Written by Liam B-P and Alan Weeth
Technical Assistance from Kent Collins
At the Dartmouth Tri Meet, the top story was not the flat tire, the circular track, or the special guest appearance by PrezBo himself. Rather, the trackside chatter seemed to revolve completely around the atrocious styling of the new Boathouse uniforms, eliciting a range of reactions from fear, to outrage, to pure bewilderment. In retrospect, we probably should have realized something was up when they wanted to just give them to us. While the new uniforms were only the second ugliest at the meet, we were still curious: what about these new duds make them such…well, duds?
Have no fear, for Uni Watch intends to get to the bottom of this problem. And that’s exactly where we’ll start: the bottoms. We don’t have any problems with the tops; actually we think they are pretty good looking. The white and navy side accents are fancy without being gaudy, and swoop down to create a rather flattering v-shape through the torso. It seems to go downhill from there. For some reason, Boathouse decided to invert the blues within the color scheme, making navy rather than columbia as the dominant color. The accent lines from the top match up with the bottom, which could have a very clean look, but the whole color switch thing turns it into a fiasco. The end result: the top seems to act as an arrow pointing toward the crotchal region, which Uni Watch sees as a major design flaw that needs to be resolved as soon as possible.
Undoubtedly the worst part about the bottoms was not the color scheme, but rather the cut. UniWatch first compared the cut to that which was made popular in the 80’s by women’s pants. Upon closer inspection, we’ve decided that these bunhuggers most closely resemble a pair of granny panties (more information on that here). We would like to take this time to note that Paul Morris looked like a monkey's ass.
The women’s squad, being the clever group they are, responded in a variety of ways in an attempt to make the best of a calamitous situation. A few girls spent the meet hiding beneath their warm-ups, while freshman phenom Marissa Smith avoided the situation altogether by donning the old adidas attire (a move that Uni Watch enthusiastically encourages others to follow). Junior jumper Alissa Oachs opted for the new top paired with a set of boy cut spandex, which looked pretty good as well. However, the best idea seemed to be the ever-popular roll (à la Katie Kingsbery), which can also be seen here. (On a side note, Uni Watch has established a formal stance on the issue of whether or not to tuck the top into the bottoms: don’t. We know it may be against the rules and all, but do the boys a favor and show us those abs you work so hard to tone. Thanks.) When compared side-by-side, it’s apparent just how much better the roll looks compared to the non-roll. The famous Chinese egg roll, however, will forever be the best roll. The only downside that we have been able to detect is that it disrupts the lines from the side panels, creating an even more jumbled pattern than before. The tradeoff is ultimately worth it, so props to those who participated in that trend this weekend. The most perplexing issue of the meet was started by senior Tenke Zoltani. Her bottoms appear to be significantly cut lower than her teammates, yet they show no signs of rollage. This presents the distinct possibility of a roll-under as opposed to a roll-over, which would solve both the chaotic line pattern and granny panty effect, a innovative fix to the problems of cut. Unfortunately, there is no foreseeable solution for the horrible selection of coloring.
Uni Watch picked up on a second rolling phenomenon that focused on the tops rather than the bottoms. We are still struggling to see what this top-roll accomplished, or whether it was even intentional, but we never hesitate to applaud those girls who show a little extra skin, and so a special hats off to the durty ones.
There were many men in tight tights last weekend, suggesting that Ivy League men may have a certain penchant for the ballet. To the dismay of his teammates, junior Alan Weeth wore half tights and a singlet but it was decided that things could have been much worse. This seemed to just one instance of a greater tights trend during the meet, as numerous participants from the other schools wore half tights under their shorts. Freshman sprinter Jonny Ribiero was also seen sporting this style, but looked silly, prompting Uni Watch to put forth a formal recommendation for him to wear a speedsuit next week. Other tights sightings included full-length tights (which were not quite tight enough for our tastes), three-quarter length tights (which looked just plain foolish), and even tiny tights (which we found to be completely unnecessary, but didn’t bother us all that much). And let us not forgot those heinous rainbow tights. In case you haven’t picked up on the photographic trend, Dartmouth got Uni Watch’s vote for worst tight-selection.
Uni Watch News Ticker
Junior Kent Collins was clearly given the wrong sized shorts, prompting him to make a funny face for the entire race…Junior Erison Hurtault, the Ivy League’s top quarter-miler, gave the fans something to cheer about by being the only Columbia athlete to compete in a speedsuit (seriously dude, get a jockstrap)…JP McManus has one of the best looking families around…Sophomore standout Liam Boylan-Pett was seen without his signature headband. It has been reported that race officials commanded him to remove it prior to the race. Being the pussy that he his, he obliged and proceeded to get second place. Meanwhile, Sophomore sprinter Whitney Crayton got off the line donning a nice blue headband, and looked really good…There is a definite iridescence issue with a few of the men’s Hind uniforms. While some athletes looked absurd, others just looked out of this world…Freshman stud Ken “KY” Yearwood was caught wearing a grey undershirt. While this gets the official stamp of coolness from half of Uni Watch, the other half needs more time to make an official judgement…Following Saturday’s meet, junior Mark Olivier apparently got dressed in the dark for Sunday’s long run, showing up in a red long sleeve, yellow short sleeve, navy gloves, columbia blue half tights, and black running shorts. Unfortunately, Uni Watch was not able to capture this mismatched moment on film. We can’t decide whether he looked more like a gay pride parade, the 1975 Houston Astros, or the complete cast of Care Bears. Send us your votes—results will be posted in the next column…In a somewhat non-uni-related note, Junior heartthrob Sarah Decker was seen carrying a hot dog as the baton during the 4x400m relay. We didn’t believe it either, but the photographic evidence is indisputable. Our only question was, beyond where she found a wiener that big, how was she able to hang on to the bun?
