GoldWinger

"My opinion: In low humidity climes, cotton fills the bill."

I grew up and currently live in an area where 99% humidity with a temp of 99 isn't uncommon. The only advantage that I've found with plastic shirts are that they dry quickly so you don't get chilled when the temp drops.

The key to staying cool with cotton is that the t-shirt has to fit snugly. I find it interesting that all the lovers of the plastic shirts and smartwool shirts will wear them like a second skin but cotton, nooooo, it's as baggy as a gangster's pants.

Cotton is renewable, natural and doesn't use oil.

"ACTUALLY, the odds of you throwing the winning TD are greater, and we know how long those are."

Since you're trying to drag probablity and statistics (not math) into the discussion, you have no data to support that contention.

Where's the bit about a player being off the field? Sorry, I'm not reading all 260+ pages of the NCAA rule book.

However, I will stand corrected on the spending a time out to stay in the game. I'm still don't buy calling a time out as evidence of leadership skills any more than leadership is demonstrated when a basketball player calls a time out in mid-air while flying out of bounds. Pressence of mind, yes. Leadership, no. Inspiring, perhaps but still not leadership.

BP, quite honestly, I don't care what you think about much of anything.

Hmmmm. . . didn't know that you played NFL football. Show me a link for NFHS football rules.

"And you probably wouldn't have been throwing up on the sideline if you were in,"

Hmmmm . . . isn't that what I said?

"When the player is on the field that is true. But if someone is throwing up off the field, or has a cramp off the field, the game doesn't stop."

Hmmmm . . . I don't officiate football but I doubt if you're reading that right. Maybe a certified football official would care to chime in.

"Not to be rude or anythimg, but If I was on that team, I am very glad you were not the QB in that siutation."

Hmmmmm . . . that is pretty rude but I wouldn't have been puking on the sidelines.

"Actually, I believe I said I wore a uniform 'suit' to impress people (aka arbitrary judges)."

Nah, what you said was . . .

"Now, uniforms the same way. I would only wear it to impress someone that would be impressed."

"I could have worn any color jersey ... I"

Once again, nah. You wore a jersey and helmet of a color and decoration similar to that of your teammates because the rules say that you must. That's the way it works in organized sports, you wear a uniform because you must.

"in which the players are covering ground at up to 3000 inches a second"

Wow! Dem be fast players. 3,000 inches per second, that works out to . . . 250 feet per second. That would give you a 40 yard dash time of less than one second.

"And you set this up for the with the letter jacket. It does impress someone. The Girls. Ultimate win?"

Hmmmm . . . it didn't work too well for you, did it? Instead of being out with a girl, you're spending your evening on line with a bunch of middle aged men. Now, that's what I call dorky.

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"While he was throwing up, he still had the mind presence to hold up the T so the team didn't take a delay of game penalty."

If high school football rules are like HS baseball or HS basketball rules, the clock stops for a sick or injured player and there is no penalty. If that's the case, your quick thinking leader wasted a time out.

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"The uniform makes me better at my sport."

Wait a sec. . . you said that you'd only wear a uniform to impress people. Now you're saying that wearing the uniform to make you better at your sport. Which is it? If it is only to make you better at your sport, you could have worn any color jersey that fit the "sticky" bill. However, I'm willing to bet that you wore a jersey and pants and helmet that were remarkably similar to your teammates. Why?

You mentioned your letterman's jacket. That too is a uniform so you must only be wearing that because it somehow makes you better at something or because it impresses someone important. Which is it?

Like most synthetics, the "wicking Ts" hold onto odors. If you get stinky in the shirt, the shirt will stay stinky. Oh, it will smell fine after laundering but after you wear it for a bit, no one will want to stand next to you. Technology, ain't it grand?

"that is the purvey of the Bench."

That's what they supply? Maybe you mean "perview"?

"The ACLU just can't decide to sue! Some one has to come to them and request them to take a case. Right????"

I believe that they look for people with "standing" and then try to make their "constitutional points."

"Well, GW, start a troop!!"

AHG creeps you out? No wonder. You're encouraging middle aged men to start troops. I've already been investigated eight ways from Sunday for security clearnaces and professional and personal licenses but I'm sure I'd still make mothers across the country nervous.

"So Goldwinger from your last post if that life scout quit after making ASPL, you say for community service, but what does that say about the program relating to the boys needs, its not about the uniform its more about the adult control in that troop."

I'm not following you. He didn't quit because he was expected to do community service, he quit because he was expected to be seen in public as a member of BSA doing the troop projects around the town.

What adult control? The SM tells a member of the troop leadership that he needs to step up and do his job. Gee, elsewhen on this forum, folks are whining that the SM needs to tell a "leader" when he isn't doing his job.

"BSA but they were too jingoistic, "hearth and home," and Christian-right for me."

Nothing wrong with any of those three from where I sit.

