"I've always been told that if you don't look good on the outside, you won't play well," Sparks said. "Obviously, you have to have your heart right too. We're fortunate we have some friends at Nike who understand what we're about and wanted to give us a foggy uniform. They are helping us do things first class."
One of those men who has helped Carson-Newman look first class is Nike's Assistant Director of Football and former C-N football player Mark Dupes. Dupes was on Sparks' 1983 team before hurting his knee. He spent the 1984 season as a student assistant helping with wide receivers.
The grey uniforms feature double orange stripes on the sleeves with orange numbers stitched to the top of the shoulders in orange with a blue and white outline.
The front of the uniform features an orange number also outlined in blue and white stripes, with Carson-Newman written above the number in orange.
The pants have an orange stripe running down the sides with Eagles written in the middle in white.
"We always want to be first class," Sparks said. "What good is it to just talk about things if you're not going to follow up on them. Dino knows the value of looking good, but is also functional and lightweight. He's helped us continue be on the cutting edge of uniforms."
The grey tops and pants bring Carson-Newman up to 16 different uniform combinations for 2014. The Eagles have Nike Pro Combat blue and white uniforms, as well as Nike Beast orange jerseys in their equipment arsenal.
"The kids are fired up and excited about it," Sparks said. "We'll have to have a fashion show and everything so we can have some more fun with it."
Since 2012, Carson-Newman is 3-1 when wearing blue tops with white pants, 2-0 in blue on orange, 5-1 in orange on white, 4-1 in white on orange, 2-3 in white on white and 2-0 in white on blue.
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