Arizona State and its partners at Nike were obviously aiming for a younger, hipper, decidedly edgier look when they decided to ditch the Sun Devils' longtime logo, a grinning cartoon devil who looks like Walt Disney in an old Halloween costume, in favor of a sleeker, more ominous-looking pitchfork, sometimes set against all-black. Assuming the marketing department's idea of "edgy" didn't quite extend to major urban street gangs, though, they may have succeeded a little too wildly.
Or so says diehard ASU alum Kenneth Epich, a Chicago police sergeant assigned to the city's Area One Gang Enforcement unit who instantly matched the new logo with the crude trident symbol that shows up in the tattoos, graffiti and hand signals of one of Chicago's largest and most violent gangs, the "Satan Disciples." And he thinks it's only a matter of time before his alma mater's new look joins the repertoire:
"The gangs adopt sports teams and wear their gear," Epich said. "The S.D.'s are going to adopt the (ASU) hat as their hat of choice just as soon as they see the first person wearing one."
He probably has reason to worry. After all, there's the devil tie-in. Sun Devils and Satan's Disciples both start with an S and a D.
And, of most concern to Epich, there's that trident. Turns out the gang uses a trident similar to ASU's as one of its symbols. Gang members have them tattooed on their bodies and tag neighborhoods with them. Epich believes some of the artwork he has seen of the gang's symbol is strikingly similar to the ASU trident.
"It bothers me that, one, this gang will be wearing ASU gear, but also that ASU and Nike were so naive to develop it. In my mind, it's the spitting image of the S.D. trident."
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"Some unsuspecting ASU grad or the nephew of a grad or just some person who was at spring training and liked the hat is going to be wearing it in Chicago and stumble upon a car load of Latin Kings (the S.D.'s rival gang), and they're going to beat the (expletive) out of him or kill him just based on the fact he's wearing a hat," Epich said.
First of all, the jerseys are sick. That hokey devil they had before was lame as hell (pun). Normally I'm completely against such a drastic change like this for a team, specifically a college team, because of traditions and history... but it's Arizona State. I feel like everyone there couldn't care less because they're blacked out all the time. It's one giant party with 56,000 undergrads, an ASU strand of every STD, and a barstoolsports smokeshow heaven. I'm sure they're cool with the new jerseys.
But what I don't get is why this ASU alum is such a dimwit. Maybe it's due to the fact that he was blacked out during his 4 years of college. Because if he listened to himself speak then he would realize that he has pointed out that San Diego already has a trident logo. I have to assume that there isn't currently a gang problem with San Diego hats because he didn't say mention any sort of precedent... but I'm not sure if this is a someone to trust. So assuming there is no gang/hat problem right now then there definitely will be with ASU's new logo because... they are the Sun Devils and that matches up with Satan's Disciples.
Hmmm well that is a fancy coincidence but I feel like there was something right there. A piece that was not connected, right after the naivety insult to Nike and ASU. Ahh yes, San Diego also starts with the letters S and D.
Simpleton.
So I disagree with Sargent Pinhead, even though ASU has a bigger football program than San Diego, because teams need to be good at football to have fans outside of their state and no one from Arizona (or any state) should be wandering around the ghettos of Chicago (or any ghetto).
Jerseys rock and cops are stupid. Boom.
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