The reality of stereotypes around safety gear in sports
This year, new advancements of safety technology in a variety of sports have been introduced, including cooling vests in Formula One (F1) racing and specialized goalie helmets in water polo. While these inventions are effective in preventing potential injuries, they bring up questions on stereotypes around the use of extra safety equipment. Do athletes prioritize their reputation over safety?
In F1 racing, the intensity of the heat in the cars while racing can get very extreme — up to 140 degrees fahrenheit — and the humidity can get up to 90 percent; according to F1 racers, the races are like entering a sauna. Due to this, technology has been invented to bring some comfort to racers in extreme heat. This new technology is the cooling vest. The cooling vest works by pumping a cold liquid through tiny, thin tubes which are stitched inside the vest. While these vests act as a relief to intense heat, some race car drivers still choose to not wear them.
Art by Sara Polster
Lewis Hamilton, British F1 racecar driver, expressed his feelings on why wearing a cooling vest shouldn’t be mandatory.
“They keep saying it's a safety issue, but there's no driver that's ever died from overheating in the race, apart from obviously in flames back in the day. It's like, it's just getting silly. That should be our choice to have it,” Hamilton said.
In girls’ flag football, one form of safety technology is the ‘GameBreaker’ cap– a headband used to prevent head injuries by absorbing impact from hits. These headbands are an effective way to practice safety in flag football, yet the appearance of them irks people away from wanting to use them.
Daisy Moe (’28), center for the Samo girls’ flag football team, explained how she feels on the subject.
“It just seems so unnecessary, especially when we’re the only ones wearing it. It’s just like a big piece of foam fabric on your forehead in the middle of the game and you’re just sweating through it. But, it’s really preventative and has lived up to its use,” Moe said.
This phenomena presents itself in water polo as well. Due to the high speed of balls, water polo goalies are supposed to wear a specialized helmet, which is constructed of shock absorbing material, a chin strap and ear guards. The helmets protect goalies from concussions and water pressure buildup in ears. Similar to flag football, the point of the ‘ugly’ appearance is brought up yet again.
Lyla Rozenblum (’27), varsity water polo goalie, expressed her thoughts on the helmets.
“For more important games, like CIF, we have to wear an extra bulky helmet and it’s like an actual wrestling helmet, which is really embarrassing. I got one and it was really gross and it looked like I was wrestling,” Rozenblum said. “People just don’t expect to see others wearing extra protections in society, it’s not considered normal.”
The use of additional sport safety gear in wrestling also has an extreme stereotype around it. Wrestlers have the choice of wearing a single knee pad (a pad on only one knee) or double knee pads (a pad on each knee). While wearing double knee pads isn't mandatory, usage of them is advised to prevent knee swelling, due to the repetition of certain moves in wrestling where the knee continuously makes contact with the mat.
The stereotype around the double knee pads is that if someone wears them, they are considered a ‘newbie’ or ‘fish’. It is seen as comical to the wrestling community if an experienced wrestler, such as a player on varsity, is wearing double knee pads. The less gear a wrestler wears, the more ‘tough’ they seem.
Member of the Samo wrestling team, Koden Madley (’29), raised a point on this stereotype.
“I think there’s this stereotype because people might see them [people wearing double padding] as overprotective,” Madley said. “Also, some people might see the risk as part of why you get rewarded for it, like what’s the point of doing a sport if you don’t get injured to begin with?”