In 2014, five St. Louis Rams players took to the field with their arms raised above their heads to signify the anti-police brutality saying: “hands up, don’t shoot.” The footballers displayed the gesture to protest the shooting of 18-year-old Mike Brown at the hands of a white police officer after it was announced that the grand jury did not indict the officer in Brown’s death.
While the gesture clearly articulated the players’ message, Kenny Britt, the Rams’ wide receiver, decided that more needed to be done to draw attention to police brutality. As someone who often wrapped tape around his hands for games, Britt decided to mark the adhesive with the phrases “Mike Brown” and “My Kids Matter” before wearing them as part of his in-game uniform.
To Britt, using a part of his uniform was the natural next step in ensuring his message was received. Although the “hands up, don’t shoot” move propelled the team into the spotlight, the use of a uniform communicated the fact that, for the players, the protest was more than a passing fad: it was a serious statement.
The practice of using elements of sports uniforms to highlight specific causes or bring awareness to movements is referred to as “uniform activism.” While general activism in sports has been pushed to the forefront of the industry due to athletes like Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem to protest police violence in America, uniform activism aims to bring attention to a cause because of its personal nature and its rebellion against what is typically expected of athletes in terms of sportswear.
Uniform activism may carry a lot of weight, but it’s not as difficult to pull off as people think. Follow these simple Snapchat video tutorials to see how you can use your uniform to make a statement.
One of the most significant instances of uniform activism came not while the players were on the field, but, rather, on the winners’ podium. During the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, Tommie Smith and John Carlos took to the winner’s platform to accept their gold and bronze respectively for the 200-meter dash.
Typically, winners wear warm-up uniforms on the podium to signify their country and their team, but Smith and Carlos made a few minor changes to the usual tracksuit. Each element was carefully planned to symbolize specific parts of society the men were protesting: they wore scarves and beads were to protest lynching, they removed their shoes to represent poverty, they wore black gloves to emphasize Black Power, and they unzipped their jackets in defiance of strict Olympic rules and in support of working-class Americans.
Carlos and Smith knew that, by openly defying so many of the Olympic regulations, they would be facing intense repercussions. The consequences were immediate: spectators started booing and screaming the American national anthem at the players and the duo was ordered to leave both the stadium and Mexico City. In the aftermath, the men were suspended from the U.S. track team and received death threats for months.
Student athlete Jessica Braunstein models a form of uniform activism by covering the sports logo on the front of her uniform with her hand. Photos by Isabelle Lichtenstein
In a 2012 interview with The Guardian, Carlos noted that, despite the repercussions that the athletes faced, they knew that having such a widely-viewed platform meant that they had to stand up for what they believed in.
“I had a moral obligation to step up,” said Carlos. “Morality was a far greater force than the rules and regulations they had.”
Are Platforms Compulsory?
This sentiment of using a public platform when you are given it is echoed by Maria Scott, a sports journalist and public relations specialist who currently teaches sports marketing at Emerson College. She has worked with numerous athletes from different sports, and believes that, by becoming a professional or collegiate athlete, players are automatically taking on a public persona as well as the good and bad that comes with it.
“You don’t have privacy anymore, you no longer can walk down the street and act like a normal person, you’re going to have your photo taken with your kids,” said Scott. “These are all the things that you take on, but there’s a lot of power that comes with that, and if you want to harness that power for kind of the greater good, this is your opportunity to do that.”
Aaron Rouse, a former football athlete who played for Virginia Tech on the collegiate level before being drafted by the NFL to play for the Green Bay Packers, agrees that athletes of any kind are automatically given platforms and notes that it’s necessary that they remain conscious of how they use their visibility.
“I think you definitely have a responsibility to use your platform to benefit, or to always make a positive change, or to bring awareness to whatever you hold close to your heart,” said Rouse. “Because, whether you like it or not, you are in the public’s eye.”
Avid sports fan Corey Vaccaro looks to activism in sports as an individual notion, rather than that of a brand or team. Because individual players have their platforms to use however they choose to, he believes that, as people, the athletes have the right to share their thoughts and opinions.
