The Big Business of Holding Back Eighth-Graders

Summary

The Journal. — "The Big Business of Holding Back Eighth-Graders"

Release Date: June 18, 2026
Hosts: Ryan Knutson, Jessica Mendoza
Guests/Reporters: Harriet Ryan (WSJ Investigative Reporter), Devin Quinn (Founder of The Together Ship), Carter & Michael Cancelleri (student/family), Various students

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the rapidly growing trend of "holdback academies"—specialized private schools that encourage and enable middle school students, particularly athletes, to repeat eighth grade. The motivation: gain a physical and mental edge for high school sports, positioning students for athletic scholarships and lucrative college Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals. The episode zeroes in on The Together Ship, a Southern California school, and unpacks the business, educational, and ethical implications of this controversial phenomenon.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is a "Holdback Academy"?

• Setting the Scene

  • At The Together Ship, a private middle school in San Clemente, California, gym finals are as important as academics, with students tested on athletic skills: pull-ups, sprints, specific sports drills.
    • "Each day they have four classes. Two academic, two athletic. But they alternate." (Devin Quinn, 01:27)
  • The curriculum is split between regular academics and sports, including tailored nutrition for student-athletes.
    • "Really protein dominant and really just trying to make sure...they're getting enough fuel...it's a lot of energy expended." (Devin Quinn, 10:25)

• The Holdback Year

  • The Together Ship offers an extra year, "HSP" (High School Prep), letting students repeat 8th grade, specifically for athletic development.
    • "If we can get this one more year...so they enter high school fully prepared, it's really a big advantage." (Devin Quinn, 02:03)

2. Why Is This Happening—And Why Now?

• Shifting the Narrative
  • Holding kids back for sports was once taboo; associated instead with academic or behavioral struggles.
    • "Getting held back when I was a child meant, like, you did not learn to read..." (Harriet Ryan, 04:02)
    • "If you did it specifically for sports, that was pretty fringe... Those parents were seen as somewhat insane." (Harriet Ryan, 04:26)
• NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) Changes Everything
  • The 2021 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowed college athletes to be paid for NIL, creating a rush to gain any competitive edge—starting ever earlier.
    • "Now the money's in college. You need to start planning when you're in high school or even middle school." (Harriet Ryan, 05:34)
  • Families and schools now see the holdback year as a path to those lucrative opportunities.
    • "NIL has really became a factor... starting, you know, senior year, freshman year of college." (Devin Quinn, 06:00)

3. How the Holdback Year Works—and Who Chooses It

• Types of Families & Motivations
  • Many parents are "normal people" doing methodical research, trying to give their child the best possible chance at college, in athletics and academics.
    • "I met like normal people... looked around my travel team, looked around my club team, and this is the right option for my kid." (Harriet Ryan, 13:13)
  • For elite middle school athletes (especially boys), the promise is a year to "sprout up"– physically and emotionally.
    • "They're going to become more coordinated, they're going to bulk up..." (Harriet Ryan, 06:38)
    • "Instead of playing freshman football or JV, they will start on varsity." (Harriet Ryan, 07:02)
• Who Can (and Can't) Do This?
  • Public schools generally won’t allow a holdback solely for sports reasons, but private/“cottage industry” academies can—and business is booming.
    • "Most public schools will not let you hold back for an athletic reason alone... But if the parents are just like, this is for sports. No, they don't let you do that." (Harriet Ryan, 07:30)
  • Costs vary: Private schools like The Together Ship charge $20,000/year; some families turn to homeschool "concierges" for a fraction of the price.
    • “Middle class... cannot afford a private school...but they can afford to do this, and they're doing it.” (Harriet Ryan, 17:08)

4. The Student and Parent Perspective

• Reclassify, Don’t Call It “Held Back”
  • Top NBA prospect AJ Dybantsa, who repeated 8th grade for sports, strongly prefers the term "reclassified."
    • “Held back is like, you know, your grades is wrong...I passed.” (AJ Dybantsa, 12:51)
• Personal Experience: Carter Cancelleri
  • Focused on baseball, Carter gained size, strength, and confidence during his “holdback” year.
    • “This whole year, I've gained weight...I've gone bigger, faster, stronger, taller…everything…has matured and gone up.” (Carter Cancelleri, 14:27)
  • His dad, Michael, frames the move as student-driven and strategic:
    • “He wanted to be able to perform the best that he could...this gave him a better opportunity to kind of reach some of those goals.” (Michael Cancelleri, 14:45)
  • In highly competitive regions like Southern California's Trinity League, holding back is becoming the norm.
    • “It can be a disadvantage if you're not kind of taking advantage of this.” (Michael Cancelleri, 15:43)

