Teams want to go back to 'little pink shorts'

Elizabeth Pacheco Seniors Editor

On campus tours, when tour guides cite maroon and gray as the school colors, they share the joke that men’s teams didn’t want to wear pink when the school first went co-ed. That may be changing, as recent concerns have arisen among members of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) over the current team colors policy held by the Vassar Athletics Department.

The policy, which is outlined in the Student Athlete Handbook, requires varsity athletes to use only the official school colors when purchasing supplementary athletics apparel, even when they are doing so with their own funds.

As the policy now stands, these colors are maroon and gray only. Not black, not pink—maroon and gray. Many athletes (including male student-athletes) have expressed desire to wear what are considered to be Vassar’s more traditional colors, such as “rose.”

It is unclear how the policy was being enforced, since last year some teams, such as the women’s lacrosse team, purchased apparel whose primary color was black.

However, problems have begun to arise with various teams, “including women’s tennis, who wanted to purchase gray and pink shirts, as well as women’s swimming, who wanted to purchase gray and pink rugby shirts, and men’s swimming who wanted to purchase pink drag suits for our states meet,” said swimmer Liz Gadomski ’08 in an e-mailed statement.

Gadomski, who is the SAAC representative for the women’s swimming and diving team, has taken initiative to have SAAC consider to a possible revision of the policy. In collaboration with other athletes, she has been working on a formal statement to be released. The statement is still in the revision process and before anything can proceed, SAAC is asking their team representatives to discuss the policy with their athletes.

President of SAAC Chrissy Lewis ’08 and Assistant Director of Athletics: Operations Angel Mason, who sits in on SAAC meetings, have encouraged SAAC to talk about the policy with their teammates so that all athletes feel comfortable with submitting the statement and a united front can be presented.

Once the athletes’ opinions have been gathered, SAAC will vote on the subject before deciding whether to release the statement.