About the Strong Athletic Skater Full Length Racerback Tank for Roller Derby and Ramp Skaters
Hey! We're Strong Athletic. Maybe you know us and you have a few of our tanks, tees and hats in your collection, or maybe this is your intro to our company? Regardless, we're glad you're here. Strong Athletic was established in 2014 after founder Nadia Kean decided to start selling a shirt that her friend Cristen Perks made her for Christmas 2013 that said "Strong Athletic Woman" on it. Cristen had been experimenting with graphic design and screen printing, and made Nadia the shirt as a gift. Nadia and Cristen were teammates on the Hell Marys and the Texecutioners, which are two teams that are part of the Texas Rollergirls. Nadia was growing tired of hearing coaches, officials, nsos, announcers and other people who were part of derby refer to her and her teammates as "girls". While Nadia loves the word girl, she only thinks it should be used when it is appropriate, and she knows now, as she knew then, that referring to an adult female as a girl is inappropriate. She started to call her teammates a "fine group of strong, athletic women" as a way to protest the misuse of the word "girl," and to start to teach others how she wanted to be referred to. Cristen had heard Nadia use this expression many times and decided it needed to go onto a shirt. The day she made that decision, she essentially changed the course of Nadia's life, setting the stage for what would later become Strong Athletic. With Cristen's permission Nadia started to sell replicas of the first shirt, and that's how Strong Athletic started. Many people know Nadia as Smarty Pants, which was her skate name. Nadia skated roller derby for 15 years before retiring from the sport in 2018 after the Roller Derby World Cup.
About the Bella Canvas Full Length Racerback Tank that we print the Strong Athletic Skater Design On
This design is printed on a royal blue tank in bright white ink. The words "Strong Athletic Skater" are printed on the front, the Strong Athletic logo is printed to the right below the words. The Strong Athletic logo is also printed on the back of the tank. This design is printed on the Bella Canvas Full Length Racerback Tank, style number 8430. The reason we call this a "full length" tank top is because we have other tanks that are crop tops and we want do distinguish the difference between the two styles. The length of the tank comes down to about the mid-thigh. This roller derby tank top has a scoop neck and the neck line is lower than a crew neck t-shirt. The arm holes for this racerback tank are pretty average in regard to other tanks, the arm holes are not "dropped" like you'd find in a traditional muscle tee. This tank is designed to fit tighter rather than loose, so if you like your tanks to have a bit more room, we recommend you go up a size. Also, every Strong Athletic tank is different, so make sure to check out or size charts.
About the Production of this Strong Athletic Shirt
We know that there are a few companies that make awesome shirts with great slogans and sayings across the front. One thing we notice is that our shirts are usually about $5-$10 more expensive than the other shirts on the market. Ever wonder why there is such a price difference? There's a good chance that some of those companies are simply producing more shirts, faster, and so their overhead costs are lower. We can't speak for them and how they set their prices, but we can speak for ourselves. At Strong Athletic, we only use small-scale screen printers and the garments that we print on are always made in either W.A.R.P. Certified facilities or other facilities that meet CPSIA standards. We also pay all of our contract employees a pay rate that is in line with living wage standards. The majority of our shirts are associated with a non-profit and we donate a portion of profits (sometimes 100% of profits) to causes that hold dear. We believe that when products are cheap, someone is losing out on income. We don't want those people to be anyone involved in our supply chain or who work for Strong Athletic on a daily basis.
Every single Strong Athletic product is produced by a small scale screen printer or embroidery shop. Our snapback hats are embroidered by a small-scale, local embroidery shop called Vistago Print in Lago Vista Texas. The majority of our shirts are printed by Amanda in Austin, Texas who prints out of the Austin Screen Printer's Coop, a screen printing shop that is member owned and run in East Austin. When our shirts are not printed by Amanda they are printed by other small-scale screen printers such as Second Avenues Ink in Portland, Oregon or Leigh Valley Apparel Creations in Pennsylvania. The art for this design is based on the original artwork created by Cristen Perks in 2013 for Strong Athletic founder Nadia Kean. The Strong Athletic logo was created by Angel Ortega in 2015, until that point our shirts had the Get Smarty Coaching logo on them.
Every Strong Athletic Shirt comes wrapped in our signature "You are so Strong" wraps which are held together with a kraft Strong Athletic sticker. Each shirt is then packaged in a biodegradable kraft mailer that we get from a US based company called EcoEnclose. We include a postcard that shares the origin story of Strong Athletic and that is addressed by hand to the person receiving the shirt. Also included in every package is a Strong Athletic logo sticker and one of our "We Believe" stickers. Every time you open a package from Strong Athletic we want it to feel special, especially if you're sending the Strong Athletic shirt as a gift.