"Now, uniforms the same way. I would only wear it to impress someone that would be impressed."

So when you played your sports to get that letterman's jacket, you didn't wear a uniform or did you and whom were you attempting to impress?

Not quite what I was thinking.

"As much as I complain about GSUSA, as a leader and parent, AHG creeps me out mightily."

Why? Do they have the girls dancing with goats while wearing diaphanous gowns under the full moon at midnight?

Why would a Scout wear his uniform to schoo? Many reasons. It could be "Scout Day" in February. He could be giving a talk about his Scouting activities. It could be in support of a recruiting drive.

Anytime that you show up in "different" clothes at school, a boys friends are going to rag on him. Doesn't matter what it is. If he wears a suit for picture day. If he wears his new letter jacket. It dies down after a few minutes as long as he doesn't cry and run away.

What about the boys who don't want their friends to know that they are Scouts, uniform or not. There was a boy in my son's troop who never left his house wearing his uniform. He made life and then quit when the new Scoutmaster told him that, as an ASPL, he was expected to show up to give leadership at our community service events.

Yep.

"Well aren't they fortunate. Ain't the case where I live,"

So? The point remains that these parents who willing drop more for lunch than the cost of a pair of Scout pants will whine about the cost of the uniform. Why? Because they don't percieve that Scouting has any value, the troop doesn't emphasize it, and Little Johnny really doesn't care either.

I've seen frantic parents rush out to buy baseball pants for their child because little Timmy can't play without them. This on the day of the game, after they discover that the mean old umpire won't allow Timmy to play in jeans because the rules prohibit it. Zoom! They're to the store and back before "Play" is called. Ever see anyone do that for Scouting?

Well, that's baseball . . . that's different isn't it? Not really, you have a bunch of old farts deciding that the boys need to wear tight, knit pants to play with a black belt and that the shirt needs to be tucked in and the cap worn with the bill to the front. Can you play baseball without a uniform? Sure, in my day we did it all the time with pick-up games.

It isn't the dorkiness of the uniform that discourages boys from wearing it. You can't get much dorkier than tight, polyester, knit pants with socks that come up nearly to the knee. Okay, they don't wear that to school but they don't hide when their friends see them on the way home from the game.

Lah me, nine pages and umpty-squat posting on the uniform, most of which repeat the same old tired things that the same people have posted before.

First off, a man's suit hasn't changed that much in the past 100 years. Lapels wide then narrow. Cuffs . .. no cuffs. Vest? Today, not tomorow. Not like what teens wear today compared to 1976. Okay, a 1918 business suit might be noticable today but if they still fit, my Brooks Brothers suits from 1988 would look pretty much the same on me as my 2008 vintage BB suits. Sure, the bleeding edge of fashion changes, but most of us aren't there.

Uniforms and old farts? Every sport has a uniform. Sure the players on the various teams might have some input into what the uniform looks like BUT the final call is made by the old farts. Are uniforms necessary for sports? Not really. Equipment is but uniforms aren't but once we get organized, the uniforms show up. Why uniforms? It shows a sense of purpose and identity. It let's the public know who you are.

So the Scouting uniform is designed by old farts, just like nearly every other uniform out there worn by kids. Why do kids not want to wear it? Simple, Scouting ain't cool. It has nothing to do with the uniforms and their "dorkiness." It has to do with the idea that Scouting, in and of itself is dorky.

Yep, Scouting is dorky. Today, more so than ever. Being courteous and obedient is not popular in a culture so focused on doing whatevery you want. Heck, "What are you, some kind of Boy Scout?" has been an insult since it was first uttered in a 1930s movie.

Okay, if being a Scout isn't popular, why are so many in Scouting? Because their parents make them go. That's a big part of why they disappear after they make Eagle. The parents' goals have been met so there is no longer a need to be in Scouting.

Cost? Sure, it's expensive but so are those "Starter" jackets for the NFL teams and the NHL game jerseys and the Nike sneakers. Priced high school letterman's jacket recently? Makes a Scout wool jacket look cheap. Even the poorest letterman gets a jacket and wears all sort of gee-gaws and doo-dads on it.

Most of the parents in my son's troop had six figure incomes and lived in houses that cost nearly a half million dollars. The parents would spend drop $75 for a windbreaker for an AAU team without thinking but **** ed about the Scout uniform, cost of Scout camp and the cost of popcorn.

What's the difference? Sports is important because it teaches WINNING and leads to scholarships but Scouting isn't important unless it leads to Eagle which is the win.

So we have parents who will brag about the cost of the sports uniform and how their son couldn't play unless he had the full uniform but these same parents whine about the troop's expectation that their son wear green pants.

So back to why don't the Scouts want to wear their uniforms. Because they really don't want to be Scouts. They are happy to let the adults run things because they don't want to be there and they don't care. I will believe until the day that I die that most Scouts today are only in Scouting because their parents want them to be there.