5. Downsides, Unintended Consequences & Ethical Debates

• Potential Backlash and Leveling
  • If widespread, holding back ceases to be an advantage—just becomes the new floor.
    • “Once we’re there, it’s not an advantage anymore.” (Harriet Ryan, 16:16)
  • Peer pressure: Even average athletes feel obliged, just to keep up.
    • “Their kid who doesn't do it is going to be deprived...of the opportunity just to play on their high school team.” (Harriet Ryan, 16:16)
• Affluence & Equity
  • Historically a privilege of wealth and access, but options expanding for middle and lower-middle class families, via lower-cost alternatives.
    • “She said they are middle class...they cannot afford a private school...but they can afford to do this.” (Harriet Ryan, 17:08)
• Are There Drawbacks?
  • Some parents say, “literally no drawbacks.” (18:00)
  • But an opposing view: facing adversity by being smaller or less developed is character-building.
    • “That gave me ambition and a work ethic and grit...” (Former pro player, 18:45)
• State-Level Reactions
  • Some states (e.g., Pennsylvania) penalize holdbacks by withholding high school eligibility.
    • “If a student holds back a year for sports...the state will take a year of sports eligibility from them.” (19:14)
  • Others, like Louisiana, have conceded—dropping penalties.
  • Even public schools in Orange County are beginning to offer their own holdback (repeat 8th grade) programs to retain students.
    • “People in that district will be paying for kids to repeat eighth grade.” (Harriet Ryan, 19:53)
    • “The public school system is rolling out a competitor...because they've become that common.” (Ryan Knutson, 19:56)

6. Where Does This Lead?

• Trend Toward Ever-Younger Specialization

  • The “arms race” is migrating down from high school to middle school, with families eyeing the long odds of NIL and pro sports windfalls—regardless of how few actually succeed.
    • “It doesn't matter that only a minority of kids are going to get those big NIL deals...they are sort of influencers.” (Harriet Ryan, 20:52)

• Founder’s Vision for the Future

  • Devin Quinn dreams of seeing alumni from The Together Ship making it to Division I or even the pros.
    • “One day a kid’s gonna say I went to the together ship. And that's kind of like when I say, like, all right, we did it.” (Devin Quinn, 21:42)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Getting held back when I was a child meant...you did not learn to read that year."
  − Harriet Ryan, 04:02

• "Now the money’s in college. You need to start planning when you’re in high school or even middle school."
  − Harriet Ryan, 05:34

• "Held back is like, you know, your grades is wrong...I passed."
  − AJ Dybantsa on the Made Hoops Circuit podcast, 12:51

• "I met like normal people…this is the right option for my kid."
  − Harriet Ryan, 13:13

• “If you’re not kind of taking advantage of this, it may make it more challenging.”
  − Michael Cancelleri, 15:43

• "For all players now...I just wonder whether they are going to be able to meet adversity, not having just dealt with it through the natural course of life."
  − Former pro player to Harriet Ryan, 18:45

• “Once we’re there, it’s not an advantage anymore. But...it sure is a disadvantage [now].”
  − Harriet Ryan, 16:16

• "The public school system is rolling out a competitor...because they've become that common."
  − Ryan Knutson, 19:56

• "One day a kid’s gonna say I went to the together ship. And that's kind of like when I say, like, all right, we did it."
  − Devin Quinn, 21:42

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Gym Finals at The Together Ship: 00:16–01:14
• Athletic-Oriented Private Schools & Holdback Concept: 01:42–02:14
• History and Stigma of “Holding Back”: 04:02–04:42
• NIL Ruling Impact: 04:56–06:26
• Public vs. Private Policy Differences: 07:24–08:06
• Together Ship’s Founding Story & Structure: 08:10–09:49
• Inside the Holdback Year – Student/Parent View: 13:41–15:43
• Broadening Access (Homeschool, Class Equity): 17:00–18:00
• Drawbacks & State Reactions: 18:32–19:42
• Public School Systems Join In: 19:53–20:02
• Societal Effects & Founder’s Vision: 20:31–22:20

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Episode Takeaway

The business of “holding back” eighth graders has exploded, fusing big money, sports ambitions, and family anxieties. As both private and public schools now compete to offer repeat years to aspiring athletes, the holdback year is shifting from fringe to mainstream—a microcosm of deeper changes in youth sports, educational access, and the commercialization of childhood achievement. Whether this gives students true “gains in life,” as well as in the weight room, remains an open and pressing question.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Good.

