One of the most exciting and fundamental aspects of joining a varsity or JV team in high school is the personalized uniforms. Although many international schools piece together a variety of sports uniforms in their school colors, not all uniforms at SIS typically feature the school’s orange color. However, since the beginning of the Fall Season, SIS has officially implemented a new law for the sports department: shifting from personalized uniforms to school-owned uniforms.
The school officially began its new school-owned uniform policy this fall. For instance, the volleyball team has transformed its original long-sleeved black and white uniforms to uniforms that feature new orange patterns that streak across the sides of the uniform, an attempt to implement more color to enrich the school spirit.
“Orange is our school color,” Brandon Fraseur, Athletics Director, said. “Out of all the teams present in AISA or KAIAC, none are orange. As a team, we stand out with our own school colors, and it properly represents us as a single community.”
However, many returning student-athletes argue that the school-owned uniforms are not up to standard as the previously instilled personalized uniforms, due to the addition of the orange color.
“Our previous uniforms used to be black and white long sleeves,” Sylvia Lee (12), girls’ varsity volleyball captain, said. “But the new color of orange on the side of black and white makes the uniforms look a bit awkward. Compared to other schools, which have school colors such as navy or red, orange is a bit harder to coordinate with clothes.”
In contrast to the girls’ volleyball team, the cross country team has seen the new uniforms in a more positive light, accepting the school colors as a way to demonstrate solidarity amongst their teammates against other competitive international schools.
“The new colors add flair to our previous uniforms,” Andrew Chang (11), boys’ varsity cross country athlete, said. “Our previous uniforms were pretty basic, only showing off the SIS Tigers logo to show that we are from SIS. But with the addition of the orange colors, our teams can distinguish themselves.”
Though there had been mixed opinions about the school-owned uniforms donning the new color orange, most basketball winter athletes found it shocking and unfair, particularly since the teams had bought new personalized uniforms last year that cost over 400,000 won.
“I spent a lot of money purchasing the uniforms necessary to be a part of the basketball team,” Lauren Lee (10), girls’ varsity basketball athlete, said. “It was not cheap, but because I thought I needed the uniforms, I had to buy them. But now, with the new school-owned uniforms arriving, I feel like I have to put aside the money I already spent.”
Due to both girls’ and boys’ basketball teams already spending a generous amount of money on their previous uniforms, many players were hesitant to accept new school-owned uniforms that showed a design that they didn’t even prefer. However, throughout the uniform-making process for all sports teams, coaches were welcome to ask students from their own teams to contribute to the design of the school-owned uniforms, so that some autonomy was retained.
“We make sure our athletes can get a say in whatever is being in store for them,” Mr. Fraseur said. “And ultimately, implementing school-owned uniforms is a way of making things cheaper for our future student-athletes. We want to get rid of the athletic culture that you have to ‘pay to play’ in a sense, so making everything school-owned was a decision to contribute ultimately to the student-athlete community.”
Though there were many hurdles to overcome due to the newly instilled school-owned uniforms, the final goal was well-distinguished: student-athletes should not pay to play. Unfortunate hiccups were made with non-preferred stylistic choices or previous purchases for personalized uniforms; however, implementing a new culture that not only enriches the feeling of belonging at SIS but also reduces high costs for future athletes is a step that needed to be taken sooner than ever.
