Girls soccer uniforms, why don’t they fit?

The girls soccer uniforms have warranted many complaints over the years of the girls soccer program not only at Bolles, but at almost every school and even some professional leagues. The problem with the uniforms is that they are either men’s sizes, meaning that even the small is too big for most girls, or the uniforms are women’ sizes, but they are too tight and form fitting.  This makes playing in games very difficult because the tight uniforms are hard to breath in and they allow little space for movements such as throwing the ball in or making a slide tackle.

Many of the people not involved in the soccer program noticed this as well.  Hashanah Elhage (’06) finds that even as a bystander, she could tell the uniforms were not fitting correctly.  Elhage believes that in order to fix the problem, the school must first “acknowledge the problem”.  She said, “The next step is to involve the team in the design process.  After having found the problem, the school could then directly order new uniforms, or allow the girls to look for a sponsor.”

Elhage also provided information on a company that exists only for the purpose of making clothes especially for girls soccer.  The company is called Liona and is located in the Netherlands where Elhage now lives.  It is a small company, so the problem with the company is that it only sells product during certain months.  The school could capitalize on these sale times and purchase new uniforms.

The uniforms from Liona are adequate for girls soccer because the founder of Liona is an ex-dutch national team player that went through the same problems.

This does not mean that the girls should get new uniforms every year though.  The uniforms that were damaged during the year should be replaced.  Elhage’s opinion is that, “A state championship team should look like a state championship team.”

The BGS (Bolles Girls Soccer) team is deserving of better uniforms, and Liona could be a positive solution to fix the uniform problem at Bolles.