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How Virginia’s Kyle Guy weathered heartbreak and learned to live with anxiety

January 17, 2019 By Will Robins Leave a Comment

How Virginia’s Kyle Guy learned to live with anxiety in the wake of the greatest college basketball upset of all time.

Last February, while preparing for the biggest day of his life, Kyle Guy thought he had anticipated everything.

He’d enlisted UVA athletics photographer Matt Riley to serve as documentarian, visiting the Boar’s Head Resort in Charlottesville together a few days prior to scout the best angle for pictures. He’d chosen the location, a small footbridge adjacent to the Birdwood Golf Course clubhouse, before asking his Virginia basketball teammates to watch from behind the clubhouse’s tinted windows. And he’d arranged a decoy: his head coach, Tony Bennett, who, along with his wife, Laurel, had requested a supposed brunch double-date.

With all the details in place, Guy, now a 21-year-old junior guard for the Cavaliers, felt confident that his marriage proposal to long-time girlfriend Alexa Jenkins would go according to plan.

And aside from his own jitters and verbal miscues, the morning unfolded as he’d hoped. Jenkins said yes, the newly engaged couple posed for photos, and they celebrated afterward with close friends and Guy’s teammates before calling their respective families in Indiana.

The one factor Guy hadn’t expected was the collective media swarm.

The next day, the engagement was headline news on local TV channels, regional newspapers, The Washington Post, and even ESPN aired photo footage of Guy, kneeling before Jenkins, mid-proposal.

“I’m very used to people having insight on my basketball life and career — but my personal life, unless I put it on social media, is very personal,” Guy said in a YouTube video recap, several months after the proposal. “So, when we got engaged, I didn’t think it’d be nationally televised.”

But perhaps UVA’s starting shooting guard should’ve anticipated the collective interest in his story, which would only magnify a month later.

On March 16, 2018, the nation watched, stunned, as UVA’s De’Andre Hunter, his right arm wrapped around Guy’s shoulders, escorted his teammate off the court post-defeat; Guy’s face buried in his jersey, blocking out the cameramen, the fans — the entire world. And just over a month after top-ranked UVA’s loss to 16-seeded UMBC — the first time in NCAA tournament history that a one-seed had lost in the first round — Guy posted two lengthy posts to his Facebook page. The first was a letter to himself that he had written just after Virginia secured the No. 1 overall seed, and the second, a follow-up written approximately six weeks later detailing his embarrassment and mental struggles following the upset.

Through the posts, Guy offered a detailed look at the turmoil and anxiety he’d experienced throughout the season while helping lead his team to five consecutive weeks as the country’s No. 1-ranked squad heading into the postseason, as well as ACC regular-season and conference tournament titles.

Externally, the 6’2, 175-pound Guy, with his wide smile, buzz haircut, and fair, freckled skin looked at ease, content. But internally, his emotional steadfastness was crumbling. And the death threats following the UMBC loss didn’t help.

Guy wrote the posts as both offering and explanation. When he hit publish, he felt nervous. College athletes, particularly star players at nationally ranked programs, rarely discuss or show how the attention, pressure, and scrutiny affect them.

“Playing basketball, you never get a second of privacy,” Guy says. “You’ve always got eyes on you, people are always saying something, negative or positive. You can say you don’t listen to it, but everyone does.”

For Guy, the process of learning to withstand the aftershock of last year’s abrupt ending reveals much of what elite college athletes often endure. In an era of 24-7 digital surveillance exacerbated by social media, fans invest themselves in athletes more directly than ever. And when those athletes falter, publicly or privately, they are beholden to more than themselves and their teammates.

Guy lives that reality each day. But this season — unlike the last — he feels prepared to face it.

Kyle Guy UMBC loss
Getty Images
Kyle Guy (center) exits the court after Virginia’s 74-54 loss to UMBC during the first round of the 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

Guy grew up a basketball junkie in Indianapolis. His father Joe played football, and Guy wanted to follow suit. But an eighth-grade back injury forced him out of the contact sport. He ran the mile in 5:10 and considered track. But at 14, he received his first collegiate basketball scholarship offer, to the University of Indianapolis. “My stepdad and my dad were like, ‘Holy s**t, he’s real,’” Guy says, laughing.

Guy also met Alexa Jenkins that year. He had traveled with his cousin, Cody Jacob, to a local basketball game, where Jenkins, who was already friends with Jacob, was watching her brother play. Afterward, she texted Jacob and said she thought Guy was “cute.” They first flirted on social media when Guy tweeted that he liked Eminem and Jenkins tweeted back an Eminem lyric. They exchanged numbers and started dating soon afterward.

An undersized, skinny player, Guy thrived in response to critics who speculated about his size and ability. He has always played, he says, with the classic “chip on his shoulder”. But in high school, his smaller frame didn’t matter — he was still the best player on the court. “He doesn’t just play basketball, he knows basketball,” says Al Goodwin, Guy’s junior and senior year coach at Lawrence Central High School.

Guy was also a self-confessed people pleaser. Goodwin often chided Guy for passing the ball too often instead of taking his own shot, a characteristic that continued away from the court. Guy has a large family — four parents, five siblings, many cousins — and there was always a backyard BBQ to attend, a game to cheer, a concert to watch.

“I was running 100 MPH at all times in high school — I just never said ‘no,’ because I didn’t want to let anyone down,” Guy says.

His days were a blur of activity: 5 a.m. workouts, school, basketball, training, friends, family, dates with Jenkins. He’d fall asleep after midnight and wake up fewer than five hours later to do it again. With commitments pulling him in all directions, Guy had one place he felt at ease.

“Basketball used to be his space where the rest got left behind,” Jenkins says. “He loved that when he was on the court, the outside world couldn’t come in.”

Guy set numerous goals for himself. Mr. Indiana Basketball? Check. McDonald’s All-American? Check. Playing in a high school state championship game? Check. “I am incredibly driven — if I put my mind to something, no one’s going to stop me,” he says.

The mounting pressure he placed on himself was as high as the expectations he assumed that everyone had for him, as is often the case with Division I athletes. And that was when his anxiety started to take hold.

Arriving in Charlottesville in 2016, Guy joined a talented Bennett-led squad. During his freshman year, he started seven games and appeared in all 34.

“He had a relentless attitude,” teammate Jack Salt says. “It’s hard going against the older guys when you first get here, but I could sense the confidence about him, offensively and defensively.”

“I just never said ‘no,’ because I didn’t want to let anyone down.” —Kyle Guy, junior Virginia basketball guard

Guy’s move into the college basketball spotlight began during his sophomore season, both for his offensive firepower and for his hair. He maintained his signature man-bun throughout the year, earning the coiffure its own Twitter handle, @KGManBun (now Kyle Guy’s Buzz Cut), before cutting it off in mid-June of 2017.

