I love volleyball. I just hate spandex.
It's not that I have never worn a uniform — or outfit for that matter — that barely covered me. Just ask my dad.
But every year when volleyball season rolls around, I find myself wondering whose idea it was to have women wear spandex shorts — sometimes really, really short ones — to play volleyball? And while I have had many discussions with volleyball coaches, players and parents, I still don't get it.
I've heard the explanation. Tight clothes don't get caught in or touch the net offering opponents free points. But they just continue to get shorter and tighter, and every match I watch, the girls are constantly pulling on them.
Who is in charge of this trend? Can't we rebel?
I'm worried that one of these days, high school teams will opt to wear the skimpy swimsuits worn by beach volleyball players. Notice that the men wear baggy board shorts? So I guess that whole net argument doesn't apply when you're a man?
Seriously, very few people can wear spandex and look good. Even fewer can play volleyball in spandex and not be required to constantly yank them down in between plays.
Spandex, in my informal survey, enjoys much love and a lot of hatred. Most teams wear the shorts, which are the same style worn by college and Olympic players. They also sport the tight-fitting shirts, which many say prevent accidental net calls.
Piute High was sporting spandex for the first time this year. T-bird coach Sherida Allen said she'd resisted the trend for years, but it was the girls who begged to be like their peers.
"Someone asked them which soccer team they played for," she said. So she relented, although she did require a much longer short than the girls wanted to wear. And while she still has mixed feelings about the shorts, her players love them.
A few teams have bucked the trend, but they are all smaller, rural schools. Rich coach Cindy Stuart said fans will never see the Rebels in spandex while she's at the helm of the program.
"Girls have enough to worry about without wearing spandex," she told me a few weeks ago.
Which basically sums up my problem with spandex.
I have heard normally built, athletic young women agonizing over how they look in spandex shorts. I have talked with coaches who sought to help volleyball players struggling with eating disorders, and while I know tight shorts are not to blame, it certainly cannot help.
I just don't understand why we women go along with this. Maybe we see it as a non-issue. It's sports; their athletic bodies are beautiful and nothing to be ashamed of; it's the required uniform; and last, but not least, spandex shorts are at least as modest as a swimsuit, so who cares?
Obviously not enough people to change anything. I believe women should be able to wear whatever they want. I'm just having a hard time that women actually want to wear spandex. Maybe, instead, we've just convinced ourselves that we should because we can. We have the right, so why not exercise it?
Because rather than liberating us from stereotypes, it reinforces them.
Women are bombarded with unrealistic expectations all of their lives. And whether we like it or not, and whether we can admit it or not, women are more often and more unfairly judged by their appearances than men.
Sports can be a refuge for girls. It's a place where they can find confidence and security in a world that seeks to constantly undermine their self-images with super-skinny, fashion-obsessed role models.
The girl who is too tall off the court becomes the school's super star on the court. Instead of a girl's weight, her strength and her speed become the terms applied to her. In sports, bigger really is better most of the time.
Female athletes can find their way to a healthy life and a healthy body, rather than worrying about what they are eating and what size jeans they wear.
They can learn the same life lessons boys learn through competition and participation. They can be leaders, earn scholarships and push mental and physical limits. They can — and do — discover that confidence comes from within — not in wearing an outfit that hides what someone thinks are flaws.
Athletics offer women so much freedom, I just don't understand why we want to tie ourselves to images that are not our friends.
E-mail: adonaldson@desnews.com