At this season’s City High versus West High rivalry game at Xtream Arena, the City High women’s basketball team stood out, wearing Unbreakable Female Athlete warm up shirts. 

Jaecee Hall, a member of the Iowa rowing team and the founder of Unbreakable Female Athlete, shared her experience in high school athletics and inequality she noticed between men and women’s sports. 

“I had definitely seen a disparity being a female athlete, not many people showed up to the girls’ games, but everyone came to the guy’s games. It became more amplified when I got to college. I understand the revenue is a big aspect of it, however no one really knows about our rowing team and how hard we work, mostly because girls don’t receive a lot of advertising, compared to the men’s sports.”

Jaecee kept in mind her experiences when creating the message for Unbreakable Female Athlete.

“My inbox would get flooded with messages saying that no one cares about women’s sports, and I knew I had to do something about this. I’m not scared to use my voice and I’ve told myself to keep fighting for everyone else. The more voices we have, the more girls will feel comfortable standing up together.” 

Unbreakable Female Athletes connection to City High girls basketball came as a result of assistant varsity coach Paul Roesler, who met Jaecee through his daughter, Jaiden. 

“My daughter Jaiden is on the rowing team with Jaecee, and she talked to her about creating logos for the brand. Jaecee texted me one day about designing logos and I decided to help out with it. I got to know Jaecee more and became more involved with the brand”, Roesler said. 

Jaecee explains her connection with Paul, and her excitement to work with his team. 

“The program is the perfect vision I see for an unbreakable female athlete. They take pride in being female athletes, and when I went to speak to them, I could understand the hard work they put in and how proud they are of each other. Working with them was amazing. Paul understands my opinion, and he uses the privilege he has to speak on the inequalities for girls in sports, and that’s huge.”

Being a father of two student athletes, Paul was able to understand Jaecee’s message and goals for gender equality in sports.

“I’ve always been a coach of female athletics because of my daughters, and I saw the differences between male and female sports, and how they’re treated. It has always been important to me to shine light on female athletics that weren’t getting recognition. Sometimes, unfortunately, it takes a male standing up to other males to get heard. If they’re already overlooking females in things like athletics they often overlook them when they try to point things out or call for equality. It shouldn’t be that way.” Roesler said. 

When asked about how his team represents Unbreakable Female Athletes, Paul recalled his team’s hard work ethic.

“I don’t think we ever quit. They speak out for things they think are right and wrong, and they’ll stand up to coaches and say what they need from us.” 

Roesler, who recently brought awareness to the inequality of the Xtream arena tickets via Instagram, explains his intentions on the post.

“I think that anytime we see things like that, it needs to be pointed out, and if we look the other way, we are just adding to the problem.”

Jaecee is continuing her work on expanding Unbreakable Female Athlete, sharing his message with other girls basketball teams and collaborating with other brands.

“I’ve worked with Chain Wrestling, and I’m about to work with RAYGUN on creating a shirt. I also did a collaboration with a brand called Rival that’s based in the UK. I’m really excited to do more.”