Competition, whether it be on the court, field or ice, is what keeps sports interesting. One of the greatest incentives to perform, in both collegiate and professional sport, is winning. Winning games, winning tournaments, winning championships – all of these aspects drive a team to perform.

But winning isn’t the only mark to make or goal to attain.

At State, coach Charita Stubbs of the volleyball team awards her players with shoelaces.

Stubbs has developed a reward system of sorts for her team. The players earn points in practice, as well as matches. The points translate into color categories for the shoelaces.

“The system is a lot like karate belts, using the different colors for progression,” Stubbs said. “I wanted to put them in the position to make sure that they contribute, so this provides a good incentive.”

The players earn one point for a kill, service ace or solo block. Double blocks are worth a half point. In practice, players can also earn points when the team scrimmages six-on-six.

The color sequence began with pink, which is worth 70 points, followed by blue. Every player has earned blue shoelaces. Purple is the current top shade of shoelace and has not been earned by everyone. Stubbs has chosen six colors to surprise her team with in addition to a winning a prize once a player has mastered all six levels.

But still people continue to ask, why shoelaces?

A handful of players wear wristbands, but not everyone likes them. Some wear ribbons, some wear headbands. But shoelaces are a must for all of the girls.

Stubbs has seen positive feedback from the team, as well as an increase in competitiveness amongst the girls.

“They like it, because it’s friendly completion, but it’s not in a catty way,” Stubbs said. “It’s always important to them to earn their points and be competitive.”

Stubbs brought the shoelaces to the court prior to the start of the fall season. A point system was put into practice in the previous spring season and a chart was posted in the locker room. But this is the first season that offers a quirky reward.

Senior outside hitter Keri DeMar has found the shoelaces to be a new method of motivation to work hard in practice and during match play.

“It’s like a surprise, because we don’t know which color is coming next,” Stubbs said. “If you’re not the one to get the newest color, you want to try harder to get more kills, blocks, aces – whatever you have to do.”

DeMar also said that no player wants to be left behind as the last one standing and everyone has the goal in mind to be the first to advance to the next level.

“The different levels are helping us to compete more against each other, because you want to work the system to your advantage and move on,” DeMar said.

Purple is the color choice for DeMar, and also the current color that the team is chasing after.

“I wasn’t the first to get it, so I really wanted to get on the level with the two other girls,” DeMar said. “I’m hoping that red is a color, though, because that’s our team color.”

Sophomore libero Kelly Wood said that it has been fun to see everyone fight to be the first to get the latest and greatest color because it pushes her teammates to all be better.

“It depends on the person, if you want to call it friendly competition,” Wood said. “I’m really competitive, so I’m always thinking that I want to be the first to get the newest color.”

Wood, like DeMar, is hoping for red shoelaces to show up in practice one day.

“Red is my favorite color,” Wood said. “I haven’t had red shoelaces since I was little and I want them.”

Junior setter Alex Smith said that the shoelaces are a positive way Stubbs exemplifies her tenacity and the expectations she places in her team.

“Rita has always been really competitive with everything we do,” Smith said. “I thought it was a pretty cool idea and it was unusual.”

Smith has yet to see her color of choice on anyone’s shoes. She is on the lookout for orange shoelaces, a shade that would be a loud complement to the Wolfpack red.

“It doesn’t match anything, but I hope we have it anyway, I’ll wear it,” Smith said.

The better the performance during a contest, the faster the girls are able to advance in “rank.”

“Isis [Gardner] has some really good games, so she has been able to advance over a couple of games,” Smith said.

Whether the players are pretty in pink, bold in blue or powerful in purple, they agree that the shoelaces bring an exciting spirit of competition to the unit, one that will hopefully continue for seasons to come.