd only wear them when necessary (unlike American teams which wear a jersey for, at max, only half of their games). Barcelona, Arsenal, Chelsea, AC Milan, Inter all do the same: wearing their traditional “home” kit in every game, except when they travel and the home team has something similar. And none of those guys are suffering merchandising shortfalls.

So, when you look at the two main reasons American sports impose the uniform restrictions, it just doesn’t fly. And most importantly, it stifles traditions like ours with U$C. And it’s kind of stupid that such strict rules don’t have exceptions for situations like this. For example, there is nothing cooler, I think, than watching the Manchester derby, with United in red and City in their light blue.

But, I suspect we won’t see mustard-and-ketchup in the Rose Bowl or our blue and gold in the Mausoleum. Why? Because the NCAA and Pac-10 are running the show and when have they ever done anything that makes any damn sense?