Football gear is always evolving to offer better protection and better performance. From the helmet to the cleats, each piece of gear gives athletes like you that little extra edge—or, in the case of the football glove, maybe a lot of extra edge.
Football gloves aren’t just for style (though they can certainly give your uniform a bit more flare). They actually make it easier for you to catch the ball. In fact, today’s football gloves are 20% stickier than the human hand, making it all the more likely you’ll catch passes that were once considered impossible.1
Though football gloves may feel like a natural and necessary part of your uniform now, they weren’t always. Football gloves are actually one of the latest football gear innovations, and their adoption has revolutionized the game.
In this article, we’re exploring everything you need to know about football gloves. We’ll break down how they work, how they came to be, and why they’re not an essential part of any player’s uniform.
How Do Football Gloves Work?
To better understand just how far football gloves have come, it helps to know a little bit about how today’s football gloves work, and why they’ve changed the face of football so drastically.
To start, let’s talk about purpose. Players wear football gloves for two main reasons2:
- Protection – Football gloves help block out the elements, such as wind and snow. In addition, gloves take the sting out of a hard catch and can help cover cuts and scrapes on the palms and fingers.
- Performance – A football glove is only as good as its sticky, tacky palm. The adhesive quality makes it easier to control the ball, whether you’re catching it or throwing it.
The Science Behind the Glove
Football gloves include a silicone-like material on the palm to make them grippy. At a microscopic level, this material has liquid-like properties. It can work its way into uneven surfaces (like those on the surface of a football), essentially “grabbing” and holding an object in place.1
Early Beginnings: Function Over Form
There are a few answers to the question, “When did football players start wearing gloves?”
As a whole, football gloves came onto the scene just recently—only 40 years, give or take.1 However, football gloves had to go through several versions to become what they are now.
Football Gloves for Warmth
Do football gloves really help with performance? Well, back in the 1970s and early 80s, football gloves served one simple function: to keep players’ hands warm during frigid winter games. But these gloves didn’t look like the ones we have today.
Imagine playing a scrimmage in a pair of welder’s gloves. You know the type—huge, thick, leather things that make your fingers feel like sausages and leave precision movements (like catching) almost impossible.
If you can picture this, then you can kind of imagine what it was like to wear an original pair of football gloves.
These football gloves weren’t designed to enhance performance or look cool. The first versions of football gloves were bulky and plain, lacking any kind of style or performance aspect.
Since these football gloves added nothing to a player’s performance on the field, most players simply played bare-handed or wrapped their palms in athletic tape instead.
That is, until Stickum came along.
The Stickum Era
Invented sometime in the 1970s, Stickum3 is an adhesive product used for various athletic applications.4 While you can still buy it today as an aerosol, pro football players in the 70s used it in its “paste” form. It was easily recognizable thanks to its yellow color and thick, tar-like consistency.
Around its debut, NFL wide receivers and defensive backs started smearing the product on their hands to help them catch the football more easily.5 Two of the most prolific (and perhaps infamous) players who used Stickum like a religion included:
- Oakland Hall of Famer, Fred Biletnikoff – Bilentnikoff was known for adding globs of Stickum to the top of his socks so he could reapply on the fly.6
- Raiders defensive back, Lester Hayes – Bilentnikoff’s application of Stickum was novel, but seemed benign. But Lester Hayes took the practice to a whole new level. Hayes was notorious for slathering half a jar of the goo onto his hands, arms, and torso.5 Hayes won Defensive Player of the Year in 1980, intercepting 13 passes (a record for the NFL)—all while wearing Stickum.5
Unfortunately, the ball wasn’t the only thing Hayes could catch with Stickum. Fellow teammates, opponents, and even the referees couldn’t get too close to Hayes for fear of getting caught in his gluey coat.7
In other words, Stickum got on everyone and everything and stayed stuck there—so much so that refs started running out of clean balls during games.4
Stickum’s use got so out of hand that the NFL eventually banned the substance in 1981 under a rule affectionately known as “The Lester Hayes Rule.”4 The actual rule, Rule 5, Section 4, Article 4, Item 8 bans any adhesive or tacky substance that leaves a residue behind, causing “handling problems for players.”1
The 1980s and 1990s: Evolution of Design and Functionality
Warmth and Stickum aside, we still have to ask: When did football players start wearing gloves like the ones we know today?
