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And this picture and caption, from late 1937, seems to cement it, with "paint and brush" being Schmidt's "best known tools of the trade." He is again wearing one of these hats. My guess is that he made a new one each year he served as a trainer. My hat from 1949/1950 includes both college and professional signatures. Rob's hats seem to include only professional player signatures. Santa Clara's football program ended in 1952. Makes me think that Rob's hats might be from post-1952. Not sure if that fits with the actual signatures that are on the hats.

If anyone is interested, this picture is from a book titled "Bronco Sundays" which is an interesting read. Santa Clara, USF, St. Mary's and other schools played football on Sundays, because many of their working class fans worked on Saturdays. When professional football came to California, these schools lost fans and access to stadiums.

Somewhat ironically, the 49ers were founded by a Santa Clara grad (Tony Morabito) and coached by Santa Clara's former coach (Buck Shaw). The 49ers colors are Santa Clara colors, although they used silver instead of gold for a few years because Shaw was known as the Silver Fox.

Santa Clara often played in San Francisco to get more fans. Now, the 49ers have moved from San Francisco to Santa Clara. Kind of funny.