“I think it’s great for players to take the opportunity to be able to show what they value, what they stand for,” said Vaccaro. “I think they can be seen as role models to a lot of people who watch sports. So, I think for them to be able to take a stand for what they believe in is important. They deserve the opportunity to put their beliefs out there like that and to be able to represent what they stand for.”
Student athlete Jake DiTore models another method of uniform activism used by professional athletes by turning his Boston Bruins jacket inside out to hide the logo. Photos by Isabelle Lichtenstein 
Athletes may receive individual platforms to use as they wish, but the core of sports is the unity of the community surrounding it. As such, players have to consider not only the repercussions they may face but that their team may face as well.
Baseball fan Benji Dunlaief echoes this sentiment, as he believes that activism shouldn’t fall to individual players, but should be a decision made by a team. Since each athlete is a small part of a whole, Dunlaief believes that platforms should be handled in the same way.
“Activism should be something that the sport manages and not something that the players manage,” said Dunlaief.
The Sanctity of The Uniform
This idea of a unified team making decisions as a whole is as prominent a part of uniform activism as individual platform usage. In September, the College of the Ozarks volleyball team played its first game since the school announced it would “choose its country over company” and remove all uniform pieces that feature the Nike swoosh. The private Christian college announced in a press release that they would refrain from supporting the company after its 30th-anniversary ad campaign featured former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
To take a stand against Nike and its promotion of “an attitude of a division and disrespect toward America,” the college decided to play their games in plain grey t-shirts with their numbers on both sides and “OZARK” written across the back. Uniform activism played a major role in the College of the Ozark’s volleyball team, as they saw wearing Nike uniforms as support for a company whose values they did not share.
By removing the uniforms in order to recind support for a specific company, the College of the Ozarks also reinforced their brand as an institution committed to developing “citizens of Christ-like character who are well-educated, hard-working, and patriotic.” Because they felt that Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the national anthem was anti-patriotic, it fell on the sports team to decide how to proceed not only in the best interest of their players, but the best interest of their college’s mission as well.
Scott notes that uniforms aren’t just clothing, but instead a way to signal what you are a part of and who you represent. Because of what they symbolize, teams tend to be more strict about what they look like and how they are worn.
“If you look at most modern professional sports or even collegiate sports teams, it’s a brand,” said Scott. “There’s a reason that the NCAA has in their rulebook that if it’s anything that you’re supposed to wear for competition or competition level, you’re not allowed to wear it to practice in.”
According to Rouse, the idea of uniforms being sacred is more than just branding; it’s a symbol of what it means to be an athlete.
“Coming from a great school like Virginia Tech, we pride ourselves on earning our uniform,” said Rouse. “There was something about going to winter workouts, sweating, the blood, tears….You saw everyone who stood beside you on game day [and] they earned the right to wear their uniform.”
Since the formation of the sports wear in the mid-19th century, the sports industry has relied on capital and labor as a way to commercialize and brand. However, Dunlaief points to the deep-rooted tradition of uniforms as not just a way to make a profit for the sport, but also as a way to show pride in the history of a team. To him, it makes sense that fans are upset by modifications of the uniforms, because it shows a disrespect of the past.
“If the Yankees were like, ‘we’re changing our uniform,’ there’d be riots in New York. You cannot mess with that,” said Dunlaief. The Miami Marlins have changed their uniforms three times in the last 5 years, and nobody cares. I think that uniforms are really tied into the tradition and the history of the team, and people definitely feel that expressing yourself through the uniform is a violation of that.”
Sometimes, though, modifications to uniforms aren’t visible enough to make a serious statement or societal impact.
Is The Nuance a Nuisance?
During a basketball game between the Washington Wizards and the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2017, LeBron James utilized his shoes to make a statement about racism in the current social landscape. While James wore one white shoe and one black shoe, both had the word “EQUALITY” stitched in gold across the back. James spoke to ESPN after the game about the symbolism of the shoes, stating that he was making a statement about racism in America and equal rights for all.
“We’re not going to let one person dictate us, us as Americans, how beautiful and how powerful we are as a people,” James told the sports network. “Equality is all about understanding our rights, understanding what we stand for and how powerful we are as men and women, black or white or Hispanic.”
