But don’t you think there was a little Spartan perched on their shoulder chanting “One more year” into their ears, begging them to be part of a department-wide transformation that ushers the university’s sports image into the future?

“It is one of the reasons I came back — the new jerseys,” said Lucas, a junior guard on the men’s basketball team on the mend from an Achilles’ tendon injury.
“We’re going to put our stamp on these.”

Lucas returns to MSU with fellow junior backcourt mate Summers for another season with a national title on their minds. Jones, a senior linebacker, will be one of the most feared defensive players in college football in the fall.

All three have opportunities to put a stamp on their senior seasons in 2010-11. They’ll be doing so with newly designed Nike threads — enhanced technology, a more resounding shade of green and new designs, numerals and typography — on their backs.

“You’ve got to appreciate it just because of where the program came from,” Summers said of the men’s basketball players who came before him. “They used to wear Reeboks and those guys paved the way for us. Now we’re getting new jerseys like this every year, so you’ve just got to appreciate it and be thankful.”

Just as the success of Mateen Cleaves and Magic Johnson paved the way for Summers and Lucas to be outfitted in the finest gear Nike has to offer, athletics director Mark Hollis’ history with the business partner made this monumental breakthrough possible.

It took nearly two years of flipping through old photos and history books combined with interviews with fans, student-athletes, coaches and alumni. There were countless phone calls, e-mails and hours of design work and research poured into a metamorphosis of one of the most prominent athletic programs in the nation.

After all that — with controversy of a potential new logo mixed in — the final product was unveiled Friday.

There will be fans, alumni, bloggers and boosters who don’t like them. But it’s hard to argue with a cost-free renewal that tweaks a few fonts, adjusts a hue and places nearly 800 student-athletes under one, powerful Green umbrella.

“There will be people who don’t like these,” Hollis said. “The thing I like about it is the student-athletes think they’re spectacular. That was the resounding positive for me. These kids have a whole new sense of mission or purpose.

“If I had any doubts walking down here when I stepped into that room and saw those kids talking about those uniforms, those doubts vanished.”

When you’re shopping for your new Spartan Green (yes, we have a shade of green all to ourselves) T-shirts or second-guessing the thought behind a white shoulder patch on an alternate football jersey, don’t lose sight of what’s important in this: The men and women who wear those jerseys love them.

And if you see Jones holding a rose in his mouth in November or Lucas cutting down the nets in Houston next year, you might just love those new jerseys a little more, too.

Joey Nowak is a State News sports writer. He can be reached at nowakjo2@msu.edu.