[A]

Remove boxes. Legs up. Ready?

[C]

Go. Let's go.

[A]

Push this up.

[D]

Let's go.

[A]

This is the sound of finals at a middle school in Southern California.

[E]

Let's go, Chance.

[D]

Ah.

[A]

Go, Chamberlain. And at this school, their finals aren't just on paper. They're also in the gym. They're being tested for their speed, their strength. Here they're doing pull ups. Let's go, race.

[C]

This.

[A]

Middle school is called the Together Ship. And as you may have guessed, it isn't a typical school. It's a private school where a major part of the curriculum is is athletics. There are classes like weightlifting and speed training, and they also have classes for specific sports, like the football players who work on running routes and throwing mechanics. Ready to go?

[E]

Yep. Running routes, routes on air.

[A]

And the soccer players trying to score goals on each other. Good finish.

[F]

Yeah.

[A]

The basketball students practicing their layups. The school was founded by a man named Devin Quinn.

[E]

Each day they have four classes. Two academic, two athletic. But they alternate. They'll have. So like all these kids that are in academic class right now, they will be in an athletic class their next period, and then after that, back to an academic class, and then the last period for them would be athletic.

[A]

The Together Ship is part of a new phenomenon, a growing multimillion dollar cottage industry of private schools across the country that emphasize athletics. Another thing that makes these schools unusual is that they offer to hold students back a year in middle school specifically so they can get better at sports.

[E]

And so if we can get this one more year to prepare them and get them set up so that they enter high school fully prepared, it's really a big advantage.

[A]

Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Ryan knudsen. It's Thursday, June 18th. Coming up on the show, the big business of holding back eighth graders.

[D]

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[A]

Holding kids back isn't a new thing, but historically, it's only been done for academic or behavioral reasons, and it often comes with negative connotations. Here's our colleague Harriet Ryan, an investigative reporter.

[G]

I mean, getting held back when I was a child meant, like, you did not learn to read that year. You couldn't sit still, and they thought they were gonna give you another crack at third grade. But that's not what this holdback is.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, certainly I remember back in school, like, that would be a way to tease someone.

[G]

Yeah. That one kid who's like a foot taller than everybody else in the class. Yeah.

[A]

And if you did it specifically for sports, that was pretty fringe.

[G]

Those parents were seen as somewhat insane even by people who had their kids playing, you know, elite sports. They thought, like, well, somebody who would do that is kind of crazy. And I will point to no greater source than the movie Varsity Blues, which was about overbearing football parents in Texas.

[D]

Yep.

[G]

Gonna hold our toy back a year,

[D]

so it'll be bigger.

[E]

For frostrats.

[A]

8th grade ain't so it is a song. This started to change a few years ago when college athletes suddenly were able to get paid.

[G]

After a historic ruling by the ncaa. Collegiate athletes across the country have a newfound freedom. Freedom to make money. But what allows college athletes to get paid for their name, image, and likeness? In what can be lucrative nil deals? Nil. That's name, image, and a likeness. So the Supreme Court decision that made it possible to compensate amateur athletes, that just rolled everything back about when you have to start thinking about becoming really good at sports if you want to get paid. So before it was like, you know, the money's in the pros. You need to start planning when you're in college. Now the money's in college. You need to start planning when you're in high school or even middle school.

[A]

And, like, not that many people can make it to the pros. And everybody kind of has a good sense of that. You know, there's like, I don't know, like, around 450 roster spots in the NBA, so you probably don't have a chance. But college and nil money, like, maybe

[G]

we could get that right.