This was not the first time James wore shoes as an act of uniform activism. On 2017’s opening night against the Boston Celtics, the athlete wore a pair of all black shoes to protest Donald Trump’s backlash to NFL players kneeling in peaceful pregame protest.
While a modification of the uniform, not much came out of the athlete’s sneaker choices other than brief publicity around the event itself. In fact, the “EQUALITY” shoes received more attention than the all-black shoes. According to Scott, this difference in coverage stems not from a lack of support from fans, but from the nuanced nature of the activism.
“I think what happens a lot of times is, the person making the statement says, you know, ‘I’m going to do this in protest,’ and there’s maybe a percentage of people really close who might know that, oh, these socks mean this,” said Scott. “But, unless you know the tiny nuance that they’re talking about, other people won’t necessarily understand.”
Student athlete
Tara Lionetti models another way of practicing uniform activism by wearing her earmuffs backwards to hide the team logo. Photos by Isabelle Lichtenstein
For Vaccaro, the nuance of uniform activism doesn’t come from the specificity of the means, but the status of the player instead. Because using a uniform to make a statement already requires viewers to pay attention to small elements, Vaccaro insists that the point won’t make it across at all if the athlete practicing isn’t themselves well-known.
“I think when a big enough player…people react to that,” said Vaccaro. “But when it’s maybe the last guy on the team that’s sort of doing his thing–maybe that doesn’t get as noticed as much.”
Is There Room For Uniform Activism?
IWhile the nuance of uniform activism can sometimes be a hindrance, the most debated aspect of the act is whether or not it belongs in the sports world at all. Although athletes are drawing attention with their means, they’re sparking political debates rather than constructive commentary. Because of the controversial nature of politics, activism has become something for fans to reject or champion, which only further drives a wedge in the sports fandom.
Because of the divide that’s being drawn, the viewership of sports is changing drastically. In a study done by Yahoo! Sports on protests’ affect on NFL viewership, 29% of viewers said they were watching less football; however, 27% said they were watching more. Both parties felt they had an obligation to their cultural beliefs, or to their own values.
In terms of whether or not activism should remain in sports despite viewership being in flux, Rouse points to the fact that sports and politics were kept separate for a long time, but, with advancements in technology, there’s no longer a way to do that. As a result, he says that there is no longer a way to keep the two separate.
“Now, the way technology is, people around the world know who you are,” said Rouse. “Everybody’s always looking, and everybody’s always on their cell phones or some type of communication where there are no shadows anymore as far as in the athletic world.”
In contrast, Dunlaief points to baseball as an example of how sports can continue to operate effectively while keeping politics separate. He says that, while he understands the desire to discuss cultural opinions using a sports platform, there’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed, and sports should remain focused on their industry alone.
“I think a lot of movements that have been attached to sports currently, specifically with football, have the concept that there is a very specific demographic for football,” said Dunlaief. “I don’t feel like that with baseball. I feel like they’ve always tried to keep politics out of it. I don’t think there would be a movement that really got me involved.”
From the public relations perspective, Scott insists that, whether or not it deserves a place on the sports field, uniform activism is the best way to get your point across.
“I think the [best] way to do it is with uniform stuff because I think you’re less likely to upset people if you wear a uniform inside out,” said Scott. “You’re still making a statement, but you’re not kneeling during the national anthem where that’s going to make military people upset.”
Although Vaccaro recognizes that sports movements are happening, and he agrees that athletes should be able to express their activism, he believes that uniform activism is becoming so common that it’s no longer effective as a means of making a statement.
“[It] definitely seems like it’s become less of a story in 2018, but I guess there is a lot more of it,” said Vaccaro. “Maybe when there’s a lot more of it it becomes less of a story over time and more of a norm.”
Scott also notes that, whether or not uniform activism is getting as much attention as it needs to truly make a statement, just the act of rebelling against the typicality and sanctity of the uniform will cause the sports world to pay attention because of allegiances to the industry.
“Every community has very strong feelings to every single team, and every single player on that team, and what the player does in his spare time, and how that person lives their life,” said Scott. “They feel like they should have a say. The fandom that we created in the United States genuinely believes in that.”
Still confused about what uniform activism is? In this short video, the concept of using sports uniforms to make a statement is discussed, and examples are given as a means of further explaining.