Team Gear: Reflecting On Custom Equipment And How It Affects Your Team

Memorial Day weekend is a time for reflection and remembrance. With that in mind, and with your spring sports season coming to an end, this weekend is the perfect time to think back on this past season and remember what worked and what didn’t work.

Go beyond the X’s and O’s — was your team’s year successful? What factors were important to that success? Are you able to build on it going forward?

Think about the athletic gear your squad used this past season; did it have any effect on your team’s success or failure? Whether you realized it or not, sports equipment plays a very important role in an athlete’s mentality and performance.

When you’re relaxing this holiday weekend out in the yard, on the beach or by a pool, think about all the ways custom team gear helps make your team successful:

1. U-N-I-T-Y, That’s Team Unity

When it comes to team sports, team unity is just as important as overall talent or individual skill. In order to be successful, your team has to come together as one cohesive unit, working together towards one shared goal.

How do you help build a unified team? Through team-specific gear and uniforms (there’s a reason the words are so similar!). When a team looks alike, with their shared colors and logos, they form a tight bond and become as close-knit as a family. Those shared colors help form a team identity and camaraderie between players, as they feel like they are a part of something bigger.

Think about the last time you saw a group of players getting off of a team bus in matching track jackets and warm-ups. It’s intimidating, right? That’s because they look like one singular entity.

They look like a team.

2. Put On A New Face

While colors and logos help unite your group of players as a team, they also help boost your players’ individual identity and performance.

How do you get the most out of your players? By building up their confidence; and nothing builds confidence more than looking good. But think about the mouthguards your players used this past season. Did they look good?

If your team is still using generic boil-and-bite mouthguards, they probably looked like chewed-up chunks of rubber — and that’s assuming your players didn’t “lose” them in their locker or on the field. It’s hard for your players to be confident in themselves when they don’t trust their equipment.

When their gear looks good, they look good, and when they look good, they play better. A boost to your team’s mouthguards — such as complete personalization featuring your team’s colors and each player’s name and number — is a boost to your players’ self esteem. And that boosts their performance.

Plus, that personalized custom mouthguard easily becomes one of your player’s favorite pieces of equipment, on par with their jersey. When they’re at their locker before the game, after they pull on their uniform and apply eye black, that mouthguard is the last thing they put on, completing their game face.

3. Don’t Look Back In Anger

Personalization does wonders for building player confidence and encouraging team morale, but team gear plays an even more important role in your team’s success: player safety.

How do you keep your players safe? By giving them the best protection possible. But remember, not all equipment is created equal.

Sticking with the example of mouthguards, custom mouthguards aren’t just the best guard possible because they’re personalized. They’re the best because they offer protection and comfort that is unparalleled by other guards. That’s because they are designed using each athlete’s individual mouth structure, giving them the most intimate fit possible. And giving your players the ultimate protection is the ultimate on-field advantage.

At the end of the season, you don’t want to be wondering if there was something more you could’ve done to prevent an injury.

Instead, you should be thinking back on your team’s success and the team gear that made it possible.

Think about your players’ safety and improve your team’s success with custom gear from Gladiator Custom Mouthguards, the industry-leader in personalized mouthguards.