JV girls’ soccer team goes without logos on jerseys until halfway through season

Amy Kang, Staff Writer

Fall sports are coming to an end, and Tualatin’s teams have been out and about. The volleyball team has been taking on opponents on the courts, the water polo team has been diving through the pools and… wait, who’s that out on the soccer field? The Tualatin girls’ JV soccer team was lacking a logo on their jerseys for most of the season, which left them unidentifiable and disgruntled. 

“We finally got the logos two weeks ago (in early October),” junior Peyton Anderson said. “Last season, we didn’t have any [logos on our jerseys], and then this year, we finally said something about it. Still, we didn’t have it for half the season.” 

These uniform complications have weighed heavily on the team members’ minds. Without the Tualatin logos, they say they have faced embarrassment throughout the fall season games.

“The refs didn’t even realize we were Tualatin until someone told them,” sophomore Brooke Smith recalled. “And it’s annoying how when you’re playing a sport, you want that to be your main focus, but instead, we had to deal with the jersey issue.”

Freshman Hannah Johnson had similar thoughts; she agreed that “we shouldn’t have to fight to get logos on our jerseys. We’re just here to play soccer.” 

Based on the descriptions from the team members, the JV uniforms this year have not been up to par. The girls said that they were given plain, white jerseys that were notably missing a TT logo. Additionally, they claimed that the jersey numbers were limited because not all the old JV jerseys were returned by the past JV players. 

Smith was especially disappointed by her goalie uniform.

“Something that really frustrates me personally is that JV 2 had a full-on goalie jersey with a number and logo. It was so humiliating to see their goalie uniform while I had to wear the club jersey when I had nothing else. It makes no sense,” Smith confessed. 

She wasn’t alone in this sentiment. Anderson and Johnson both said that after seeing the varsity decked out with a whole new set of uniforms, they felt indignant. 

“We’re not asking for a lot. We just wanted logos on the jerseys,” Anderson said.

Despite all these troubles, the girls were grateful for the logos.

“We’re all glad that we got the logos in the end,” Johnson admitted. “At least people can tell who we are now.”

In closing, Anderson shared, “I think as a program, we need to do better at including all teams. We all need representation.”

All three players hope that school officials will learn from this in order to know how to better handle and prevent similar situations in the future.