Head first into history DIY spirit drives football helmet hound as he curates his comprehensive cache of mini-sized gridiron headgear replicas By: David Sanderson Posted: 7:00 PM CST Friday, Feb. 10, 2023

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/02/2023 (939 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Let’s kick Super Bowl weekend off in style, by toasting the 130th anniversary of the invention of football’s most crucial piece of equipment, the helmet.

In 1893, a U.S. Naval Academy midshipman named Joseph Reeves reportedly became the first player to sport headgear on the gridiron, when he covered his noggin for the annual Army-Navy clash. He’d already taken a few shots to the skull that season, which caused a doctor to warn him that another serious blow to that part of his anatomy could result in “instant insanity” or death. Heeding the physician’s advice, Reeves enlisted a cobbler to fashion a snug-fitting, leather bucket, the precursor of the modern-day football helmet.

That brings us to Dave Dech, a Winnipegger who has one of the largest collections of replica, mini-sized helmets this side of Lambeau Field. Through his hobby, the 60-year-old married father of two has also become a bit of an authority on the subject.

“The days of leather helmets are long behind us now (and) the technology surrounding today’s helmets, which have computer chips in them to measure the force you’re hit with, is amazing,” Dech says, leading a visitor inside a 300-square-foot A-frame loft he built atop his double-garage, expressly to house his colourful cache, which currently numbers close to 400 or so miniature lids.

“Football history is very interesting, and the mini-helmets are, for me, the best way to relate to where the game has come from, and wonder where it might be going to, in the future.”

 

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Dech was born in Regina, which helps explain why there is a spare bedroom in his and his wife Patti’s home that doubles as a shrine to Rider Nation. (It’s not easy bein’ green, that’s true, but we’re guessing it was no picnic finding an emerald-coloured carpet to match the shade of the walls in said space, either.)

He moved to Winnipeg with his family in 1972. A carpenter by trade, Dech has been a football “nut” for as long as he can remember. The longtime, Blue Bombers season-ticket holder and former coach with the St. James Rods figures it was 1991 when he bought his first mini helmet, a Roughriders model, while attending the annual Labour Day game in Regina. He scooped up a second seven days later, one bearing the Bombers’ “W” insignia, when he and Patti were in the stands at Canad Inns Stadium, for the Bombers-Riders rematch.

Well, you know what they say in collecting circles? One helmet is a conversation piece, but two is the start of something beautiful.

“They don’t take up a lot of room, the price (per helmet) wasn’t through the roof and so, fairly quickly, I had one for every team in the CFL,” he says, holding out a 10-centimetre tall Stampeders facsimile, to show most come with interior padding and a face grill, similar to the real McCoy.

Admittedly, he could have stopped there. Except he began to think how cool it would be to have a mini-helmet for every phase of each CFL team’s history. Problem was, nothing remotely close to that existed… never had. No worries, being a handy sort, he decided to recreate the helmets, himself.

“What I ended up doing was heading to the Winnipeg Public Library, to find pictures of old (CFL) games, that showed what crest would have been on the various teams’ helmets, through the years,” he says. Following that, he reached out to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in Hamilton. He explained he was hunting for retro CFL logos, and was hoping somebody there could assist him with precise colours, striping and such.

“I can’t tell you how helpful everybody I spoke with was. They seemed as genuinely interested in my project as I was.”

Once he had secured suitable images, he contacted a company in Ontario that manufactures blank, mini-football helmet shells for souvenir purposes. Next, he got in touch with Pro Tuff Decals in Crystal Lake, Ill., a company that makes adhesive crests for high school, university and professional teams’ helmets, including those in the CFL. They could supply him with what he wanted, only there was a catch. The minimum order they accepted was 12 of each design.

He did the math, and realized 12 times the number of different decals he wanted to have done, about 50, would be prohibitive, cost-wise.

“That’s when I went online and darned if I didn’t find a Yahoo group called the International Helmet Collecting Club that had a shade over 900 members,” he says, his eyes widening. “I put a feeler out within the group, asking if anybody would be interested in buying my excess (decals) and heck if close to 40 people didn’t get back to me, saying to count them in.”

That occurred 25 years ago. Dech hasn’t slowed down much, since. He went through the same procedure to secure mini-helmets copying those of the U.S.-based teams that were part of the CFL from 1993 to 1995. Hands up if you remember the Memphis Mad Dogs. He then turned his attention to the National Football League, as well as college teams from Canada and south of the border.

Sure, he could have gone online and purchased every helmet his heart desired, at the click of a button. Only where’s the fun in that, he says? Rather, he decided he would be better served to personally visit as many teams’ home stadiums as possible, and, while there, pop into the gift shop to buy a corresponding mini-helmet.

“We don’t even have to attend a game,” he goes on, mentioning his sons’ favourite NFL teams are the Baltimore Ravens and Seattle Seahawks, which has resulted in adding a few kilometres to the odometer, what with the two franchises being located on opposite coasts. “Most of the bigger stadiums offer tours during the week, even during the off-season, which we happily sign up for, if we’re in the area.”

During a trip to Texas a few years ago, he went to 11 different stadiums in just under two weeks. This past fall, he and Patti drove 6,300 kilometres in nine days, to visit NFL venues in Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit and Indianapolis, while on their way to Cincinnati, where they had tickets to a game pitting the hometown Bengals against the Atlanta Falcons.

Why Ohio? Dech owns a game-worn Sacramento Gold Miners jersey, and he was hoping former CFL quarterback David Archer, presently a radio analyst for the Falcons, might autograph it for him, if he went to the trouble of driving across yay-many states, to secure his John Hancock.

Success: Not only did Archer agree to meet him and Patti in the lobby of his hotel the morning of the game, he graciously spent 30 minutes with the couple, discussing the five years he spent in the CFL, playing for teams based in Sacramento, San Antonio, Ottawa and Edmonton.

Oh, and the maroon St. Mary’s University T-shirt he’s wearing? He got that in Halifax, along with an SMU helmet, when he travelled to Wolfville, N.S., for the CFL’s Touchdown Atlantic game, last season.

Dech nods affirmatively when asked if he has a dog in the fight on Sunday, when the Philadelphia Eagles face the Kansas City Chiefs for all the marbles. He became an Eagles fan years ago, upon noticing their home jerseys were the same colour as his beloved Roughriders, he says, reminding himself to bring his green-and-grey Eagles mini-helmet into the house when we’re all done, to park next to the TV for good luck.

As for what the future holds for his ever-growing collection, which also includes a plethora of game programs, pennants, jerseys … even a faux-feathered headpiece worn by Bombers mascot Buzz, he’s pretty confident it will live on, if he and Patti ever decide to downsize.

“Our sons have already said, ‘Dad, what if we don’t want it?’ If that turns out to be the case, the (Canadian Football) hall of fame has already assured me if, at any point I want to part with it, they’ll happily put it in the collection gallery,” he says.

“So yeah, I know it will have a good home. Just not yet.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca