I didn’t get the chance to play competitive volleyball when I was growing up, but I always thought it looked like fun. So when my kids signed up for the sport earlier this year, I was excited to learn more about it.
The rules were more complicated than I imagined — you can kick the ball to keep a point alive, who knew? — but what really got my attention was the attire.
My son’s middle school gave him a uniform consisting of a T-shirt and long, baggy shorts — pretty much the same outfit he wears every day. But my daughter, who got just a T-shirt from her YMCA team, decided she wanted to complete the ensemble with “real” volleyball shorts.
That led to a quick and fraught education on volleyball fashion. My daughter found the shorts she wanted at a sporting goods store, but I was sure she had made a mistake. These were tight, stretchy and short. Crazy short. Cage dancer at a Vegas nightclub short.
Those must be a bikini bottom, I thought, not a piece of athletic gear. I refused to buy them.
Later, though, my daughter pulled up the website of a clothing manufacturer, and I saw she had been right: That scrap of spandex was indeed an authentic pair of volleyball shorts. From the junior varsity to the Olympics, that’s what female players wear.
That left me with one question — why?
Surely it can’t be function. If Daisy Dukes were really necessary for peak performance, wouldn’t guys wear them too? Even male gymnasts, who contort their bodies into extreme angles, wear relatively loose trunks during the floor routine and vault.
I spoke to a few volleyball coaches about these shorts, and like a lot of things that meet at the intersection of sports and gender, the issue turns out to be complicated.
Denise Beaudoin of the North Shore club Ace Point Match said when she played in high school in the 1970s, she wore basketball shorts that didn’t stay in place when she dove on the floor. Those gave way to fitted shorts that went to mid-thigh, but by the mid-1980s, high-cut “bun huggers” were in vogue.
The current style is a tad more modest, with inseams running from 2 to 4 inches, and Beaudoin said it does offer some advantages.
“My girls tell me they feel they can move more freely,” she said. “They don’t have to worry about their shorts hitting the net or getting in the way. You’re not always tugging at your uniform to put them back in place. From the girls’ standpoint, they love them.”
But Laura Witteman, who coaches the boys and girls teams at St. Joseph High School in Westchester and co-owns the Ignite Volleyball Club, said it’s strictly a matter of fashion.
“I don’t think there’s any advantage,” she said. “I played in (regular) shorts in college, and I had no problem.”
This dichotomy comes up again and again in sports from tennis to track and field: Male athletes wear clothes seemingly designed for the activity, while female athletes are criticized for wearing clothes that appear scantier than required.
While this could be due to personal choice, cultural pressure or a calculated ploy for attention (looking at you, beach volleyball), the overall effect threatens to turn female athletes into sex objects. Sepp Blatter, the former head of FIFA and one of the most powerful figures in sports, summed up this attitude while pondering ways to increase the popularity of women’s soccer:
“Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball,” he said. “They could, for example, have tighter shorts. Female players are pretty, if you excuse me for saying so.”
There are good reasons to wish for greater modesty. Aspiring athletes who are interested in a sport might never try it because of the flesh-baring uniforms (though both Beaudoin and Witteman said that short shorts, while prevalent, aren’t mandatory). And the Internet abounds with pervy creep shots of young female athletes in revealing gear.
Still, I don’t think the athletes should bear the weight of this anxiety. I was a competitive swimmer way back when, and no uniform could be skimpier than the tiny Speedos we wore. Yet they weren’t a problem: I didn’t feel weird because no one made me feel weird.
So in the end, we bought our daughter the spandex shorts. I’m still a little uncomfortable about it, but I take heart in something Kathy Rinella of Club Palatine volleyball told me about watching girls of all sizes don the shorts without a trace of self-consciousness.
“Thank goodness that they’re comfortable in their own skins,” she said. “Just go to a volleyball practice. I think there are a lot of secure girls running around.”
jkeilman@tribpub.com
Twitter @JohnKeilman
