Sports apparel, especially team-issued gear, is a favorite clothing choice among many people, not just athletes. Wearing your team’s attire, whether you play for them or not, brings pride to many, and that feeling is often heightened in high school sports. Fairly, so, playing for a team and receiving uniforms and loungewear that showcases your sport is one of the most anticipated parts to the season for some athletes. Anticipation to see what gear comes as an added plus to your season is always at a high level; however, there are times when players find themselves disappointed by the selections that year.

Forest Hills Central is a more affluent school in most regards compared to schools in the Grand Rapids area, meaning team-issued gear oftentimes comes from respected brands such as Nike and Adidas. Although FHC athletes are often blessed with more costly clothing, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will cater to the team’s liking. Various factors come into play regarding this such as comfort, breathability, and looks.

For most sports here at FHC, the captains are in charge of selecting that season’s uniforms and extraneous apparel. This is no doubt a difficult task, as the team will have to garner it for the entirety of the season. Brooke Kushak, a captain on the girls varsity tennis time, emphasizes this: “Picking out uniforms can be very stressful because it’s hard to please everyone. We have to find something that makes everyone feel comfortable and confident.” Additionally, finding gear that also has correlations to FHC’s school colors-white and green-adds to the selection factors, as well as not having repetitive uniform styles over the years.

Even so, there have certainly been instances where players have not taken a huge liking for the gear issued that season. Alex Chen, an athlete on the boys varsity tennis team, expressed his displeasure when recounting a specific occurence: “I didn’t like that our captains would have to choose the clothes that didn’t already sell out, so they didn’t look very good or fit the best. Sometimes they just choose clothes that they liked as well. What I wish what could’ve happened was being given options and having everybody deciding on gear so it wasn’t all the captains’ choices.”

Nevertheless, uniforms and spirit gear here at FHC are renowned for usually being excellent in every manner. Even though the looks for that season may be completely out of the athletes’ hands, oftentimes the gear ends up being loved by the team anyway. FHC’s signature green and white gear is always something to certainly marvel at regardless of the sport.