Entering last season, the Cavaliers weren’t ranked among the top 25 teams in preseason polls, and pundits predicted they’d finish sixth in the ACC. But by mid-February, UVA had obtained the nation’s No. 1 ranking — the first time for a Cavaliers men’s basketball team since 1982. Guy maintained a 28-game streak of notching at least one three-pointer per contest, and he often led the team in scoring.

“The first time I came [to Charlottesville] and saw how fanatic everyone was about Virginia basketball, I thought, This is so scary, I could never do it,” says Jenkins, a former track athlete. “I don’t think he was expecting that much attention and pressure.”

As Virginia continued to defy expectations, that pressure grew. In the middle of practice one afternoon, Guy abruptly broke down, crying. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t talk to his teammates about it. Coach Bennett texted Guy to let him know that he was praying for him, and to reach out if he needed him. Former teammate Isaiah Wilkins, who spoke last year with ESPN about his struggles with anxiety and depression, says that Guy didn’t talk much about his experience. “I was kind of sad to see he’d been going through that the whole season,” Wilkins says.

Guy is “the type of person who likes to fight and fix it on his own,” Jenkins says. But he shared his struggles with her. She asked how long he’d felt this way and if he’d talked to anyone, particularly his family. He said no — he didn’t want them to worry.

“They’d always seen me as a strong kid who’s happy,” Guy says. “My mom would’ve bawled if she knew I was unhappy.”

Instead, Guy began meeting each week with Dr. Jason Freeman, one of two staff sports psychologists with Virginia athletics. At the recommendation of Freeman and the team doctor, Guy began taking an anti-anxiety medication. He didn’t have a specific diagnosis; rather, he felt the constant, heightened stress and anxiety of being a star player on the nation’s top-ranked team.

“I tend to feel responsible for everything, in basketball and in life,” Guy says. “There’s always someone saying something on Twitter, or an interview — I never get a chance to breathe.”

Following its defeat of Notre Dame on March 3, UVA became ACC regular-season champions and the first team in ACC history to win 17 conference games. A week later, the Cavaliers won the ACC Tournament. In the title game, Guy led the Wahoos with 16 points and was voted the tournament MVP.

On the eve of the NCAA tournament, 26.6 percent of brackets submitted to CBS Sports had selected UVA as national champions, more title nods than any other team in the Big Dance.

“I’m a very real person, but I’m not very realistic,” Guy says. “I am always chasing for something that may seem out of reach.”

But given their odds-defying regular season, a national title felt within reach for Guy and his teammates. From the first of his Facebook posts, written just before the UMBC loss:

“They say with great success comes great responsibility,” Guy wrote. “… they can’t teach you how to handle everything that comes with winning. They can’t prepare you for the hatred and support, or for basketball fans to forget that you’re a human being … You have always been a believer that pressure is just a figment of your imagination, as is fear. It only becomes real if you let it. Don’t buy in now … This has been one of the best seasons in the history of college basketball. Why stop now?”

Kyle Guy ACC Men’s Tournament MVP
Getty Images
Guy celebrates Virginia’s 2018 ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament championship with tournament MVP nod, too.

In April 2015, heading into his senior year of high school, Guy met former NBA player-turned-trainer Derick Grant. Grant was working with Guy’s future brother-in-law, Tyler Jenkins (now a guard at Bellarmine University). After watching Guy play one afternoon, Grant reached out via text, offering to train him. Right away, the two clicked. “I’ve worked with a lot of guys, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player who the game came to so naturally,” Grant says.

They would meet outside L.A. Fitness at 5 a.m., six days a week. Sometimes, Grant would arrive at 4:50 a.m. to find Guy, sitting in the driver’s seat of his car, asleep. While Guy was already known for his shooting prowess, Grant wanted to develop the guard’s shot creation and versatility on the floor.

The two continued working together once Guy arrived at Virginia. Slowly, their focus became as much about the mental aspect of the game as the mechanics. Midway through last season, Grant sensed that something wasn’t quite right. In high school, Guy texted Grant after almost every game, asking what he did wrong and how he could improve. Last year, it was Grant texting Guy, pointing out specifics about his game or just checking in. Most of the time, Guy didn’t answer. “That just wasn’t like him — red flags were going off,” Grant says.

Indeed, the loss to UMBC finally fractured Guy’s precarious veneer of confidence.

After the postgame press conference, Guy rode with his team back to the hotel, a police escort following their bus. His family waited in his room. When Guy saw them, he broke down again. He felt like he’d let everyone down: his friends, family, Virginia fans — the hopes of thousands, pressing down on him.

He turned his phone off for 48 hours. Eleven days later, he was named to the Associated Press (AP) All-America Third Team, making him the 10th player in Virginia history to earn All-American honors.

After taking several weeks to process the upset, he wrote the second Facebook post that he would publish on April 24.

“Everyone goes through adversity but not everyone lives there,” Guy wrote. “I don’t want this piece to be a pity party, a sermon or preachy, or even a feel-good story. I want this to be REAL. I want this to impact people and I want everyone to understand what my team and I went through.”

“I didn’t want to be that person that has to see a sports psychologist … [but] it didn’t just help me on the court, it helped me in life.” —Kyle Guy

Guy shared details of how, building up to the NCAA tournament, they knew not to overlook UMBC. But as soon as the jokes about a No. 1 seed losing to a 16-seed began, “at that very moment, I let the pressure sink into my mind,” Guy wrote. He explained how the loss felt almost surreal, how after Hunter had to drag him off of the court, he apologized to the seniors before sitting in the showers and crying. “There aren’t many people who know what it’s like to be the ONLY person (program in this instance) in the world to be on the wrong side of history … no one understands the sheer pain and fear to be ridiculed. Misery loves company.”

But Guy also wrote how the loss was a turning point. “It was also at this moment as I walked off the stage that I vowed to not quit and to not let this define me. That feeling of drowning while being able to see everyone else breathe — I was going to work my ass off to never feel this way again.”

“That was me opening up, so people knew that they weren’t alone,” Guy says. “Even if you think someone’s having the greatest life, being a No. 1 seed and a third-team All-American, they still go through stuff. Don’t be so quick to judge.”

Guy deleted all social media apps from his phone. He finished the semester, often walking around campus with his head down, earbuds in.

“In college, basketball aside, you go through a lot,” says Guy’s roommate and teammate Grant Kersey. “Then you add basketball — we just go out to breakfast and he gets recognized. People see when the lights are on, they don’t see the other side.”

When the semester ended, Grant drove to Charlottesville to pick up Guy. On the ride home, Grant reminded Guy that he couldn’t please everyone, or he’d be a hamster on a wheel. “When you are number one, and you have millions of eyes on you, you have a platform,” Grant reminded Guy. “And if you’re a pleaser, it can be a recipe for disaster. That wears on you.”

