Football games are played in snowstorms, rainstorms and all kinds of weather. On a stormy Saturday in the driving rain, the Whitesboro Warriors were about to kick off to the opposing team when the kicker had a particularly difficult time keeping the football on the kick off tee. Wind gusts were over 35 mph and the ball and the tee kept topling over. A team mate had to hold the ball for kick off, ended up getting kicked in the hand and had to be taken out of the game.
Head coach John Vanderzell thought that there must be a better way to handle the problem and discussed options with industrial designer John Dziura of Dead Dog Design in Whitesboro. 'DDD' came up with a design that had a lower center of gravity reducing the likelihood that the ball could be blown off the tee and began making prototypes. In order to test the design, he needed a plastic that could handle being kicked repeatedly and not break. After some experimentation, Smooth-Cast 60D Castable Semi-Rigid Plastic proved to be the most economical and impact resistant. Coloring the resin was easy using SO-Strong Color Tints. The tees became very popular and in a very short time DDD supplied castings to the entire upstate league.
A wider base gives the football 'T' an advantage in high winds vs. commercially available products.
Smooth-Sil® 950 was DDD's choice of mold rubber and yielded over 100 castings in less than 30 days.
Game On - the 60D 'T's take a beating and will last for years.
