Best of both worlds?
Old Navy makes a ridiculous Houston Texans T-shirt that defies history withOilers claim
Old Navy knows a lot about selling trendy low-price clothing, but the big retail chain doesn't know squat about football.
CultureMap reader Todd Nelkin pointed out this Houston Texans T-shirt, which retails for $19.50, on the Old Navy website as part of the chain's series of NFL Team Champions Graphic Tees. The retailer got the Texans' red, white and blue colors right, along with the bull-shaped logo that resembles the Texas flag. But look closely: The lettering says "1961 AFC Champions."
Seems like they're half right.
Old Navy's revisionist history has produced "the most unique Texans shirt maybe you will ever see...Here you get the best of both worlds."
The Houston Oilers defeated the San Diego Chargers to win the American Football League championship in 1961 (and 1960, too.) But the Oilers name vanished when Bud Adams moved the team to Nashville in 1997 and renamed it the Tennessee Titans.
Adams brought the Oilers history with him to Tennessee too with franchise records for the Titans officially going back to the Oilers days (as wrong as that is) in the NFL record books.
Houston got a new team and a new owner, Bob McNair, in 2002. But the Oilers name was not available because Adams still owned it and retired it from use in 1999. So after a much-ballyhooed contest, the new team was named the Texans.
As Nelkin points out, Old Navy's revisionist history has produced "the most unique Texans shirt maybe you will see . . . Here you get the best of both worlds."
The Texans aren't the only team that received the Old Navy treatment. The chain also sells a T-shirt heralding the Cleveland Browns as 1964 NFC Champs, although the NFC (National Football Conference) didn't exist until 1970. The Browns actually won the 1964 NFL Championship Game, the last time Cleveland's won a title in any major sport.