Grant and his family had recently moved to Naples, Florida, so in August, Guy and Jenkins drove down and spent a week there. Grant and Guy worked out together every day. They also watched sermons and TED talks and discussed Guy’s mental approach.

One of those TED talks was therapist Amy Morin’s The Secret to Becoming Mentally Strong. “I have this Facebook friend whose life seems perfect,” Morin begins the 15-minute talk, noting the envy and jealousy that stem from social media scanning. Morin shares her own struggles, including the sudden loss of her mother, her first husband, and her father-in-law.

“The only way to get through uncomfortable emotions, to deal with them, is you have to go through them,” Morin says. “To let yourself feel sad and then move on, and to gain confidence in your ability to deal with that discomfort.”

“I think initially, he wanted to sweep [the NCAA tournament loss, the season’s stress] under the rug, but now he’s embraced it and the emotions that come with that,” Grant says. “He was still kind of in a gray area, emotionally, but I could tell he was on his way back up.”

Kyle Guy with coach Tony Bennett
Amber Searls-USA TODAY Sports
Virginia men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett (right), along with other campus resources, have helped Guy get to a better place mentally.

Just before 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 4, Guy sat inside the football team meeting room at UVA’s McCue Center. He’d arrived to moderate an inaugural student-athlete Mental Health Panel, designed to encourage conversation among UVA student athletes about the stigmas of mental health, and how to work through them.

When planning who might speak, “we wanted to bring Kyle in because we knew it would draw a bigger crowd,” says sophomore Nicola Ferris, one of the co-organizers. She emailed Guy, who happily agreed to take part.

Guy opened the discussion with the 40-plus attendees by detailing the aftermath following his team’s final game. He talked about the death threats, the hate mail, and how he and his teammates — young men playing a game they love — were the recipients of such intense vitriol. He still hadn’t completely recovered from the season’s abrupt end. However, he had found ways to work through those pressures and move forward.

“Everyone struggles through something,” says UVA senior baseball pitcher Chesdin Harrington, who attended the event. “We talked a lot [at the panel] about how, as athletes, you’re expected to be mentally tough and to perform at the highest level, continuously, without asking for help. But you have to let things go and ask for help, whether it’s a teammate, a friend, or a professional.”

Initially, Guy was reticent to see Freeman. After their first meeting last year, “I didn’t want to be that person that has to see a sports psychologist,” Guy says. But Jenkins pressed him to continue the conversations. They began to meet weekly, a process they’ve continued. “It didn’t just help me on the court, it helped me in life,” Guy adds.

“I want to let the guys know, it’s OK to have doubts, it’s OK to be anxious at times. You can be that way and still pursue all that you are worth.” —Tony Bennett, Virginia men’s basketball head coach

Freeman has worked at UVA in various therapeutic and research capacities for 21 years. Along with his colleague, associate sports psychologist Dr. Karen Egan, he spends hours each day talking individually with many of the 700 UVA student-athletes.

“My main headline is that mental health is health,” Freeman says. “So, to separate that or make it lesser than or different than health creates stigma and barriers to actually treating anything that’s going on with the person.”

According to Freeman, UVA uses an all-encompassing approach to supporting student health, whether addressing sport concussion, learning issues and how they affect performance, mental health issues and how they affect well-being or performance psychology, and other areas.

A one-seed’s first-round loss in the men’s NCAA tournament was unprecedented, so there was no precedent for coping. Coach Bennett did his best to help.

“At a church service I attended, the pastor talked about this idea of ‘trembling courage over measured cowardice.’ I like that,” Bennett says. “I want to let the guys know, it’s OK to have doubts, it’s OK to be anxious at times. You can be that way and still pursue all that you are worth, as long as you know that you can live with whatever comes your way, success or failure. That was a great lesson in last year’s situation — you are still OK. And we will still go after it.”

Kyle Guy and Isaiah Wilkins in the NCAA Tournament 2018.
Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
Former Virginia teammate Isaiah Wilkins (right, with Guy) opened up to ESPN in Feb. 2018 about his struggles with anxiety and depression.

Before each game, Guy walks out, crouches at mid-court, and says a prayer. He looks at the crowd around him, taking it all in: the fans, the hecklers, the lights, the cameras — an atmosphere of adrenaline and expectation.

“I chase the highs, for sure,” Guy says. “But not adrenaline, like I need to jump off the cliff. More utopian.”

Playing at home against Towson University on Nov. 6, Guy missed several open jump shots in the game’s early minutes. During a first-half timeout, despite the Cavaliers’ lead, his expression was a grimace of frustration. He finished the game with only five points.

Five days later, as fifth-ranked UVA faced George Washington University, Guy was rejuvenated. With four minutes to play in the first half, he drove to the basket, split two defenders, and nailed a reverse lay-up. As the crowd cheered, he grinned toward UVA’s bench, shrugging his shoulders with a Steph Curry-esque “I-don’t-know-how-that-happened-either” expression. Guy and fellow backcourt starter Ty Jerome scored 20 points apiece, accounting for more than half of UVA’s total offense.

Guy dominated in the Cavaliers’ final non-conference game before ACC play, setting career highs in points (30), three-pointers (7), and rebounds (8) in a 36-point win over Marshall.

The challenges and triumphs of UVA’s redemptive season have meant accepting that his basketball journey is no longer his own. There’s no fix for the fact that so many people have invested their emotions into how he and the Cavaliers perform, but he can help himself as best he can.

“Since last year was so rough for me, I approached this year differently,” Guy says. “I’m taking more of a business aspect. This is my job, I want to use it as a vehicle to success. I still have love for it, but there’s more days that are hard for me to get through than there used to be in basketball.”

Mentally, that progression has been steady. After a summer of healing, his continued work with Freeman, and his own awareness and openness in dealing with pressure, Guy has found himself in a much better place, including being more open with his family and close friends.

“I still have love for it, but there’s more days that are hard for me to get through than there used to be in basketball.” —Kyle Guy

“I wish that there was this one big moment for me, but there wasn’t,” Guy says. “It took a lot of hard work, and the people around me helping me through it. The more I stayed in a routine and made mistakes with it, the more I learned about how I was going to cope with it. And it gradually got better. I haven’t had a panic attack in a very long time. I’m thankful, and I’m happy that I figured it out.”

Early in the season, Guy considered posting a third Facebook entry. He wrote it, Jenkins edited again. But the day before posting, Jenkins questioned his intent. “Are you posting this for you, or for other people?” Jenkins asked. “Because if you are doing this, it should be for you — and no one else.” He decided not to post it.

