Shirts and shoes

[Kansas Ref]

Is anyone planning to purchase new ref shirts or new ref boots for this season?
Are some states changing over to use the college style shirt instead of the classic vertical stripes? It has been emphasized that the boots should not contain any white color/marks, and to wear black socks-----but surely no modern day refs are wearing white socks to work games right?

[bob jenkins]

Originally Posted by Kansas Ref

Is anyone planning to purchase new ref shirts or new ref boots for this season?
Are some states changing over to use the college style shirt instead of the classic vertical stripes? It has been emphasized that the boots should not contain any white color/marks, and to wear black socks-----but surely no modern day refs are wearing white socks to work games right?

I almost always buy new shirts and or shoes.

There's more than one "college style" shirt.

Some places care about white on the shoes more than others, and some places care more at one time than they do at another. I just try to go with what I am told; I generally don't care what others wear, nor do I particularly care what is worn in CT or KS (or 47 other states)

White socks in the summer, sometimes.

[JRutledge]

I always buy shoes when I find good ones. I have plenty left over from years of finding good shoes and wearing them.

None of my levels or states are changing the shirts. I have bought enough shirts for each state and college level at this point (NAIA has a different shirt than the NCAA slightly).

I do wear white socks working summer ball with shorts. It looks bad to me to wear black socks when your legs are showing. That is just me. You look like an old man IMO.

Peace

[ilyazhito]

I always wear black socks. Ever since I bought black socks for officiating, I always keep black socks in my closet. No reason to change. I don't care about how my shoes look, as long as they are mostly black and in good order.

[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

I always buy shoes when I find good ones. I have plenty left over from years of finding good shoes and wearing them.

None of my levels or states are changing the shirts. I have bought enough shirts for each state and college level at this point (NAIA has a different shirt than the NCAA slightly).

I do wear white socks working summer ball with shorts. It looks bad to me to wear black socks when your legs are showing. That is just me. You look like an old man IMO.

Peace

Jeff:

I am with you. Whether you have gorgeous looking legs like mine or not so gorgeous looking legs like, you 🤣, I like the "old school" look of white socks with black shorts and shoes. That said, I really do not care whether my partner wears black or white socks, after all, it is just recreational or Summer league games and no one cares.

MTD, Sr

[BillyMac]

This thread reminds me of something from back in 1965. That was my first year in junior high school and, as seventh grade gym class students, we were first exposed to locking lockers (and forgetting our lock combinations), gang showers, reversible color gym class school uniforms, athletic supporters, bringing (smelly stinking) gym clothes home to be laundered, etc.

In our very first gym class, Mr. Damico, our junior high school boys gym teacher for all three years, and someone we eventually came to really admire (he coached both basketball and baseball), gave us a lecture on how to properly dress for gym class. He told us that socks must be white. Why? Because, according to Mr. Damico, in 1924 President Calvin Coolidge’s son developed a blister while playing tennis on the White House tennis court and later died from blood poisoning and an infection caused by the dye from his black socks entering his bloodstream.

That lecture really made an impression on me because when I started officiating fifteen years later, having to wear mandatory black socks, I made the decision (Mr. Damico would be so proud of me) to double up on my socks, wearing white socks under my black socks to prevent my death from blood poisoning.

Old habits die hard, even after I discovered as an adult that Mr. Damico’s story was untrue. While the claim may have seemed plausible at the time because some of the coloring agents commonly used by the clothing industry, such as zinc chloride and aniline dye, did indeed often cause serious inflammation when the chemicals came into contact with a wearer's skin, in reality Calvin Jr. wasn’t wearing black socks, he was in a hurry to get out on the court, and he put on his tennis shoes but no socks. Being sockless caused the fatal blister. In 1924 Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin was still four years away. It wasn’t until the 1940s that the use of penicillin started to become practical.

As I already stated, old habits die hard. Only in the past few years have I stopped my long time ritual of wearing white socks under black socks and I've now switched to wearing only a single pair of black socks.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.

Jeff:

I am with you. Whether you have gorgeous looking legs like mine or not so gorgeous looking legs like, you ��, I like the "old school" look of white socks with black shorts and shoes. That said, I really do not care whether my partner wears black or white socks, after all, it is just recreational or Summer league games and no one cares.

MTD, Sr

I do not personally care what people wear either way. I just think for Black folks (with darker skin I might add), it looks bad and unathletic. Just a personal preference thing, not a pet peeve even. Just what I like and was told and every time I see it, I die a little inside.

Funny I told one of my mentees this before and he followed. He is now a D1 official. I am not, so there you go.

Peace

[JRutledge]

Billy,

They make athletic black socks. And there is a place for them in my opinion, not with all black shoes and black shorts. Change the outfit, they work just fine. It is like those that used to say not to wear white after Labor Day. There are people that still wear white after Labor Day and we get over it.

Peace