Tips on Ordering Basketball Uniforms For AAU Leagues and Tournaments

AAU is one of the most prestigious athletic organizations you can participate in. High school coaches and college scouts alike recognize the talent that comes from the Amateur Athletic Union and its members. Joining a team or forming your own AAU team to participate in competitive leagues and tournaments is easy. There are some requirements which you should follow when ordering uniforms though. The next few paragraphs provide a basic outline on what to follow when designing and purchasing basketball uniforms:

Home and Away Sets:
This is where the initial cost first comes in. The AAU requires that teams have a "home" and "away" jersey to participate in league play. This is quite surprising, considering the high school I played for only had 1 uniform for both. There are ways around this to make better use of the team budget when being required to have two separate uniforms:

1. Order reversibles! As long as one side is light, and the other is dark, a reversible will suffice in most AAU district leagues. Typically, the reversibles can get a little heavy, although a reputable uniform company will have means to manufacture a lighter uniform to solve this issue. You can also choose to sublimate or screenprint the jerseys instead of tackle-twill to take some of the weight off.

2. Order a reversible jersey with standard short. Some uniform companies offer the option of purchasing a reversible jersey with a single sided standard short to match the jersey design. This is a cost cutter versus ordering a full reversible because typically the single-sided shorts are much less expensive than having a reversible.

3. Order two jerseys and one short to match both. If weight becomes an issue, or the age group participating is under the 9/10 range, you can always order two separate jerseys and a short to match. You can get a short color that matches the color scheme both jerseys, or get a reversible short to go with either. The guarantees the jerseys won't be AS heavy as the reversibles and may even be a relief on team mom's not having to wash the same uniform over and over again!

Customization
Customization is a crucial part of the AAU uniform. Unlike middle and high school play, most AAU districts allow the team to have unlimited customization on the uniform. The kids feel great, look professional, and most of the time this translates to them playing a little bit better! Basketball is the most "flashy" of all sports uniforms, so get creative with piping, accents, sublimation, and logos. A reputable uniform company should be able to provide you a unique design from scratch, and allow you to add just about any thing you want to the uniform.

Numbering:
Numbering can generally be either tackle-twill, screen-print, or sublimation. But, once again, districts do vary, but most follow the following rules (quoted from the NJ AAU girls basketball website): "Each player shall be numbered on the front and back of the shirt with plain Arabic numerals.

The following numbers are legal: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 00, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55. (But double zero and zero cannot both be used for the same team) The number shall be at least 6 inches high on the back and at least 4 inches high on the front and not less than 3/4-inch width."

I hope this helps all you AAU coaches and interested participants out there!

There are a number of online resources where you can order reversible basketball jerseys or a great-looking youth basketball uniform. A great, reputable uniform company out there that conforms to all AAU standards is http://www.edgeteamsports.com.

The Trademark Up Myth

Today's hitters are plagued with the problem of wood bat breakage. Nowhere is this more apparent than the recent maple bat dilemma in the Major Leagues. Dangerous fragmentation of maple bats that has resulted in serious injuries has brought to light the hazards created when no attention is given to proper instruction of hitters regarding edge-grain orientation at the point of contact. Most wood bat breakage issues can be resolved by properly orienting the logo (or trademark) so as to place the edge grain parallel to the flight of the baseball at the point of contact. This is the position that yields the lowest breakage and the highest hitting power.

The traditional saying "logo face up", has its origins in the early years of baseball when hitters used a different style of hitting. Hitters like Gehrig, Dimaggio, and others swung the bat more linear and transferred more weight to the front foot. This forward momentum kept their upper body level and thus the bat barrel did not rotate. Today's hitters use a rotational method of swinging a bat. More weight is placed on the back leg with the hitter rotating the torso. This causes the shoulders to dip toward the ball and creates rotation of the bat barrel. The result is today's hitters tend to hit with the flat grain of the bat more often and this results in breakage and loss of power.

To cut down on breakage, hold the bat in front of you with the logo up (or facing you). Then rotate the logo towards your lead shoulder (shoulder closest to the pitcher). The more you hit off your back foot, the more you should rotate the bat toward the lead shoulder. The maximum angle should be 45 degrees. You may want to place a mark on the bat once you get the ideal alignment. This should put your bat in the proper hitting position with the edge grain aligned perfectly to hit the ball. This proper alignment not only will decrease breakage dramatically, but will also increase hitting power due to the restriction of the flexion of the bat.

Other things you can do to reduce breakage include:

• Use a heavier bat. A -3 metal swinger does not equate to a -3 wood swinger. The metal bat has higher strength than wood at low weights. -3 wood bats break more often than -2 wood bats. Remember, there is no such thing as -3 trees. To get lower weights you have to sacrifice density and that decreases strength. Ideally, you should hit with a wood bat weighing the same as the length. A 33" bat should weight 33oz. The difference between an even weight bat and a -3 is less than a hamburger patty so man up and move up in weight for better performance.