Now, Guy records his thoughts in a journal, both handwritten and on his computer. If he wants to post or check on his social media account — which he still does, albeit sporadically — he logs on from his computer. Guy’s most revealing online appearances now are alongside Jenkins on her YouTube vlogs, which she says are meant to be “fun,” offer insight into their lives together. The apps are still absent from his phone.

Off the court, Guy relishes life’s daily routines. He has memorized almost every Disney film and he loves binge-watching TV series: Lost, Game of Thrones, Friends. According to Kersey, Guy is an encyclopedia of random facts — ask him the most common squirrel in North America, he’ll answer immediately. And while he loves hanging out with Jenkins or his teammates (his apartment with Kersey and UVA football punter Nash Griffin has three TVs: one for sports, one for movies, one for Fortnite), Guy has learned to take time for himself.

“If I said ‘no’ to anything, I’d always have these feelings of guilt of letting people down, but I’d hide it with my Hakuna Matata attitude,” Guy says, referencing the line from the Lion King. “Now, I’m still Hakuna Matata at heart, but I’m trying to show more real emotions.”

Guy continues to be tested publicly. On Dec. 14, Barstool Sports’ Duke Blue Devils Twitter account tweeted about a GoFundMe campaign begun by one of the Head Line Monitors of the Cameron Crazies. The campaign aimed to raise $550 to bring former UMBC guard KJ Maura, who played all 40 minutes in the upset victory over UVA, to Cameron Indoor Stadium for the Blue Devils’ matchup against the Cavaliers on Jan. 19, 2019. The last line on the fundraising page read: “Contribute some money and let’s make Kyle Guy weep.”

Guy read the tweet. But rather than post an angry response or ignore it, he took the jab in stride. He retweeted it, adding, “Wahoos, let’s make this happen.”

Several UVA donors contributed, the fund reached the total amount, and Maura will likely be standing among the Crazies in two weeks.

“I wanted point to out that we’re not afraid to face what happened,” Guy says. “No one seems to know how to let it go, so we might as well relish the moment. I don’t really care who’s in the stands.”

He admits that his response would have been much different a year ago.

“I think it would’ve cut deeper on an external level before,” Guy says. “Because it does cut deep on an internal level for me, but I know how to handle it better.

“In other words, I’m OK with it now.”

Read more: sbnation.com

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: first, game, grant, jenkins, mdash, says, they, through

The Best Cycling Gear We Tested This Year

January 7, 2019 By Will Robins Leave a Comment

My job is to test a product hard, then move on to the next thing to see how it all stacks up. As a result, I test piles of cycling equipment in a year. But I keep very little of it, returning most to the manufacturers and donating what they don’t want back to a local National Interscholastic Cycling Association league.

Of course, there are products that either get me so excited with their innovations or so dramatically improve my riding experience that I choose to hang onto them, often plunking down my own cash to do so. It might be overreaching to call these the best products of 2018—some have just come to market and some have been out for a season or two. What I can say, however, is that this is the gear that made it into my permanent rotation.

Bontrager Ion 200 RT/Flare RT Light Set ($114)

best of 2018(Courtesy Bontrager)

Given the increasing frequency with which cyclists are hit by cars these days, I will not ride on the road anymore without lights—day or night. Fortunately, Bontrager’s Ion/Flare combo set makes that easy. Though the lights are maybe twice the size of a playing die, thanks to high-power Cree LEDs and carefully designed reflectors, each throws a huge beam, with a 200-lumen white light up front and a 90-lumen red light in the rear. On very long straightaways, such as the lead-up to Mount Lemmon in Tucson, Arizona, the claimed visibility of up to two kilometers seemed about right to me. The lights are fully weather sealed (yep, I’ve used them in downpours), charge via micro USBs, clip to and detach from a bar or post easily by way of a built-in rubber belt, and even auto-adjust to changing conditions, like going solid when you hit a tunnel and then returning to blinking back in daylight. And I love that even after the battery is drained, there’s still a 30-minute battery save mode that keeps the lights going till you’re hopefully safely off the street.

Buy now

Goodyear Escape Bicycle Tires ($75)

best of 2018(Courtesy Goodyear)

When automotive tire giant Goodyear entered the cycling market earlier this year, I was pretty ho hum about the development. Tires are getting so good these days that I thought Goodyear would have to do something special to make an impression. But after a year of riding a number of the new treads, I have to admit that the company’s designs are pretty darn impressive. In general, the tires sport rubber compounds that are surprisingly grippy yet long wearing and resilient. None of the four models I’ve ridden are exceptionally light, but they are competitive.

The standout model for me is the Escape ($75) mountain tire, an all-around trail model with evenly spaced midsize knobs that have proven fast rolling but still Velcro sticky in conditions ranging from dry hardpack to squishy loam. I was at first disappointed that 2.35 inches was the biggest diameter, though these are bigger than many models in that range. Besides, Goodyear has since launched a 2.6. I’ve also been impressed with the County ($70), a 35c gravel model with a slick top and microknobs on the sides for a grip that I have subjected to nasty, sharp desert conditions for months without a single flat. I do wish it came in some wider options, as well as 650B, though I imagine that will follow. The all-mountain-oriented Newton and the asphalt-leaning Eagle All Road have left similarly outstanding impressions

Buy now

Berd Spokes ($8 per spoke)

best of 2018(Courtesy Berd)

One of the most unusual and convincing products I tried this year came courtesy of a wheel builder and friend of mine, Mike Curiak at Lace Mine 29 , who equipped one of our tester mountain bikes with a set of carbon hoops built with Berd fabric spokes. Yes, you read that right: the spokes are made of a polyethylene (i.e., plastic) material dubbed PolyLight that resembles Dyneema or sail cloth for its combination of high tear and cut resistance and very low weight. According to Berd, its spokes are between 30 and 200 percent lighter than a range of standard steel spokes—but 50 to 100 percent stronger. Compared to a set of comparable wheels, 29-inch Enve 640s to be exact, these wheels, with 36-millimeter-wide Nox Kitsuma carbon rims and DT Swiss 240s hubs, were a half pound lighter. But weight is only a part of the story. Because of the elasticity in the spokes, the wheels have a springy, energetic ride unlike anything else I’ve tried. They make the bike feel explosive and frisky, to the point that I’ve found myself climbing tech and railing corners with new confidence and exuberance. We’ve also been beating the hell out of these wheels since mid-October, and they are still true.

