Over at the NC-Soccer Forum, a soccer mom new to Select (Classic) is wondering about all the additional equipment costs. Not cleats and soccer balls, but uniforms (two – home and away), warmups, bags, plus practice gear that must be worn at every practice.
The bit about matching practice gear got me thinking and talking with some other coaches. Should travel soccer players be required to buy and wear matching outfits for practices? We all want our travel teams to look sharp during matches. When it’s cold out, warmups can be very cool, and of course every coach loves to have all the matching backpacks lined up in a row. It’s some bizarre psychological thing – don’t ask. But matching practice attire? Required?
I can’t imagine telling a player they had to go home because they didn’t wear the league certified gray T-Shirt with league emblem and matching black shorts. That seems so wrong.
On the flip side, I can see the team building aspect of having the players wear the same thing to practice. It can build a sense of team and equality, something other coaches noted as well. If you don’t enforce it, they won’t wear it. My daughter’s coach got them matching outfits last year, but didn’t require they wear them to every practice. So they didn’t always.
What do you think? Is matching practice attire worth it? Should a coach have a zero tolerance policy if someone forgets to wear theirs? Does it have that much of a mental impact on travel players?
I’m still on the fence about it. But I think I may give it a try this season to see how it works. My girls have come together as a team, but it might be interesting to see if something like this has the desired effect and brings them further. But I’m not sure I could bring myself to have a zero tolerance policy. Maybe make someone who forgets run some hills or something. But sending the player home from practice seems a bit much.
Thoughts?
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June 28th, 2008 at 12:24 am
The team that I see do this just seem to want to sell something else to the parents. You have to wonder if it’s more about making money than building team identity. Most kids that I know like to have freedom to wear what they want to wear at practice. Personally, I like to have a team t-shirt but let the kids decide what they want to wear. Dictating what a kid wears to practice just seems a bit too much. What will we do next, tell them what to wear on the way to the game?
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:02 pm
I can see both points of view. However, I do think that forcing the kids to show up to training in a certain kind of gear is a little much.
I personally would just like to limit this to tournaments or classic away games where I think it looks professional and says a lot about the club.
October 11th, 2011 at 1:30 pm
I have my players wear a white T-shirt. They can have any writing or picture on the shirt. I do this so I can have whites play against Blue (pennies), Yellow (pennies), etc. This allows some flexibility in wearing what they want, as long as the T-shirt is predominately white.