Leonhard does not approve of Tebow's use of stickers, regardless of messaging (Photo: nobleturkeys.com)

You may have noticed a recent trend in college and professional football where players are utilizing new-fangled eye black stickers in place of the original rub-on eye black, often times adorning the stickers with cute messages of some sort.

Well, Jim Leonhard is putting his foot down.  The Jets safety is spearheading the  “Athletes Against Stickers” campaign to erradicate the use of eye black stickers in the NFL.  As chairman of the campaign, Leonhard released this Public Service Announcement today, alerting the public of the dangers of these stickers, which studies have shown have zero effect in reducing glare glare as advertised.

That's more like it!

And while this is all clearly a part of a marketing/PR campaign by Farkas Original Eye Black, and is done somewhat tongue-in-cheek, there is definitely some truth to what Leonhard is saying here:

“I am worried that today’s athletes have gone soft or are misinformed. Call me old-school, but when I think of wearing stickers, I envision my niece and her dollies. That’s not very intimidating if you ask me.”

Agreed. We’re far more partial to the war-paint methodology employed by players like John Randall when he played for the Vikings, or Chris Hovan today (right). Way more badass, no question. And if the stickers don’t even work the way they’re supposed to in reducing glare, they’re even more pointless.

WATCH THE “ATHLETES AGAINST STICKERS” PSA AFTER THE JUMP

If you’re so inclined, the guys at Farkas even have a petition going, asking athletes to “join us in swearing off such childish playthings for the overall betterment of the American athlete and his and her ability to perform on the field and in the social conscious.”

We fully support this movement.

Dewey Hammond vs Larry Fitzgerald

Blogger & YardBarker Editor Dewey Hammond was kind enough to stop by ReadAndReact to respond to our post from last week – Blogger Used by Nike to Pimp New Shoes – where we called into question the credibility of his “un-staged, spontaneous” footrace with Larry Fitzgerald.

It was a classy move by Dewey to take the time to respond, and we want to give equal time here.

So here’s his response, in its entirety:

Those (Nike TR1) banners were there for an event with local college kids at UC-Irvine. They definitely had nothing to do with me racing Larry. It was an afterthought at the event, and it happened only because I was talking smack all day with Larry, and it wouldn’t have happened had Larry not pulled rank and basically said he appreciated Nike’s concern, but he was racing, because “that’s what I do, and I’ll race all day long.” I appreciate your cynicism, though. I’m sure I would have thought the same thing had I not been there, but it was an “un-staged, spontaneous moment,” and maybe the reason many bloggers aren’t questioning that fact is because there were 30 other bloggers/reporters present for the race, and if you still don’t believe me that it was spontaneous? Well, I don’t really give a fuck one way or the other. Later.

As we said in our reply to Dewey’s comment, he’s right, our cynicism is fairly well built-in at this point, especially when it comes to a behemoth company like Nike.  And we apologize for questioning Dewey’s integrity. But we felt some skepticism needed to be injected into the conversation.  If we’re wrong, we’ll happily admit it.

Hammond vs Chestnut

It turns out Dewey has a long history of this sort of thing, including challenging competitive eating champion Joey Chestnut to a beer chugging competition … and winning! (video after the jump).  Moral of the story, here:  Dewey cleary has WAY more access and blogging experience than we do, so we’ll just bow down to the master here.  Mad respect, my man.

After the jump, in case you missed it, the video in question

Dewey Hammond defeats Joey Chestnutt in Beer Chugging Contest

This blogger challenges Larry Fitzgerald to a footrace, and shockingly loses twice.  In the second race, he gives up his Nike Trainer1 shoes (“which aren’t even out in stores yet!”):

In his original post, blogger Dewey Hammond claims that “the Nike folks in attendance tried to put a stop to it” … which must have been what they were doing when they set up all those Nike TR1 banners along the race course.  Please.

Obviously, this is a viral marketing ploy by the folks from Beaverton, and a pretty great one at that.  They got all of us sucker bloggers to post this video all over the web, getting all sorts of free subtle publicity for their newest shoe.  Pretty sneaky, sis.