Buy now

100% Speedtrap Sunglasses ($185 to $205)

best of 2018(Courtesy 100%)

This moto-eyewear company has burst onto the cycling scene in the last year or two courtesy of its sponsorship of three-time road world champ Peter Sagan. (I mean, he wore moto goggles around his neck to collect his cobble for winning this year’s Paris-Roubaix.) Don’t get me wrong: the product is every bit worthy of the champ, with my favorite model, the Sagan-edition Speedtrap ($230), featuring huge coverage, adjustable temples and nosepiece, and ridiculously flashy red-on-red mirror styling. Optics are crystal, and wind is stopped dead, which, for someone like me with dry eyes, is a godsend. And the S2 and Speedcraft models are just as good. Performance aside, I can’t help but think that Sagan is single-handedly helping to make brazen, mirrored, shield-style sunglasses great again.

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Kitsbow Front Range Merino Sweatshirt ($150)

best of 2018(Courtesy Kitsbow)

Once again this soft-goods company from Petaluma, California, hits it out of the park with a seemingly simple design that turns out to be the most comfy, high-performing, best-looking piece of riding apparel of the year. This long-sleeved top fits like a well-tailored shirt, keeps you as warm and dry as the techiest race pieces on the market, but feels as soft and cozy as that favorite old rugby jersey. The nylon face fabric is somehow both stretchy and rugged, shrugging off errant branches and rocks from the occasional crash, while the Schoeller panels on the elbows and shoulders are even burlier. I carry this midweight piece in my pack on high-mountain summer days, wear it almost nonstop in the fall and spring over a light base, or even layer it for warmth in winter. And the merino interior means you can wear it day after day without a whiff of odor.

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Shimano XTR 9100 (Price varies)

best of 2018(Courtesy Shimano)

I was stunned when I realized that 21 of our 25 test mountain bikes for 2019 were equipped with SRAM components. Of the remaining four with Shimano, only one had the new XTR 9100 group (the Pivot Mach 5.5, thank you very much Chris Cochalis), and yet that’s the drivetrain that won my heart. Look, SRAM has done an excellent job of building and winning the 1x market, and Shimano has fallen way behind, but I am relieved to see the Japanese manufacturer has finally started making a comeback because 1) it makes hard-wearing gear that typically just goes and goes, and 2) we need competition to drive innovation. You can pour over all the details of the group here, but suffice it to say that the 10-51 cassette is massive, the shifting is silky, and pedaling is as smooth as a butter churn. Meanwhile, the brakes are stunning to look at, and they feel like they’ll never fail. Will this be the beginning of a mountain-bike resurgence for Shimano? Who knows—hopefully it presages fast releases of similar tech in XT and SLX. Either way, if I was building my dream mountain bike, it would be equipped with the 9100.

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Henty Enduro 2.0 Hydration Pack ($150)

best of 2018(Courtesy Henty)

Waist packs (butt bags, fanny packs, call them what you like) are all the rage, but they don’t work for me because you either have to ratchet them so tight that it’s hard to breathe or they bounce around like a drunken Olympian at the end of a badly adjusted springboard. Enter the Henty Enduro, which mates the low, off-the-back fit of a butt pack with the stability of a full-back hydration bag. Basically, this is a waist pack on steroids, with all the weight carried low on the lumbar, with space for a three-liter bladder and more, and huge, zippered, wraparound belt wings mated to a pared-down, mesh shoulder upper. The top half of the pack provides stability when you’re slamming trails without the sweaty, clammy, awkward feel of all that weight on your back. And Henty’s clamshell, zippered pack design has plenty of space inside for a day of necessities, plus all manner of straps, daisy chains, and mesh pockets for sundries. Best of all, this second edition comes with a tailor-made, three-liter HydraPak reservoir. My only niggle: the strap on the envelope flap that keeps it all down should be three inches longer, which would make it easier to lash down bulky bits and pieces. Still, for one-day outings, I never reach for anything else.

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Blackburn Mammoth Flip Pump ($45)

best of 2018(Courtesy Blackburn)

For years, the Wayside Hybrid floor pump was my go-to for backcountry endeavors, thanks to its combo of high volume and built-in pressure gauge. It’s discontinued now, I assume because it felt as heavy as a small barbell. Recently, my wife has converted me to the new Mammoth, which pushes very nearly the same volume of air but weighs about half as much as the Wayside. And I have to admit that, with a clean swivel design that opens to a foot peg, a long flexible hose that makes airing in the field easy, and a full-metal shaft for durability, this pump is every bit as good as my old standby—except a lot lighter. I miss the pressure measure but, truthfully, have been carrying an independent gauge anyway.

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Dynaplug Megapill Plug Kit ($75)

best of 2018(Courtesy Dynaplug)

Thanks to Dynaplug, I almost can’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve actually suffered a flat in the field and installed a tube. For all but the most egregious of holes and rips, this little kit—which has a snub nose, a hard tip, and gummy plugs to seal up tears so you can retain your tubeless setup—is pretty much all you need. I’ll admit that it’s unnerving the first few times you have to shove the metal, plug-wielding proboscis through the damaged tire casing, thereby causing a bigger hole. But I’ve yet to come across a puncture I couldn’t seal (though one large gash took two plugs). And while there are now lots of plug kits out there, I love Dynaplug’s aluminum, pill-shaped tool, which not only makes fixes easier but also neatly houses everything you need for a quick fix. A word of advice: unless you exclusively ride road, go for the three-pack Megaplug upgrade as the larger diameter will make sealing holes simpler almost every time.

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Specialized S-Works Prevail II with ANGi ($250)

best of 2018(Courtesy Specialized)

Last only because it was the final product of 2018 that I received and I haven’t had time to fully test it, Specialized’s ANGi technology makes the list because the idea is so expansive and its execution so clean and sublime. Specialized partnered with MIPS to develop a new application of the rotational force-resisting layer, in which the support framework is integrated into each separate anchor point to keep the infrastructure minimal, the ventilation high, and the overall helmet weight tiny (266 grams). But what really sets this helmet apart is the quarter-size electronic sensor on the nape of the neck, which not only tracks all your ride metrics and reports them to Specialized’s proprietary app (automatically synced with Strava), but it also allows a preselected list of contacts to follow you as you ride—and contacts them, by text or e-mail, if it discerns that you’ve been involved in a crash. (Tracking and notifications require an annual, subscription-based service.) Specialized says that in a year or more of testing, the system has returned zero false positives. While I love the fit and feel of the high-end Prevail, the ANGi sensor will be available in six Specialized helmets, road and mountain, down to $130 retail, and it will also be sold as an add-on ($50) for most Specialized helmets moving forward. How can you argue with safety?

Buy now

Read more: outsideonline.com

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: been, high, irsquove, like, mountain, pack, them, they, which, year

The Secret Geniuses Behind Your Favorite Gear

December 8, 2018 By Will Robins Leave a Comment

Let’s just say Patagonia’s current Black Hole 45-liter duffel is your favorite piece of luggage. It packs up into its own pocket, for one thing. It’s also lightweight but burly, waterproof but not a plastic bag. It can be carried as a duffel when you’re toting it to the car and as a backpack when you’re walking to festival camping. When you fly, it’s your carry-on. Something about this inanimate object spoke to you in the gear shop. And ever since, it’s proven itself indispensable. 

