By Ross Bendik (@WrestleChicago)

When Jason Nolf exhausted his collegiate eligibility, it should have marked the end of the ankle band era. The pomp and circumstance Nolf gave to the ankle band removal process elevated them to their peak of grandeur. Now ankle bands are back to reality – a piece of vinyl with Velcro tabs on each end. They seem like something middle school gym teachers would have long forgotten on the bottom of a mesh bag in the back of their equipment room, rather than a uniform element that is required to enable accurate officiating of our beloved sport.

Take a moment to imagine the equivalent in other major college sports. In football, how would the theatrics of a big third-down stop change if after a defensive end sacked the quarterback, he had to pull a colored cap off his helmet and set it down on the line of scrimmage so his substitute on the punt return team could then put the colored cap on his helmet before the next snap. In basketball, do the referees need players to wear colored wristbands so they don’t incorrectly call a charge on the defensive player? The concept seems so awkward in other sports.

Of course, wrestling has one major difference from other major college sports. We allow wresters to take the mat in the exact same color singlets. It is not uncommon to see two wrestlers in red at a tournament. Since most mat-side scoreboards at tournaments do not display names, just score by color, a fan has to look at ankle bands to understand which wrestler in red is actually green on the scoreboard. Explaining ankle bands as part of our wrestling culture is not an easy conversation with someone we are trying to convert to a wrestling fan. “Our scoring is based on the complementary color pair of red and green. Ignore the singlet colors. Look at the vinyl sock covers to understand who is winning.”

I am not suggesting we do something to make scoring a match any more difficult; I am just suggesting we use a different method to identify alternate uniform colors. And we don’t need a think tank to solve it. It’s already in use in the other major college sports and been suggested a few times on the wrestling Twitter. 

Why don’t we move to home and away singlets? Home is always green. Away is always red. No ankle bands needed.  

Yes, it is a culture change. But the move should be easy. We are already in an era of spectacular white singlets. UNC, Wyoming, and Michigan are some of the best examples. Even Oklahoma State and Penn State, who have two of the most iconic dark singlets in the sport, have worn white, among other their alternate singlets. The only roadblock I see is Iowa. Their minimalist black singlets are so steeped in history, I struggle to imagine a Hawkeye taking the mat in white. However, I am sure someone in the wrestling community has a great design idea for an Iowa Hawkeye away singlet.  

Is that someone you? If so, submit your design to the 2019 Iowa Away Singlet Design Contest. Using anything from an online singlet builder [Cliff Keen or APS as examples] to a hand-drawn sketch, and share you design on Twitter with the hashtag #iowasawaysinglet. We will review the submissions and the top three designs will be shared on FloWrestling on November 24, the day of Iowa’s first away dual this season.