In Cross Country history, every single year that the team has made state, they have designed t-shirts. The cross country girls have a tradition of designing fun and unique long sleeve state shirts- typically not using the school colors.

The new athletics director, Joe Nelson, has already changed this tradition. He designed the football, girls cross country, and boys cross country state t-shirts this year. The girls and boys cross country shirts were the exact same design. All of the t-shirts were purple short-sleeve shirts with gold writing. The shirts had the names of all the team members on the back. In the past, the cross country state participants and alternates were the only names listed.

Although the shirts represented their school pride, they enjoyed designing their own unique shirts, and it is something that they would look forward to doing each year around state time.  When they found out they made state, they all come up with design ideas and then vote on which one they like the best, it’s one of the traditions the team has.

It turns out that the whole situation was just a big misunderstanding. “The football and cross country shirts were nothing special, I didn’t think we had shirts,” Nelson said.

Athletes were under the assumption that Nelson was going to be in charge of making state shirts from now on. After speaking to Nelson about the situation, it turns out he was not aware of the tradition. “If the kids want to make t-shirts for anything, I would never get in their way,” Nelson said.