In every way, the Black Hole duffel screams Patagonia, what with its long-lasting design and sustainable messaging. But here’s the thing—it’s not purely a Patagonia product. Back in 2014, the environmentally conscious folks at Yvon Chouinard’s brand were struggling with something they didn’t like about an earlier iteration of the pack: wasteful packaging. If you were to buy the duffel at a Patagonia store back then, it would have come in a large plastic bag, which was anathema to the green ethos of the brand. So since Patagonia likes to focus its internal efforts on designing sustainable and rugged gear, not packaging, it asked a handful of independent design firms to pitch some ideas. Patagonia didn’t want any plastic packaging; that was about it for the directions.

A Seattle-area design shop called Ideology took an ambitious approach to the rather narrow assignment. As it sees it, packaging is part of the product, and the product is ultimately an experience. What if, the team asked Patagonia, the new Black Hole rolled up into its own pocket, and that pouch became the packaging? No plastic wrap, no recycled cardboard. Hell, no hangtags. Zero waste. Patagonia loved the idea—so much, in fact, that it asked Ideology to partner on a complete redesign of the duffel.

gear(Courtesy Patagonia)

Together they blew up the old Black Hole, sourced new fabrics, and reconfigured the straps. Every move made the Black Hole better. It’s still a stupid-simple gear hauler, but Patagonia looked to Ideology thinking it’d get a nifty cardboard sleeve, and instead the collaboration kicked in and the company ended up with an entirely new duffel. This, and not designing products from the ground up in a vacuum, is how larger projects often come about for independent design shops, which primarily function as problems-solvers, making existing gear better.

The Black Hole was a crushing success, and today items that stuff into their own pockets is a theme with Patagonia. And yet almost nobody has heard of Ideology—or the scores of independent product-design shops like it worldwide that help create the gear you love. Nobody keeps track of exactly how much design work is contributed to by indie shops, but Ideology’s head of strategy Aaron Ambuske would guess that number is around 10 to 15 percent of truly new products.

Indie product design is inherently a dark field. That’s in part because most big outdoor companies have in-house product-design staffs, too. And it behooves the brand to have you, Mr. and Ms. Gear Lover, believe that every bit of innovation is birthed there. This makes it difficult for the indie shops to market what they do. The shops that I talked with only put about 10 percent of their projects on their websites. Because of that, new business typically comes from existing relationships and word of mouth. This makes sense. Beyond the sensitivities of the nondisclosure agreements indie firms sign when they take on work, shouting from the rooftops that they are the true creators of a successful product isn’t going to please the company whose logo is stamped on the thing. It’s also insincere. “If any independent product designers tell you that they built the whole project, I’d say they were lying,” says Zac West, creative lead at Ideology. “From inception to the factory, it’s a collaboration.”

Maybe, like Yeti Coolers, you’ve released a great series of rotomolded plastic models and you need to tap experts in the fabric world for a new soft-tote line. Or perhaps it’s time to update the suspension on your mountain-bike company’s long-travel 29er. Maybe you’re a shark-tank inventor with Kickstarter cash but no clue how to take the doohickey to fruition. That’s where independent product-design shops come in. Matt Powell, a senior industry adviser with the NPD Group, sees more cross-pollination and a willingness to tap indie design shops in the outdoor world, where many brands already share technology and products elements like, for example, a Polartec waterproof-breathable membrane or a Vibram sole. “In the outdoor industry, as opposed to the athletic industry, the brands tend to share technologies, and that makes them more likely to outsource to a shop,” he says. “Part of it has to do with scale. There are so many small brands in the outdoor space, and it’s easier for them to outsource some R&D. It gives them access to new ideas without huge capital investments.” 

To be clear, not every outdoor manufacturer hires out. Many lean on their internal teams. That can be the perfect system for a ski company, which has deep institutional knowledge, owns the factory, and knows every material supplier in the business on a first-name basis. The need for external help often comes into play when brands want to expand into new product lines or break from tradition or when they recognize their weaknesses. The same company that makes Rossignol and Dynastar skis also makes Lange boots. It knows exactly how to mold a boot that fits and performs well, but it admittedly seeks out help for aesthetics. The nonretail boots that elite skiers race on are kind of ugly and blocky. Consumer boots need a sculpted look.

gear(Aaron Ambuske)

“On the ski side of the business, outside of graphics, we do everything in-house,” says Lange’s global brand director, Thor Verdunk. “But for boots, we tap into smaller firms. A little design group in Paris makes the lines line up. They come to us and say, ‘Hey, here’s a new concept.’” Verdunk explains that  Rossignol has never received a finished product from a design firm, but a collaboration produced the gridded look of the Rossignol Alltrack LT boot. “Not only did it look cool, but the design let us shave weight and fine-tune the stiffness,” he says. "It’s a coworking process.”

Unlike vertically aligned manufacturers, shops like Ideology employ people with diverse backgrounds. Maybe the founders came from the fabric world, but then as they ramped up, they hired 3-D modeling experts, a carbon-fiber savant, and a seasoned prototyper. The biggest design shops in the global outdoor space spend most of their time and resources working on far more mainstream projects. Target Design, a German firm that’s worked on Dynafit and Marker ski bindings, also added elements to the Porsche Boxster and a BMW ergonomic study. Claudio Franco design, in Italy, works on Atomic ski boots, Pinarello bikes, and incredibly ornate and delicate artistic light fixtures. Which is to say: they’ve got range. And by tapping into that range, a narrowly focused camp-stove or tent or headlamp manufacturer is connecting to materials and techniques beyond their workaday ken.

Consider the example of MSR, which turned to Ideology as it ramped up a redesign of its line of snow tools—avalanche shovels, anchors, snow saws, and the like. One product, a simple snow anchor known as a fluke (because it’s the size and shape of a small flounder), lent itself to a blend of materials. It’s just an aluminum frame with trampoline decking made from urethane-coated nylon. MSR knew aluminum. Ideology knew urethane-coated nylon. Now, thanks to the collaboration, it’s the lightest fluke on the market.

