Last year I joined the team, and had a great experience. The one thing that I was not a fan of was our White/Orange Nike uniforms and Orange Pro7s with replica Varsity decals. I never openly shared it with the team, but since the Syracuse varsity program is the pinnacle team in college lacrosse year after year, I thought we were going a little too overboard with the Varsity look-alike image. We had an up and down season, and some tough losses that hit me hard as a hometown kid. Growing up watching the Powells and great players since then, the Syracuse uniform means a lot to me, and it always felt a little funny.
This past summer, I came to further dislike the varsity look alike gear. I played in 3 summer leagues in Syracuse, and let me just say that wearing a Syracuse Helmet and gloves puts a big fat target on your back. I always loved the conversation with strangers "Hey you play for 'Cuse?" (excited and impressed facial expression) .. "Well, I'm on the club team" .... "Oh..." (totally lost all interest and dismissed me). I also was a victim of taunts and jeers and being mocked as "just a club player" any time I made a mistake during a game.
This past fall, I was voted in as one of the three captains. I knew right away that after doing everything with my co-captains to ensure our team was successful on the field, my side project would be to get our team a unique identity and image that didn't hide the Syracuse affiliation, but definitely differentiated us from the Varsity program in a clear way. A teammate suggested all-Black uniforms during tryouts, so the first creation was our Black shooting shirt (made by Holy-Shirt!, Inc.), which we wore during fall scrimmages.
Later in the fall I started planning the rest of the uniform. First I came up with the shorts pattern, an idea I borrowed from Nomis, a snowboarding apparel company. We went with Zebra Apparel, I talked to Kaz at Lacrosse Unlimited, and we got the decals to match, and 24 new Orange Pro7s. Our Brine/Warrior sales reps Danny Holdridge and Kevin Leveille sent us some mockups of King III's and MacDaddy 3's, and they really worked with me to get a design that I was super stoked on.
Finally, in February we decided to go with a simple Orange shirt with Silver font to match the shorts and helmet decals as our 2nd jersey. I think the gear came out great, and I've been getting swarmed with trade requests from opponents and summer league buddies.
At the end of the day, at 'Cuse Club lax, we train hard and play to win. I think the uniforms we put together this year are pretty sick, and have set us apart from the Varsity team in a unique way. Looking good and looking like a team has definitely helped us in our games this year. Go 'Cuse !!
If you want to share your team’s apparel, equipment or blog please send it to info@lacrosseplayground.com.