What’s the deal with volleyball shorts?

My daughter is eight. She’s tall – the tallest kid (female or male) in the third grade. Unlike her nonathletic father, she’s quick and fast and wiry and good at sports. She has enjoyed playing soccer since pee-wee and has recently developed an affinity for volleyball.

The local high school offers camps in the summer and in the fall for aspiring volleyballer’s and my wife and I have signed our little bundle of joy up for a few of these. It’s great. The High Schoolers give the little ones support and instruction and get them fired up to be high school players themselves one day.

There’s just one problem .. volleyball shorts.

The little kids don’t typically wear them; although some particularly obsessive moms seem to think they need to. The member of the high school team, however, all do. This is patently not good.

Those volleyball shorts barely cover up their butts. It’s nearly impossible for a middle aged man like me to pick his daughter up from camp and not notice some under-aged booties. High School girls are, after all, almost college girls. The seniors are, at least. So I avert my eyes the best I can and try not to be a dirty old man. But this is a burden I don’t think I or any other dad should bear. And I shudder to imagine my little girl someday sporting those shorts and forcing other would-be dirty old men into the same predicament. It’s unfair and completely unnecessary.

Volleyball shorts might as well be called “look at my butt shorts”.

I can’t understand why female volleyballers have to wear them. Lady basketball players don’t. They wear baggy basketball shorts just like the men do. Male volleyball players don’t wear Lycra bun-huggers either. They basically just wear basketball shorts – which makes sense when you consider that the range of motion required for volleyball and basketball is about the same. Why should volleyball apparel need to be any more revealing than basketball apparel?

I’m convinced that men designed women’s volleyball shorts with precisely the intent of leering at butts. There’s no other conceivable explanation as to why they would cover so little. Now, I can understand beach volleyball players wearing skimpy sexy outfits to attract viewership during the Olympic games and on weekend TV but for young people to be jumping around in show-me shorts in front of a bunch of parents makes no sense at all.

So, dear reader, if you happen to know somebody with some influence in the realm of required youth athletic wear would you maybe pass my message along? Wrap those girls in some baggy basketball shorts and spare the fathers of the world the encumbrance of having to avert their stares.

Thanks.