Sometimes, says Ambuske, a brand wants the design shop to stay surgically targeted on a goal and only check in once it has something to show. Other times a collaboration involves frequent Skype calls and constant back-and-forth. Regardless of the nature of the relationship between an outdoor company and a design firm, inspiration for new ideas can come from unexpected sources. Take the recent experience of Utah’s Rocketship, an indie design shop at the top of its game that was tasked with figuring out how to house a two-burner alcohol-burning stove (by whom, they can’t say). The finished product could potentially avert hundreds of C02-poisoning deaths a year in developing nations, but for it to succeed, it had to function differently than your mom and dad’s old box stove. Easy-to-replace parts and a fuel tank with a gauge were musts. Rocketship began by stripping away everything but the two individual burners. Then it found its insight sitting in the shop, in the form of one of those DeWalt jobsite boom boxes that are protected by metal exoskeletons. The Rocketship designers thought, What if we encased the burners, pipes, windscreen, and fuel tank in a similar skeleton? The product—the name and brand are still embargoed—will launch in the next year. The story makes sense once you learn a bit more about Rocketship. “All the product designers here are Eagle Scouts,” says director Michael Horito. “And we all work as Scout leaders. We can’t help but look at gear with a critical eye.”

Ultimately, it’s that type of passion that drives product innovation. David Earle spent most of his career as an in-house product designer in the bike industry at brands like Bontrager, Santa Cruz, Specialized, and Trek. When he left to start his own shop, the Sotto Group, he made a list of everything that worked well with mountain-bike suspension designs—and then set out to beat them. He didn’t wait for a client to commission the work; he just dove in. The result was the original Switch suspension design that he later developed in collaboration with Yeti Cycles. It’s not hyperbolic to say that the Switch (and later, Yeti’s in-house, updated Switch Infinity) is one of the highest-performance suspension designs on the market. “Sometimes brands will come to me and say they want something different,” says Earle. “You can always make something different. It’s harder to make something better.”

Of course, nobody gives the independent product designers props publicly. And that’s exactly how they want it.

Read more: outsideonline.com

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: design, gear, into, itrsquos, outdoor, product, shops, their, they

I Got My Hair Cut Like Timothée Chalamet

December 2, 2018 By Will Robins Leave a Comment

What do Timothée Chalamet, Harry Styles, young Leonardo DiCaprio, and Brendan Fraser in The Mummy have in common? They all have effortlessly charming, almost greasy-looking hair, sure. But more importantly, they are all men with haircuts that have made queer and lesbian women question their sexuality long after they thought that question was answered.

I know this because I am that woman. And Timothée Chalamet’s haircut is that haircut.

Photo: Kristina Bumphrey/Starpix/REX/Shutterstock.

I’m obsessed with TC’s hair because, well, of course I am. His genius mop on a well-chiseled face has made me seriously wonder if I’m attracted to him. This is not the first time it’s happened: When I was younger, Hugh Grant and Gerard Way had me sincerely believing I was straight; as recently as two years ago, I went through what I can only call a Harry Styles “phase” (damn those Gucci suits). But while I can appreciate they’re all attractive and talented in their own ways, I’m not actually into any of them. What I am attracted to, and I can’t emphasize this enough, is Timmy’s delightful head of hair. When The Cut declared earlier this year that his is the “It” cut among queer women right now, I thought, Duh.

But what is it about TC’s hair (seen at its most TC in the red suit in November 2017) that lesbians (a.k.a. me) love so much? And how has this unwashed, messy style genuinely made me think, Maybe I’m actually bi? (For clarity, I’m not.) It’s the classic lesbian conundrum — do I want them or do I want to be them? — made all the more complicated by being atop a man’s head.

To find out the answer, I bit the bullet and got it for myself.

Ever since I came out and learned the terminology, I’ve identified as femme. By that I mean I’ve embraced the femininity I once rejected as an integral part of my identity, one that is constantly queered through my lived experience. This means I’ve never had The Haircut so many other queer women have where, I’m told, it feels like you’re freeing yourself from the shackles of enforced femininity and heterosexuality. The closest I’ve come is at 19, when I replicated the semi-neat bob I had in preschool. I did it myself with kitchen scissors in the sink of my tiny dorm room at university. Cutting my hair short, or off completely, never felt right for me.

Equally, I’ve primarily been attracted to women who aren’t femme; women with shorn-hair aesthetics that sit between what mainstream fashion views as “androgynous” and butchness. While the world at large may not, I love and cherish non-normative womanhood in all its presentations and, for me at least, a lot of how that manifests comes down to hair.

Walking to the site of my transformation (the wonderful Chop-Chop in London’s Old Street station — highly recommend), I thought about how we have gendered hair. Hair is inherently genderless, yet we have strict understandings of styles. While trends come and go, what is seen as the Man’s Man™ haircut is something short and controlled. On the other end of the spectrum, Womanly Hair™ is long and loose. The deliberately-messy, slightly-too-long haircuts on very conventionally attractive men are distinct because they sit in the middle, toying with a femininity rarely seen (let alone celebrated) in cis, primarily straight men.

After 40 minutes or so in the stylist’s chair, I feel like I’m coming from the other direction — I’m suddenly toying with a masculinity I’ve always been drawn to, but never embodied before. I love it. I don’t recognize myself. I feel confused by my own reflection, but not in a way I want to reject. I spend the next few hours with friends from work who all love it (like… a lot. Maybe they fancy me?), nervously tousling and fiddling with it, waiting for one of them to drop the polite facade and tell me it doesn’t suit me. None of them does.

The next day I try and find my feet in this same-same but different body. I dig deep in my wardrobe to find what my friends and I dubbed the Call Me By Your Name shirt, which feels appropriate. I keep looking at myself in the mirror. One minute I look like Elaine the Pain from Tracy Beaker, the next, KD Lang. Then it’s Hugh Grant in Notting Hill. For one short, hopeful moment, I think I look like Chris from Christine and The Queens. I feel equal parts confident and shy, like I’m masquerading as someone I want to be.

I’m still getting used to it. It was a strangely significant leap for me, to visibly go from comfortably femme to something a bit more, well, gay. And I somehow thought it would transform into being curly, shiny, and reckless. My hair is not that powerful — it’s definitely not “once-in-a-generation.”

TC’s hair isn’t really the “It” cut for winter; it’s just that people have noticed a particular instance of something lesbians and queer women more broadly have been doing with their hair for years. The “heartthrob haircut ” is just the most celebrated example of the effortful effortlessness that reads as soft and romantic but also too cool/hot/busy writing poetry/playing in a shitty band to care. It’s very, very dyke camp. And obsessing over it is the closest I’ve gotten to sincerely taking part in a cultural conversation that normally passes me by, one reserved for girls (straight) and gays (male). But it’s also literally just a haircut that I’m reading too much into — and I love it.

This story was originally published on Refinery29 UK.

