Long Valley Raiders football program will be changing their uniform color from the usual to match the High School.

The Long Valley Raiders football program has sported a green and gold uniform since it started over 43 years ago; now that is about to change. In the Raiders program new uniforms are purchased every 7-10 years depending on how much they are needed, and managers of the program have been going back and forth about this topic for the past couple years. The opportunity to change the colors approaches for the next season, and soon they will be voting on whether or not to change the team’s traditional appearance.

Jeffrey Chaplin is a grandson to one of the 4 founders of the football association and sent a letter to the Long Valley Patch showing why he thought that the Long Valley Raiders should keep their original green and gold colors.

Chaplin said that “My problem is we are not every other sports team; we are the Long Valley Raiders, green and gold not blue and white. We have been a part of this town for 43 years and Raiders green and gold is who we are.”

Also there are students here at West Morris Central that were former raiders players who always played wearing the green and gold colors.

Senior Sean McElwaine, a former player, gave about his opinion on the uniform change, saying: “I played with the green and yellow, I gotta stick with my roots”

There are about 220 families eligible to vote for this change, 156 made their voices heard at a recent meeting. With 63% of the members voting for the change of colors and 37% voting against it, the change is now happening. Starting with the 2015 season all levels of football will be wearing the high school’s blue and white.Even though the colors of the uniforms will change, though the name will not.

Although the members of the football association were able to vote the cheerleading association we not, since they sport the same green and gold colors the football players do they would all need new uniforms to match. The problem with this is that these uniforms will cost more than $24,000 for new uniforms and pom-poms for all levels of cheerleading. Even if they do get the money and uniforms in time the parents of the cheerleaders will also have to pay extra for the apparel that is necessary for the cheerleaders. As of now the cheerleaders will wear the uniforms they previously had until they can gather the funds necessary to purchase new ones for the coming seasons.