[A]

Devin from the together ship says nil deals are definitely something he and the families are thinking about the NIL has

[E]

really became a factor. And now all of a sudden, it speeds it up, where kids are getting able to make money off this starting, you know, senior year, freshman year of college. And so I would say that that has now become a pretty big factor in it. But originally it was not part of the reasoning at all. But it definitely is a bigger factor now.

[A]

And to increase their odds of getting an NAL deal, which can be worth millions of dollars for the best athletes, parents and students are looking for any advantage they can get. And an extra year of school definitely helps.

[G]

For boys, the dream that's kind of sold to parents is that in this year, your kid is going to just sprout up, grow 3 inches, 6 inches, 8 inches, and they're going to become more coordinated, they're going to bulk up,

[A]

which means they might get faster, stronger, and overall better at their sport. And for that extra year, they'll also build confidence and maturity.

[G]

And so they go into high school and be a force. Instead of playing freshman football or jv, they will start on varsity, and they will have four great years to showcase their abilities to colleges. That is the idea behind it.

[A]

But what is the rule on this? I mean, can students just be held back for whatever reason the parents want?

[G]

Most public schools will not let you hold back for an athletic reason alone. If a child is struggling academically or social emotionally, they might allow a student to repeat a year. But if the parents are just like, this is for sports. No, they don't let you do that. And that's why there's been this proliferation of private holdback academies, because they are serving a need that the vast majority of public schools will not do.

[A]

So the schools are saying, no, you can't do this. But, like, hey, there's a private school down the street that says, if you pay us, we'll hold them back for a year.

[G]

Yes.

[A]

One of those private schools down the street is the Together Ship.

[E]

The growth that I saw in that one year I knew was special or, like, there was really something there.

[A]

Devin started off working with students who did a holdback year through homeschooling, and the parents of those kids encouraged him to start his own school.

[E]

And so I always joke, like, I don't know if I love or hate those moms who said, hey, you have something here. Like, this is a school for athletes that you basically are running. And so they were the ones that kind of pushed me to really pursue it and make it into a real structured school.

[A]

He opened the together ship in 2020.

[E]

So here's our science room.

[D]

Hi.

[E]

What grade is this?

[G]

This is seventh grade.

[E]

Seventh grade.

[F]

Yeah. Hi there.

[A]

I'm Christine Pierce at the Wall Street. Oh, hi. Our producer, Pier Singh visited the school recently. Its co ed costs about $20,000 a year and has grades six through eight plus one more. The holdback program.

[E]

Yeah. So we call it HSP High School Prep.

[A]

The Together Ship is in San Clemente, California, an affluent area of Orange County. Its campus sits on a hill overlooking the ocean.

[E]

She's got ocean view in there.

[G]

I do have an ocean view.

[F]

If you stand over here.

[A]

Each student has a sports focus. Right now, the school offers football, basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball, and lacrosse. But they have regular classes, too, playing

[E]

Family Feud with mythology.

[A]

All right, next up, Pierce visited one class while it was doing a trivia game.

[G]

All right, gentlemen, who is Kronos wife?

[B]

Raya.

[G]

Yes, sir.

[B]

Excellent.

[C]

Excellent.

[A]

Some students were also testing how fast their sprints were. There you go. And the school's food options, if you pay extra for it, is also tailored to athletes with high protein meals.

[E]

Eggs and bacon, and some protein shakes. And then also some oatmeal or overnight oats.

[A]

2,800 calories.

[E]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really protein dominant and really just trying to, like, make sure that they're getting enough fuel in their body for, you know, they're doing two workouts here and then after school a lot of times they'll have practice as well. So it's a lot of energy expended throughout.

[A]

The protein will help with the gains in the weight room. But does holding back a year help with the gains in life? That's after this recession.

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[A]

AJ debonza is projected to be one of the top picks in this year's NBA draft. And he did a holdback year.

[E]

So once I got an extra year of work, it was like, yeah, I'm ready, like, I can go hoop with anybody.

[A]

Here he is talking on a podcast

[E]

about it because that made hoops circuit. Like when I played eighth grade, I won it because I had confidence and I was like, yeah, I can play high school.

[A]

Just don't call it getting held back to his face. AJ Just a quick follow up question with that. So you said that you got held, you did eighth grade twice. I know, that's fun fact. I actually was held back in eighth grade, but now it's did you get

[E]

held back because of your grades?