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Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: hair, irsquom, irsquove, itrsquos, like, mdash, more, them, they, women

What Happened with Rowan University’s Sports Bra Ban

November 27, 2018 By Will Robins Leave a Comment

Two weeks ago, the Rowan University men’s and women’s cross country teams gathered on their school’s track for an afternoon workout—a grueling set of mile repeats. It was warm for a late October afternoon, with temperatures in the 60s in Glassboro, New Jersey. Some of the runners took off their shirts and finished the workout in their sports bras. (Some male runners also ran bare-chested.) “I was holding a 5:45 or 5:50 during the mile repeats. We were dead and sweaty,” says Rowan senior and team member Hannah Vendetta. 

Team members say that one of the football coaches, whose team was practicing at the same time on the field inside the track, approached the women’s cross country coach and told him that the runners were distracting the football players. 

A few days later, after an athletics department meeting, the cross country teams learned that per university guidelines, they all had to wear shirts during practice. Also, the cross country teams were no longer allowed to use the track while the football team practiced, according to university policy that only one team can use a training facility at a time. Instead, if they wanted to run in the afternoon, they would need to make do with the Glassboro High School track across the street. Or they could change their practice time. 

Rowan student and former cross-country runner Gina Capone saw that her teammates were frustrated. Enraged, she posted an article on Odyssey, a self-publishing platform, on November 7. In her piece, she took the Athletics Department to task, citing unfair treatment of the cross country team, policing women’s bodies, and perpetuating a “boys will be boys” culture on campus. 

“Women, whether they have a six-pack or not, run in sports bras because, quite frankly, it’s hot outside. We run in sports bras because our workouts are demanding, challenging, and vigorous,” Capone wrote. “We do not run in a sports bra as a way to show off our bodies in attempts to distract men.”

By the next morning, Capone’s post had gone viral, throwing Rowan University into the spotlight on the eve of hosting the NCAA Division III regional cross country championships. 

The incident serves as a reminder that nearly 20 years after Brandi Chastain scored the winning goal in the women’s World Cup final, tore off her shirt, and celebrated on the field with her teammates, a woman’s right to be seen in a sports bra is still hotly debated. “I never want to distract anyone. I was just showing up at practice and trying to do my best,” says Vendetta. But instead, she and her teammates were reprimanded. 

When I first saw Capone’s article in my social feeds, I honestly thought it was a parody. It took me a few minutes to realize that it wasn’t an Onion story. If the football players aren’t paying attention during practice, that should be an issue between the football team and its coaching staff. But of course, women are still being told what they can and can’t wear based on what men think. And for most female athletes, that’s hardly a revelation. 

“It doesn’t just affect girls on this team, but all female athletes and females in general,” Capone said in a phone interview. “What we’re wearing isn’t the problem. It’s how the guys are responding that’s the problem.” On social media, prominent members of the running community echoed that sentiment. In a tweet, two-time Olympian Kara Goucher said, “No lie—I had to bring a note signed by my mom that said, ‘my daughter has permission to run around in her underwear’ after a group of us ran in sports bras at practice. That was 1995, I thought things had changed.”

Well isn’t that just the perfect micro example of how normalized it is in our country to control women’s bodies because men don’t want to take responsibility for their own. From sports bra legality, to dress codes, to responsibility for sexual assault, to reproductive rights.

— Lauren Fleshman (@laurenfleshman) November 9, 2018

The university has its own side of the story. The school insists it was never about the sports bras, and a university spokesperson said in a phone interview that the issue came down to facility usage. 

Rowan University has a policy that only one team can use a venue at a time. So when the football team is practicing at Rowan’s stadium, they have priority use of the facility, which includes the surrounding track. (The university released a statement on November 8 explaining its policy.) Cross country is scheduled to practice after football, explains Joe Cardona, vice president for university relations at Rowan. Instead of waiting for football practice to end, “If the coach wants to call practice earlier in the day, they use the high school track,” he says. 

Cardona says the Athletics Department wanted to address the one-team-per-venue policy in the meeting. The sports bra issue came up as a sidebar to the conversation. 

And according to a statement from university president Ali A. Houshmand, all athletes are required to wear shirts, even during practices. The “shirts required” rule is a long-standing verbal policy that applies to male and female athletes across all sports. “The verbal policy was adopted to create standards for all student athletes. We want to keep standards above a normal rec or intramural team. You’re playing a NCAA sport,” says Cardona. 

But thanks to the outrage sparked by Capone’s article, the university has responded by saying that it will create a new written policy, reversing the old stance: “There will be no restriction of sports bras without shirts as practice apparel,” Houshmand says. “By clarifying our support of women’s athletics and its student-athletes, Rowan strongly affirms its commitment to ensuring that women are able to train and perform at the highest levels.”

Vendetta says she appreciates the gesture. “I respect the fact that the University released a statement. It shows that they are listening and care about their student athletes,” she says. But while the new policy is a step forward, there’s still the issue of practice facilities. 

If the debate is really about the Athletics Department’s one-venue-one-team policy, the evidence is shaky. The football team has access to other facilities: in 2015, Rowan completed construction on a new $4.6 million athletics complex, which includes practice fields for the football, soccer, field hockey, and lacrosse teams. There’s only one track on campus.

And Rowan students and alumni, including former cross country and track and field team captains, have disputed the one-team-one-venue policy on social media. They say that they’ve practiced on the track at the same time as the football and lacrosse teams countless times, and it’s never been an issue. Since the policy was enforced loosely at best in the past, it seem unlikely that it’s the root cause of the controversy.

From the year 2010-2014, this policy was never enforced. We had always shared the facility. As a former captain, and student-athlete, I am so disappointed to see the sports bra rule still in play, but now to cover it up with this, is extremely disheartening.

— Grace Kaler (@GraceKaler) November 9, 2018

While the university says it’s serious about enabling female athletes to train and perform at the highest levels, relegating the cross-country team to lesser facilities sends the wrong message. But sports bras and facility usage aside, this incident speaks to a larger systemic problem. Instead of men—and in this case, the football players and coaching staff—taking responsibility for their own behavior, women are being punished and blamed. The pervasive practice of policing and sexualizing women’s bodies and holding women accountable for the actions of men has a long-lasting impact. It teaches women to be ashamed of their bodies, and implies that they come second to men. 

“I can only imagine how disheartening it is for the women’s cross country team to be made to feel like their [peers] saw them as sexual objects. And because their [peers] are distracted by their bodies, their athletic opportunities had to suffer,” said Kelly Roberts, a runner and the creator of the #SportsBraSquad movement, in an email. 

Roberts says she wishes the school had used the incident as a opportunity to stand up for female students from the start. “Until we stop telling women to cover up, we’re never going to solve the larger problem,” she says. 

Read more: outsideonline.com

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: country, cross, football, policy, practice, sports, team, their, they

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Starbucks Addict. Sarah McLachlan Fan. Blogger. Nomad Theorist. Aspiring Fashion Photographer. A believer in Karma. World Traveler. More about me.

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