With Stickum banned from the field, football gear manufacturers like Nike started looking for ways to give players the power of Stickum, but in glove form. And the first real football glove was born.8
Introduction of Performance Gloves
The first attempts at a performance football glove in the 80s were rough. James Lofton, Hall of Fame Wide Receiver, compared these early options to gardening gloves from Home Depot: a little clumsy to wear and difficult to fit into (especially if you had big hands).8
Other designs featured neoprene, a type of rubber often used in scuba diving gloves. Though these “scuba gloves”1 offered better protection from the elements, the rubber caused profusely sweaty hands, which could freeze during a particularly frigid winter game.8
Technological Advancements
The football glove we know and love today was invented in 1995 by a Canadian football player named Jeff Beraznik.1 It started with a pair of glass-cutting gloves that Berzanik modified for a tighter fit. After his teammates started requesting pairs of their own, he began researching ways to create a football glove that was sticky but less bulky.
After years of traveling and testing different materials, Beraznik eventually partnered with a chemistry lab in Pakistan to create today’s current polymer formula for performance football gloves known as C-Tack.1
Football glove manufacturers also added other improvements, such as:
- More flexible materials for better fit
- Ventilation to help with sweaty palms
- Structure like velcro straps at the wrist to protect from injury
The development of this new, grippy polymer significantly improved glove performance. Players like Jerry Rice, Hall of Fame Wide Receiver,8 became huge proponents of football gloves, wearing them regularly and encouraging others to try them.
Modern Era: Gloves as Essential Gear
Today, football gloves are a staple of the uniform, and players of all skill levels, from youth to professional, use them for better grip and performance.
In fact, football gloves have become more and more popular amongst players of every position. In the early days, only receivers wore high-performance football gloves. Linemen may have worn bigger, bulkier gloves to protect their hands during tackles, but most other players continued to go bare-handed.
But now, almost every position wears a pair of performance football gloves, including running backs and defenders.
Impact on the Game
There’s no question that football gloves have changed how the game is played. With the extra grip these gloves provide, football players are able to make more and more spectacular catches. Here are just a few examples:
- Odell Beckham, Jr., Giants vs Cowboys 2014 – Beckham is arguably the father of one-handed catches, inspiring aspiring football players to perfect the move.9
- Hunter Bryant, Rose Bowl 2019 – The sophomore tight end from the University of Washington made an absolutely amazing, one-handed catch in the final two minutes of the game.1
Customization and Style
Football gloves aren’t just an essential part of a player’s uniform. They’re also highly customizable, with players able to choose designs that suit their needs and preferences.
In fact, many players have football gloves in multiple colors and patterns, sometimes switching between different pairs in the same game depending on what’s needed.8
Explore Battle Sports Football Gloves Today
The history of the football glove may not be very long, but it’s full of color and innovation. What started as a functional need turned into a quirky movement, which then became a necessity. Now, the football glove is one of the most essential parts of a player’s uniform. Even though players still opt to go without gloves on occasion,1 most agree that the extra grip of the football glove has added a whole new layer to the game of football.
Ready to make your own one-handed catch? At Battle Sports, our grippy football gloves incorporate our unique grip technology to ensure every player gets the edge they’re looking for. What’s more, our patterns and designs add that extra football drip to enhance your confidence on the field.
Learn how to choose football gloves to help guide your selection, and shop for your next pair today.
Sources:
- NYTimes. “Grab and Go: How Sticky Gloves Have Changed Football.” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/20/sports/super-bowl-nfl-gloves.html
- Racket Rampage. “When Were Football Gloves Invented? (Unexpected History).” https://racketrampage.com/when-were-football-gloves-invented/
- Wikipedia. “Stickum.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stickum
- NFLines. “1980: The Year Lester Hayes Broke the NFL–The Stickum Saga.” https://nfllines.com/1980-the-year-lester-hayes-broke-the-nfl-the-stickum-saga/
- NFL. “Sticky Gloves/Stickum.” https://www.nfl.com/100/originals/100-greatest/game-changers-77
- Sports Illustrated. “History of the NFL in 95 Objects: Stickum.” https://www.si.com/nfl/2014/07/15/nfl-history-in-95-objects-stickum
- YouTube. “The NFL may have banned Stickum, by Lester Hayes got to keep his interception record.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCIuk3aJydM
- YouTube. “The Evolutions Of Gloves | ESPN.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHBSACiT3KA
- YouTube. “Top 10 Odell Beckham Jr. Catches | NFL.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpt98Kgs_TI&t=313s