[C]

No.

[D]

Reclassify.

[A]

Are we changing the term?

[E]

I did not get held back, I reclassified.

[D]

Let's fix that.

[E]

Okay, there we go. Held back is like, you know, your grades is wrong. You didn't pass. I passed.

[A]

Many students want to reclassify so that they can be like AJ DeBonsa. But many of the families Harriet spoke to were also interested in this type of education, especially after those years of online school during the pandemic.

[G]

People in this area of Orange county are very concerned about academics as well as athletics. They want their kids to get into good colleges academically as well as athletically. I think when I've talked to people about the story, everyone wants me to say, like, oh, I met a lot of crazy people that have crazy ideas about their kids. And no, I met like normal people who were like, I looked at, did my research, talked to coaches, looked around my travel team, looked around my club team, and this is the right option for my kid.

[A]

One of those families is the Cancelleris, 15 years old.

[G]

Carter Cancelleri, San Clemente I'm going into freshman year, just finished up 8th grade.

[A]

Carter Cancelleri did a holdback year at the Together Ship where he focused on baseball. His dream is to play baseball in college and then professionally, hopefully for the San Diego Padres. He spoke to our producer, Pierce. One of the reasons that people talk about doing these holdback years is also gives like a chance for your body to mature physically also. Is that something that, you know, you've seen 100%.

[F]

Like, I've always been undersized and going

[G]

in that hold back here, I was much smaller, shorter, weighed not a lot.

[F]

And then this whole year, I've gained weight.

[G]

I've gone bigger, faster, stronger, taller. So everything in that extra year has matured and gone up.

[A]

Well, what's your favorite thing, like, on the field? Like, what do you. What do you like doing the most?

[G]

Probably hitting is. I enjoy that the most, for sure.

[A]

Here's Carter's dad, Michael.

[C]

The holdback part of this was being driven by Carter. He's very dedicated, focused kid. He wanted to be able to perform the best that he could. He was pretty focused on the type of high school or the league that he wanted to go to in the area. And he has always known, like, there were certain steps to kind of get, get there. And if this gave him a better opportunity to kind of reach some of those goals, then he was all for it.

[A]

Next year, Carter will be attending a private school in the Trinity League, an athletic conference in Southern California that's known for elite athletics.

[C]

As competitive a league you will get in the country in any sport. The football programs are, you know, amazing. The women's boys, every kind of athletic activity at those schools is just hyper, hyper competitive.

[A]

In parts of the country where sports are especially competitive, like Southern California, where Carter lives, Michael says it's starting to feel like a disadvantage not to hold

[C]

your kid back, especially at the top schools. This has become much, much more prevalent. So, yeah, I think that it can be a disadvantage if you're not kind of taking advantage of this, it may make it more challenging.

[A]

Where do you think this trend is heading? I mean, do you think that we're. That this is going to create a situation where just more and more and more schools and kids across the country are being held back a year? It's going to become more common.

[G]

You know, I think what will happen eventually, and if this hasn't already happened, is that everybody who is like a D1 boy competitive athlete is going to have been reclassed or held back. I think some experts believe, like, okay, that's where we're going. And once we're there, it's not an advantage anymore. But, you know, but not during. It sure is a disadvantage. I think there is a belief among some parents, they know their kid is not going to get a college scholarship or nil money. They want them to have the opportunity to play in high school and where they live, they look around and everybody's doing this. And so their kid who doesn't do it is going to, like, be deprived in their view of the opportunity just to play on their high school team.

[A]

How does affluence play a factor in this? I mean, is this an opportunity that really is only available to wealthier families?

[G]

I talked to a woman who runs a homeschool program. So she's basically like, sort of a concierge for parents who want to homeschool their kids. And she helps them, like, figure out what their state requirements are and how to fill out the paperwork. She charges her basic packages $650 a year. And she said she's getting a ton of athletic families. And she said they are middle class or a little bit lower than that, and they cannot afford a private school for their kids, but they can afford to do this, and they're doing it.

[A]

I mean, I gotta be honest, like, it sounds kind of appealing to me, thinking back to my own high school experience, which I loved, you know, but, like, the idea that I could spend more time studying basketball, which is my main sport, you know, and, like, learning how to get better doesn't sound so bad. A little bit less time sitting and looking at a book.

