Team Cleats

Why would it be important at all? We want our kids wearing the same color cleats but don't care about the brand. 

Wear whatever you want except the new Spider-Man, batman, captain America cleats. Team colors or black. I don't get involved past that.

All that we tell them is black or white. 

what about your kickers that use the bright color soccer cleats? is that an exceptiuon

The kids can wear what ever socks or cleats they want.

We have an under armour rep who does the main bulk of our spirit wear so most kids order their cleats through him. But if they buy some bright construction color orange cleats, its not a big deal. They are just shoes.

Socks on the other hand must be either blue or white (our school colors). It became a slight issue with the whole wear pink for cancer thing going on, where it just looked terrible with everyone doing their own thing.

On a side note, we will give them one weekend in october if they want to do that pink thing. I have been talking with the HC, and I think this year we are going to make them actually donate to a Breast Cancer charity if they want to wear pink that game. Walk the walk if you are going to talk the talk type of thing.

I am not in favor of telling kids what cleat to buy. All kids have their own preference and all the shoes seem to fit differently on kids. I tell kids all shoes will be black with white stripes. Some Grey is acceptable. In fact we have had issues with kids feet and Nike's. Lots of sore feet, blisters etc... I talked to a DIV I equipment manager and he said the day all the NIKE shoes come in they rip all the insoles out and insert another insole because the NIKE shoes have such poor support.

Nike has some mostly white sharks that are going for $40 bucks.

We have a good budget, so we buy the varsity's shoes. The next season, those shoes become practice shoes. We let our Sub Varsity kids go in and get those shoes as well. We have a lot of kids that can't afford to get cleats. We make sure we have cleats for the kids.

Wow. We have some kids that don't know when their next meal is coming so I'm just happy when they have cleats. We have a bin of donated cleats that we hand out to those who can't afford them.

I have always told mine to get predominately black cleats (don't care what brand) and wear white socks.

I HATE team shoes rules. Unless you're a top notch D1 program where youre not paying for anything. But everyones feet are different and fit shoes differently.

Keep it team colors and you're fine in my book.

If you want to keep your all white tradition, thats awesome. My HS i played at did that as well. But allow them to find their own white cleats.

I'll be that guy that disagrees with most of you here.

For starters, this sock craze that came in a few years ago is annoying and distracting. Kids want to wear neon socks, Superman socks, light pink, dark pink, stripes, polka dots...you name it. It's a method of self-expression by kids who usually don't know better. Some have taste, but a lot don't, and it ends up just looking silly.

Secondly, I'm personally very big on a team having a very uniform look across the board, so I DO actually like having a sock & cleat rule. I'm also about maintaining brand unity, although you can't put a kid in a cleat that he doesn't feel comfortable in. I think when you have some pretty strict uniform rules, it sets a standard for the kids to learn that how you present yourself to the world matters, that no one player is bigger than the team, and that you should present yourself with dignity and care about your appearance.

Now, I don't think you have to be TOO restrictive on it. For example...if you want the team to all wear solid red socks that go over the knee, but a player wants to wear red Dri-FIT tights with solid red socks over top, that should be fine. But he can't wear black socks. Or white socks. Or Neon Orange socks. Look at the NFL...almost all teams wear a solid color sock over top of a white bottom half (a few wear striped socks). Some wear them up, some where them down, plenty wear tights underneath...there are variations, but they're all wearing the same sock. I think this is how you keep a uniform look however let kids be comfortable and have a little choice in how they wear them. Personally, I'm a big fan of wearing compression tights with a crew sock or an over-the-knee sock crew-high, which gives the lower leg alittle bit more protection against cleats and dings.

As for shoes, that too is subjective, but I think a rule of thumb (unless you're doing it Penn State-style) is that the top color of the cleat has to match the sock. Each brand makes several different types of cleat, along with pricepoint, so while I wouldn't pigeonhole each kid into wearing the same style, I think the professional thing to do is keep them all the same brand. Again, depends on the coach, but I'm OCD in regards to the details, and even if I'm coaching a high school program, I want to present that program as professionally as possible and will emulate the best-looking programs as I can, within my budget, to make the kids feel like they're part of something special. I find that the more professional they look and feel, the more professionally they perform.

Lastly, that's the first time I've ever heard about any equipment managers removing and discarding Nike insoles. I always mention as a disclaimer that I'm a Nike Team dealer, so I'm biased towards the brand, but that's a first for me. Nike's cleats blow UA's out of the water in terms of performance, weight, and durability, not to mention appearance. Again, look at what the majority of the pros are wearing.