SUPPLY-CHAIN ISSUES HAVE LED TO A DANGEROUS
SHORTAGE OF AN OFT-OVERLOOKED FOOTBALL
MAINSTAY: THE HUMBLE END ZONE MARKERW
SCORECARDRESPECT
THE PYLON
ITH THE holiday season
in full swing, countless
businesses, big and small,
continue to tackle the challenges
of a worldwide supply-chain crisis.
Inf lation rates and shipping costs
have skyrocketed, exacerbated
by swelling labor shortages
and contracting transportation
capacities amid the pandemic.
Ports remain clogged. Consumers
are projected to face crunches on
hot-ticket items like smartphones,
sneakers and gaming systems.
And Neil Gilman is sweating his
pylon supply.
A 42-employee, two-factory
operation in small-town
Connecticut, Gilman Gear
manufactures a wide range
of football and other sporting
equipment, including tackling
dummies, blocking sleds and
first-down measuring sticks. But,
more than any other product, the
company has cornered the market
on corner markers: According to
Gilman, some 9,000 high schools,
roughly 90% of FBS programs and
all 32 NFL teams—not to mentionESPN, whose Monday Night Football
features “line-to-gain” pylon
cams—use Gilman Gear’s signature
versions of those f luorescent,
familiar-yet-forgettable cuboids.
In past years, Gilman always
stocked at least 1,000 extra pylons.
By last month, that supply had
shriveled to a mere 36, packaged
in six boxes of six. The culprit? The
lack of a chemical agent required to
create the foam material that forms
Gilman’s pylons. “It’s on allocation.
We’ve been waiting for it to arrive
since August, and we won’t have
it until January,” Gilman laments.
“We’re running on fumes.”
A potential pylon shortage is far
from the biggest problem the world
is facing. But consider the unique
cultural ramifications of such a
scenario—the stakes for the stakes, if
you will: “Every year the NFL buys a
couple sets for the Super Bowl, and
we put special emblems on them,”
Gilman says. “Then there are a lot of
bowl games that love the logo pylon.”
Pylons are easily overlooked,
dwarfed in both physical stature
and clout by measuring sticks andgoalposts. In fact, they regularly
enter the action only when they
are dislodged from their usual
perch. Most commonly this occurs
in the form of a pylon dive, a
universally thrilling moment that
has spawned at least five YouTube
compilations. Every so often pylons
become the story, like when then
Bengals star Chad Johnson grabbed
one and famously performed his
best Tiger Woods imitation after
a score over the Ravens in 2005.
“I just wanted to show my putting
skills,” said Johnson, whose
exhibition earned headlines—and a
$5,000 fine.
He’s not the only player
associated with pylons. Former
Niners QB Nick Mullens became
notorious for replacing f lattened
pylons in back-to-back games
last season. “It became a fun joke
running through the locker room,”
Mullens says. “Anytime we got
close to one in practice, someone
would go, ‘Respect the pylon!’ ”THE FIRST documented appearance
of football pylons occurred in 1962
at the inaugural Hall of Fame Game
in Canton, Ohio. (That set now
resides in the museum’s collection.)12 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | SI.COM
NEWSMAKERS
BY ALEX PREWITTER
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