Shirts

[Laurel]

Don't dis ultimate frisbee

[Alexislawl]

FIRST has grown so much that there are so many teams that wouldn't associate tye-die with us. If you look through the photos on the website, in 2003, when we went to nationals and won, we didn't even wear tie-dye, we wore Hawaiian shirts.

That you think professionalism isn't important is only your opinion. I happen to think that looking professional far outweighs the need to be recognized. Teams will not choose us if we look like we don't care. Teams also won't choose us if they know us, as evidenced by 360 last year. If we have a good robot and we look like a competent team, then people will like us. Change is good.

Agreed, agreed, agreed!

[Coach Kim]

Oh, Kate started this post with a request to "be nice to one another." Remember to try and not take things personally. Everyone has a different definition of what looks good, different styles they like to wear to school, different standards of what looks professional, different color preferences, etc. It's not right or wrong, it's what keeps the world interesting.

And regardless of what may look good, there is still the number #1 reason we have always worn t-shirts after the team grew to more than 12 people. MONEY!! Two days worth of shirts totaling 63 shirts last year cost us $1020.00. This year I would plan on 30 shirts on Thursday and 40 shirts of Friday.

The sweatshirts cost $770 and we still have 6 or so left. I would really like to sell them before we order any new ones. Also, FIRST sells really nice sweatshirts at the competitions with many different colors and designs and anyone wishing for a different sweatshirt is free to buy one. In addition, my first priority is to rent a bus for the team to travel to Salt Lake City on, which will run about $3500 to $4200. This has priority for safety and liability reasons.

Now, we need to move this thread forward. Anyone who wants to present an alternative team outfit idea this coming Tuesday should research shirt styles and prices on http://www.customink.com. (It's not the only site but an easy one to use.) And anyone who would like to present a shirt design and color scheme should also prepare something for Tuesday. Remember to add in printing costs and 2 color printing costs substantially more.

Note about tye dyes: We can save a lot of money by tye-dying the shirts ourselves which the team has done many times. The biggest problem I see is quality because of the number of "bad" shirts from poor dye jobs and how long the shirts' color lasts. Ray and Jason have worn many team tye-dye team shirts over the years and the professionally dyed shirts last much longer before getting the washed out look.

Start working on some ideas and hopefully we can discuss them next week in a peaceful manner. If no one comes up with any ideas for designs, I will order using the same ones as last year.

Kim

[Andy Brenneke]

The next meeting is when we will decide. This thread gave each side two weeks to voice their opinion and try to convince people. It wasn't meant to come to a quick conclusion.

Money is obviously a concern, but I believe we should get what we want, whether it be money from each member or extra fundraising on the team's part.

A professionally done tye-die shirt will cost approximately the same as a professionally done normal shirt, so that shouldn't be a concern either.

[Andy Brenneke]

There. I took 5 minutes and made a shirt. It's obviously generic without working on it, so don't bash it because it's "just like everyone else".

If we really wanted different shirts each day, we could have a black shirt and a red shirt. Our colors. Maybe different designs.

Just remember, compared to some other teams, we, especially in the area of costumes, spend far less money. Just think of how much some of the pits and costumes people have cost them. We shouldn't have to be concerned about the cost of our t-shirts.

For the record, that exact shirt would be $400 total, for 35 shirts.

[Keenan]

Ok. I understand why people want different shirts, but personally, I feel that we should do tye dye. We have done them for a long time and we are identified by them. In portland, davis, and seattle, we were the only teams with tye dye. In atlanta, there were three teams with tye dye; Wildstang, Crazy Hats, and us. Wildstang is known for their tye dye, as well as the Crazy Hats, on an international level (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwmqShpkmgA). We are known for Tye Dye on a regional level. Also, Team colors are just team colors to us. Besides the banner in our pits, we do not wear " Team Colors". I dont think people would recognize our team by "team colors". These are just my views.

[Coach Kim]

We don't have to make any decisions on Tuesday. I just thought it would be more productive to have actual examples instead of fighting over general concepts. A lot of team members would like lab coats but they turned out to be rather expensive, especially in cotton for tye dying. Black t-shirts are very affordable and price would not exclude them. Polo shirts are going to cost more but the main drawback is they have to be embroidered. We need our sponsors names on the shirts and that would require a shirt we could print on. (This doesn't mean we can't have six or so polo's, with our name embroidered on them, for presentations.)

We can't compare ourselves to other teams. While many teams have major sponsorships from large corporations or come from rich districts, most scramble for money, just like we do. My first year of coaching, the team started with nearly $5000 in the bank but by not carefully monitoring expenses we ended up with a zero balance at the end. I don't plan on asking for any additional money from parents because it would mean some kids would have to quit the team. Registration, robot expenses, hotel and travel expenses all come before pit and apparel costs. Now, if a group of 10 to 15 parents want to run an awesome garage sale in February, a couple of car washes and the like, then we should be good to go but until then, I make do with what I have. (Of note, in the teams flush years, we had a parent that handed us $5,000 checks each year.)

On the other hand, if a group of 10 team members want to make an awesome pit using affordable materials, you have 2 parents willing to help. We can also be creative with crazy hats and the like, for very little money, and stand out at the regionals. Most of the memorable teams wear crazy costumes and have lots of spirit.

Kim

[Jason]

No pink please D=

just to throw it out there, we ordered red

[Andy Brenneke]

It might be recognizable, but they're not our colors. That's all I'm trying to get at. Why even have colors if they don't mean anything? All the teams have identifiable colors. People don't associate them with us because they think tye-die is our colors.

Wildstang had tye dye everywhere. You looked at the robot and knew it was theirs.

[Brian Martino]

Topic has gone nowhere in the last 2 weeks...
I'm not voicing my current opinion, as it does not matter, nor will it change anybody else's opinion.

I'd like to see 2 or 3 designs from both points of view, then we can narrow it down to 1 from each side.....
and those could be our thursday and friday shirts....... We don't HAVE to have tye-dye or not, both days....

If we do it that way, everybody will get their way...

or not.... whatever...