Poor Images in Sports Apparel

After the Adidas shackle-shoes debacle a couple of weeks ago, the world was reminded just how brainless some people can be. The shoes, designed supposedly to strap to your ankles so they will remain attached to you despite your crazy moves on the court, looked more like "slave shoes" due to the straps that looked more like shackles, naturally and well-deservedly causing outrage among the sporting community.

Thankfully, the shoes were repealed without any second thought, BEFORE they were distributed to the public.

But, just when we thought apparel controversy ended, Wimbledon began, and more bad memories (or good, depending on your point of view) were brought forward.

So, without further adieu, 3SN presents some of the more controversial apparel (both by the players and by the fans) to appear in the world of sports. Some were on purpose, some unintentional, and some that just leave you scratching your head.

Let's start with Wimbledon, and tennis in general. In the past eight years, one player in particular has had her name in the news for something other than her play on the court.

Bethanie Mattek (now Mattek-Sands) has a career best ranking of 30th in the world in 2011. She's more well known for her fashion on the court than her play - her crazy and controversial outfits allowing her to be named  as the "Lady Gaga of the tennis world" by the media.

Some of her most notable outfits include leopard-print outfits (and even a matching hat) in the US Open in 2004 and 2007. She even wore a cowboy hat at the 2005 US Open, which resulted in a fine for the American. She even took the traditional all-white outfit of Wimbledon to a new level by wearing knee high socks and a headband in a sort of "soccer outfit" in 2006.

The most controversial and provocative outfit involved a loose-fitting top with cut sleeves that ended up resembling a bathing suit cover-up than a tennis outfit. She wore this wonderful (sarcastic or not depends on your personal opinion and why you watch women's tennis) outfit in the 2006 US Open. None of her eccentric costumes have seemed to help her play, as she will always be known more for her outfits than her results. She advanced to the fourth round in Wimbledon in 2008, her best career finish in a major tournament.  Much like Anna Kournikova, many fans watched her matches because of the person and the outfits, not because of the tennis. That's a shame. ...almost as much of a shame as her worst outfits...just google her name and you'll see what I mean.

The Williams Sisters of Serena and Venus have always been known for their choice of outfits, but at least they have numerous major titles under their belt (is that a proper phrase for this article? probably not...) that sort of make up for it. At least they are more known for their championships than for their outfits. Venus's 2010 French Open outfit, which involved an extremely short black dress with nude-colored undergarments, was regarded by most news sources as "risque and revealing" to say the least.

You can analyze and scrutinize a great number of tennis players' outfits, especially the ladies. You would think that they'd realize by moving around so much and so quickly that these outfits might cause controversy. But maybe that's what they and their managers want so they can get themselves and the sport more press time?

If so, that makes a true sports fan rather disappointed.

Let's stick to the women's sports for another minute, this time though with uniforms that are NOT in the control of the athletes. The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, founded in 1943 to keep baseball going during WWII, featured uniforms designed for the fans, not for the players.

Immortalized as a part of the 1992 movie A League of Their Own (starring Tom Hanks, Madonna, Geena Davis, Rosie O'Donnell), the uniforms of the AAGPBL were about as far from baseball uniforms as possible. League founder Philip K. Wrigley noticed that fans loved seeing the girls with their arms and legs revealed. Therefore, he fashioned his players in short, flashy skirts.

Now, how opposed players were to these uniforms in the 1940s is really uncertain. In the movie, they are portrayed to absolutely admonish them. There is little to suggest that as the case for the women of the league itself. Some women had been known to wear skirts or bloomers because any other material (like that of men's baseball uniforms) was just too heavy to wear. Maybe players weren't too disappointed in the revealing uniforms? All I know is that we wouldn't see that today without controversy.


Let's take a step away from the playing field now...but not too far of a step. There's been many controversial images among merchandise like the Adidas shoes over the years. Most, like the current Adidas shoes, never made it out to the market because somebody (finally) was able to wise up and stop the bleeding before it got too severe.

One case, again involving shoes, came in 1997 when Nike created an unfortunate design intended to look like a flame / flaming log. Nobody realized how much the logo resembled Arabic text. Even worse, nobody realized that the logo resembled the Arabic symbol for 'Allah'. These shoes were distributed to the public (I think I owned a pair actually...now that I think about it, these might have been my first pair of basketball shoes. Interesting...) but later were taken off of the market when people started realizing the resemblance to the Arabic symbol.

The Arabic symbol for 'Allah'. How
close is it to the flame logo of Nike?
Close enough.

Of course, many people believe that this was done on purpose (much like many people think Adidas purposefully created "slave shoes" too).  I extremely doubt these shoe designs were created with those intentions. For Adidas, it was just designers thinking about "breaking ankles" and "juking out of your shoes" of basketball. For Nike, it was just creating a cool, recognizable and un-duplicatable logo. In both cases, designers should have attempted to look at the big picture. But, kind of like "Jesus Toast," if you look at anything hard enough, you'll be able to find something.

This next example was also the result of designers (and fans) not seeing the big picture. This one didn't make too many headlines, and I only know of it because I was there.

Each year, Penn State puts out an official "White Out" t-shirt available for purchase for the football games. The designs are submitted by students to the student newspaper, The Daily Collegian. The top four or five designs are then voted on by the students. The 2009 winning t-shirt is shown here...

Now be honest, did you notice a giant cross? No? Neither did approximately 95% (from my own research) of the campus. I first was made aware of it from a family member who thought there was a religious group who sat in a pack in the front row of the Syracuse game. It was after that game that letters to the Collegian came in, and even the University president had to make a statement about it. Many said in the paper when asked about the shirt "What? The Giant Cross?" knowing immediately what the controversy was. Others had to be shown the shirt to see what others didn't like. Some (rightfully so) did not buy the shirt. Understandable to say the least.

The original designer (a senior, and incidentally she was minoring in Jewish studies) never made any sort of comment regarding the design. The "cross" was made of a vertical blue stripe (a design seen very often, resembling the single blue stripe on the Penn State football helmet) and the traditional block lettering "PennState" going horizontally. Both on their own are proud and extremely common images of Penn State. Combined, an accidental religious symbol. Again, nobody saw the big picture until it was too late.

These certainly are not the only instances of poor judgement when it comes to apparel in sports. And I'm not talking about Dennis Rodman's hair, the neon uniforms of Baylor basketball, or the head-scratching designs of Oregon and Maryland's football jerseys. Those are just ugly, not really anything controversial. There's always the "Eff You ____" shirts on any college campus too. Those are not made by a major company, just by the idiot, probably-drunken students. If you have more disappointing and controversial images in sports, please share! These are just a few that I personally remember, but there are many more out there. The fact that there are any...THAT's what's wrong with sports.