P5 school. It is 1 to 2 shirts per month. Some are short sleeve, some long, and a few are muscle type cuts. It really isn't many. He had to buy a few shirts at first because they only gave him 3 before his first practice.
I was watching a tiktok last night of this walk on for Georgia's equestrian team (who knew that was a thing?!?!) going through her "Nike Christmas" of stuff she got for being on the team. It was insane for a sport even less relevant than XC.
Cross country has the top endurance athletes in the country. It is more relevant than the silly ball sports where they just push each other around and accomplish nothing but strange little arbitrary tasks.
You're right about endurance athletes. However, the dollars come from football and basketball and few other sports. Cross Country/Track doesn't generate revenue.
The proper equipment and gear is essential to any program. If they want to be represented then provide the gear to represent the school. The equipment manager is the one that should be punished for not doing their job not the athlete asking the question. Come on man!! Tool.
I don't mind, but they require us to wear gear in the weight room, practice and traveling. Idk how we supposed to do that with one shirt.
My school changed sponsor when I was a junior but the sponsor had such big lead times for XC/track uniforms that we didn’t actually get new uniforms until after I did a fifth year and graduated. We also got pretty minimal gear in general and were scolded by our AD for wearing old gear/different branded gear but like dude you gave us our budget you’re the reason we’re still wearing sweats from the old sponsor or our own clothes. We didn’t have a strict order to only be in team issued gear but it still felt pretty ridiculous.
To me that would just take up space in the wardrobe or drawers and cause unnecessary clutter. I can understand runners or other sportspeople having a lot of shirts but 40 seems excessive tbh. Especially if you're at uni, you have very limited space in dorms/halls. I know I had a tiny wardrobe (and no drawers - there was a wardrobe and desk).
And that's not taking into account he was given 40 on top of how many he already had!
Then why can't you wear the multiple shirts you have been given since you started? I have sympathy for your not being given shoes, though. We got a pair of shoes a year (D3) and no shirts whatsoever. Uniforms they gave us and running pants/jacket/sweats, but we had to give them back. We could pay to keep the old school sweats, which I did.
Sounds similar to my experience, small D1. We received a shirt/year, and a pair of shoes (trainers or spikes) per year. Meanwhile my soccer roommate had "travel shoes" so the team could look more uniform when on the road. The strength coaches got frustrated when we literally didn't have enough school-sponsored shirts to wear to lifting 2-3x/week like the other teams.
I'm still grateful for the experience and wouldn't trade it for the world.