2008 Donruss Sports Legends College Heroes #7 Elvin Hayes

It has been 40 years since Elvin Hayes' first basketball card was released. Amazingly, new Elvin Hayes cards are still being manufactured. That is a testament to how great a player Hayes was.

Today's card is the 2008 Donruss Sports Legends College Heroes #7. I love this card. One of the main reasons is that it features Elvin in his University of Houston uniform. What Coog fan wouldn't want a card of him in his Cougar jersey? The background is a little busy for my taste. I prefer solid backgrounds when it's a cropped photo. But the background isn't distracting. The photo itself is a little disappointing. Instead of an action photo of Hayes going to the hoop or pulling down another rebound, we get a hand on hip, walk down the floor, look up at the scoreboard pic. Are there no good pics of Hayes as a college player? I guess I should be happy that at least you can see his face unlike the cover of Sports Illustrated after the Game of the Century.

The back is fairly bland. No picture. A short description of some of his college achievements. There is a UH logo which I like, but it is a logo that Elvin never wore. Old school players should have the old school logo.

This card shows so many of the differences between cards today and Hayes' early cards. The card stock and print quality is amazing today compared to the old cards. Many cards are now numbered to assure customers that there wasn't a ridiculous print run. This card is numbered to 1000. There are also several variants which were not available in vintage cards. This card comes with gold, autographed, and relic variations. That's great if you like those things. If you want to collect every card for a player, the variations make it very difficult.