• You can also increase the handle diameter. Most wood bat companies offer handles below 1" in diameter which means the bat will break very easily. Old school handles were often greater than 1" which made the bats slightly heavier but reduced breakage. Also, a larger diameter handle means less flexion and that equates to greater power.

Lastly, pitchers with good fastball movement can saw you off on the inside and there is not much you can do about it. But, a majority of bats that break did so when hitting the outside pitch and in particular, off-speed. The ball doesn't need to be thrown hard to break a bat. Hitting off the last 2" of the barrel causes the bat to flex backwards excessively and will fracture the bat at a point close to the hands and the break will be formed at the leading edge of the bat. This is opposite that of a bat broken by an inside fastball that breaks on the trailing edge. An inside fastball hits the handle and stops the momentum of the handle. The barrel, having more mass, continues forward and causes a U-shaped bowing of the bat forward. This causes the bat to break at the hands on the trailing edge.

The key to hitting the outside pitch is to hit it off the back of the plate. This will allow the barrel to hit the ball solid and drive the ball hard to the opposite field. Not timing the outside pitch properly causes poorly hit balls off the end of the bat, weak squiblers, broken bats, shame, ridicule, losing, you get the picture. Practice hitting for power to the opposite field. It can only be done by hitting off the back of the plate. You should never begin hitting practice with inside pitches you can pull. Always have the BP thrower start you with outside pitches and work the pitches inward.

Recently, the MLB passed a series of wood bat guidelines. In these guidelines was the requirement to place logos on the "face of the grain" instead of edgegrain. This would decrease breakage and by their own admission, decrease performance. Oddly enough, this method works for breakage because now instead of the players rotating the face side of the grain toward the baseball, they now rotate the edgegrain toward it. Unless of course, the hitters know the facegrain orientation causes decreased performance and do not put the logo side up but place the logo facing the pitcher or catcher. We have observed this to be the case.

The corrective technique mentioned in this article could have accomplished the same result without the widespread chaos and large amount of expenses incurred by bat companies to comply with the MLB rulings.

Remember, good technique and focus reduces bat breakage and increases performance.

Fred Bonds is the Director of Research for Area51Sports, an innovative new wood baseball bat company, http://www.area51bats.com. He was director of the Central Michigan Sports Center, director of the BPR Nationals HS Prospect team, and a former associate scout for the Cincinnati Reds and Global Scouting Bureau. For more info on wood baseball bats or to contact Fred, go to http://www.area51bats.com.

Nebraska Football Helmet - A History

Since the 1960's, Nebraska has kept a very consistent football helmet design. They have always had a very conservative design; they have never had a flashy or unusual design, even for a special occasion like a Bowl Game. In 1960, Nebraska had a red helmet with a white stripe and the player's number on the side (e.g. 22). In 1961, apparently the powers that be felt that even that design was too colorful and action-packed and instead opted for a white helmet with black numbers on the side. This Nebraska football helmet design is about as plain as you can get for a football helmet. In 1966, the numbers changed to red and a red vertical stripe appeared on the helmet for the first time. The white background and red stripe have never left the helmet since then.

The red numbers lasted just one regular season before they were dropped altogether. Rather than have the player's number on the side of the helmet, the letters "NU", made their way to the helmet for the Sugar Bowl game in 1967 and remained for 2 full seasons. During the third season with this helmet design (1969), a "100" decal appeared on the front of the football helmet. It was football-shaped in blue with white numbers outlined in red. The "100" marked the 100 year anniversary of the chartering of University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

From 1970 to 1981, the Cornhuskers kept the exact same design. The helmet had a white background, a red vertical stripe, and the letter "N" replaced "NU". This football helmet looks very much like today's design with one exception. In 1982, the team switched from the basic gray facemask to the red facemask. For almost 30 years, that same exact design has remained. The "N" is about as plain as you can get. It has no serifs and looks like your basic Arial font uppercase "N" that you could type on any word processing program. It probably fits well into the image of the program as a hard-working, Midwestern school, where they like to run the ball up the middle. In many ways it is the antithesis of some of the flashier designs out there at schools like Oregon, Maryland, and Boise State. There is not even a catchy logo like the Texas Longhorn or the Florida State spear. Looking at this football helmet, you can start to see why the cold weather, Rust Belt schools of the Big Ten were quick to admit the Cornhuskers for full conference membership in 2010.

Copyright Donald Plunkett. Find out how to win a free Nebraska football helmet at http://www.footballhelmets.com