[G]

I mean, all the parents I talked to said there are literally no drawbacks. They fight with the kids less about homework because the kid's a year older in high school. They are more coordinated. They are more able to be self starters. Some people told me, like, even if my kid wasn't an athlete, I would hold them back because boys are so difficult to deal with in high school, and if they were all just a year older, things would be better.

[A]

Hmm.

[G]

So there's definitely a contingent that thinks there's no drawback at all.

[A]

There are people who think the holdback year could have potential drawbacks. For instance, Harriet talked to one coach who said that sometimes it's good for players to be smaller than everyone else because it teaches them how to deal with adversity.

[G]

He was a basketball player. He played professionally in Europe. And he said, a really defining moment in my life was being a gangly freshman who was not good and got run over by everybody. And that gave me ambition and a work ethic and grit. And I used that to become better and better and better. And he said, you know, I think for all players now, I just wonder whether they are going to be able to meet adversity, not having just dealt with it through the natural course of life.

[A]

Across the country, some states still think it's unfair. In Pennsylvania, if a student holds back a year for sports, the state will take a year of high school sports eligibility from them. But others are giving in other states

[G]

have sort of just been like, this is a battle we don't want to fight anymore. So Louisiana used to have these, like, pretty tough rules. Like, they would penalize coaches, they would penalize schools who were involved in any way. And they just got rid of those rules in 2023.

[A]

And in Orange county, where the Togethership is the largest school district there, Capistrano Unified will start offering its own holdback program this upcoming fall, paid for by taxpayers.

[G]

Like, people in that district will be paying for kids to repeat eighth grade. Yeah.

[A]

The public school system is rolling out a competitor to these schools because they've become that common.

[G]

Yeah. And I mean, and declining enrollment is a huge problem in public schools. And they are trying to keep families as much as they can. And to me, like, that that is so powerful. I would say that Holdback's the forefront of Holdback Academies has been Orange county and affluent areas of Orange County. And look how the public schools are reacting to it. They're like, can't beat em. Let's join em.

[A]

The last time that you were on our podcast, we were talking about the effect that nil money was having on high school players. And now we're talking about the effect that this is happening on middle schoolers. Do you think that the effects of this, these forces are going to just keep trickling downward until we're finally doing an episode about the toddler industrial sports complex?

[G]

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I don't know. I'm a toddler industrial sports complex, but there are definitely very young kids and elementary school kids and travel teams. And I think that the growth of that has been fueled by nil and it doesn't really matter that only a very small minority of kids are going to get those big nil deals and go off and we're going to watch them on TV on Saturdays. It doesn't matter. That's a small percentage because they are sort of influencers and they are convincing other kids, other families that this is the right thing, that this is what people who are serious, who are really committed do.

[A]

Devin at the Together Ship is also really committed, and he has some big dreams for his school and for his students.

[E]

And my ultimate, like, vision, I always say, is to be able to go to any college or professional game and be able to see Togethership alumni playing on the field. I say that, you know, on Monday Night Football or Thursday Night Football, when they introduce themselves, they usually say, you know, what college they went to. And so I always am like, man, one day a kid's gonna say I went to the together ship. And that's kind of like when I say, like, all right, we did it.

[A]

That's all for today. Thursday, june 18 the journal is a co production of Spotify and the wall street journal journal. The show is made by laura benshoff, kathryn brewer, evelyn fajardo alvarez, pia gadkari, max green, sophie codner, matt kwong, colin mcnulty, jessica mendoza, laura morris, enrique perez de la rosa, sarah platt, allen rodriguez espinosa, heather rogers, pierce singhe, jeevika verma, kathryn whalen, tatiana zamis and me, ryan knudsen. Our engineers are griffin tanner, nathan singapak and peter leonard. Our theme music is by so wiley. Additional music this week from katherine anderson, peter leonard, emma munger, nathan singapok and blue dot sessions. Fact checking by mary mathis. Thanks for listening. We're off tomorrow for the holiday. We'll be back on Monday. See you then.

[D]

You can't reason with the sun. Trust us, we've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's Omnishade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your [e-mail] to spend more time outside and less time slathering on aloe lotion. You're welcome, Columbia. Engineered for whatever.