Pink Soccer Balls and Equipment at Puma Project Pink 2011

For 2011, Puma has gone all out in supporting breast cancer causes.

This is the second year that Puma has put out a great line of Project Pink soccer-related products. There are products with Puma’s usual quality, but all with a pink flair.

Female athletes have been wearing pink Puma gear all year round to support the cause, from professional women’s soccer teams throughout July and August wearing pink to Golf athletes Lexi Thompson and Anna Nordqvist sporting head-to-toe Project Pink during the women’s golf major on July 8th.

For a limited time at the Puma Store (select “Project Pink” from the left-hand navigation), you can purchase your own gear, all of which helps support a great cause. Choose from cute T-Shirts, pink goalkeepers gloves, and even a regulation pink soccer ball (lower priced replicas which donate to breast cancer are also available at Amazon).

I had the opportunity to sample a couple great products. Here’s my take on them:

1) T-Shirts. These are very cute T-Shirts with the Project Pink logo on them and the tagline “Recognize, Empower, Engage”. One comes in black with a bright pink logo and the other comes in a darker pink with a bright pink logo. These are high quality 100% ring spun cotton T-shirts that look great and spread the word about this important cause. They retail for $30 each.

2) Gym Bag: This is a large black gym sack with pink and white accents, a white Puma logo, the Project Pink logo and the WPS logo. It’s the perfect place to put all your gear, and the whole bag ties up with two strings. It retails for $10 and the material is 100% polyester (with a canvas/vinyl sort of feel), meaning it’ll stand anything you can throw at it–muddy equipment, bad weather, and general locker room ickiness!

3) Soccer Ball: This is the best of the best Project Pink product at the Puma store. A regulation size 5 King soccer ball as used by the Women’s Professional Soccer League, it has the WPS logo, the Project Pink logo, and the Puma logo all around a bright pink, black, and white ball. While it’s a full-sized and official soccer ball, its panels are soft and cushy, making things like heading the ball a lot less painful. It comes at a cost, but remember that a chunk of the proceeds goes to the fight against breast cancer.

There’s also other soccer equipment at the Puma Store, such as shinguards and mini soccer balls.

Now that I’ve reviewed the equipment, I’d like to give away a T-shirt AND the $100 soccer ball to a true soccer fan. Here’s all you need to do to receive it:

1) “Like” this site on Facebook by clicking the button to the right of this screen.

2) Write a comment on this post talking about why you love women/girl’s soccer, either as a player or a fan. You can discuss your favorite player or team and/or talk about what position you play on your soccer team (if you’re under 18, please get your parent’s permission). Be sure to include your email address in the email field, not in your post (your address will never be used for anything except informing you if you’re the winner).

3) Add to your a comment a sentence or two on how you plan to spread the word about breast cancer awareness.

I’ll pick a winner from all the comments randomly and announce it here. If you know a soccer player or fan, tell them about this post and there’s a pretty good chance are they’ll get some great stuff!

But regardless, buying Project Pink products at the Puma store is a great gift to a young soccer fan which contributes to a great cause. Project Pink was launched in 2010 in response to a group of female soccer athletes looking to support breast cancer awareness and research. The effort has been joined by a number of celebrities and luminaries in women’s soccer, including Amy Rodriguez, Leslie Osborne, Karina LeBlanc, Alex Scott, Tasha Kai, and Marta. New this year are Julie Foudy and Nina Dobrev (of Vampire Diaries fame).  In 2010, they gave over $60,000 donation to the Breast Cancer Research and Education Fund at Magee-Womens Foundation.

For the last few months, Puma asked its fans at www.puma.com/projectpink to nominate breast cancer charities who this year would receive all of the proceeds from the sale of the aforementioned products, as well as other breast cancer-related initiatives.  Check out their page to see which charity was ultimately chosen!