Will there be Class of ‘23 hoodie? The senior class president addresses the probing question

Class President grapples with pleasing classmates with hoodies designs.

As senior class president, it is my duty to be transparent with my constituents and, unfortunately, I do not think there will be a Class of ‘23 hoodie for the following reasons.

Every school year has brought the same dilemma for my class: Will we have a hoodie? The answer to that, I cannot tell you. However, I can complain about the trials and tribulations that need to be taken into account when pushing a class hoodie from design to purchasable merchandise while serving as a class officer.

It began freshman year, when I came to the unfortunate realization that it is impossible to please 300 classmates. Sprung on to design a class Homecoming T-shirt in less than a few hours by assistant principal Matt Torrens, I scraped together a sub-par design that I still hear complaints about to this day.

I was pestered with the never-ending … “Ally, why did it have to be forest green, why couldn’t it have been a darker shade?” Girl, I don’t know, ask Custom Ink why they have zero options: I’m balling on a budget.

Tainted by that experience, I was determined to make everyone miserable and not have a class hoodie. Then sophomore year came around, and we had online school: I used the classic “unprecedented times” as an excuse for not doing one. During our junior year, I was too busy racking up prom funds from Ten Ren boba fundraisers to give it a thought.

Class hoodies seem great in theory, but designs are overwhelmingly hard to get approved. I was shocked to open the Google form design contest to a striking 12 options. With 126 responses from seniors stating they would purchase one of the hoodies, class officers noticed teams of people banding together to advocate for a specific design.

What was supposed to be a successful season of class hoodies for our final year of high school turned into full-on war. If I can’t make everybody happy, I might as well make no one happy, right? Just kidding! But seriously, it is hard to please a massive group. If senior class officers are to move forward with the class hoodie contest, seniors must accept that the majority vote is the ultimate design. The bottom line: Your senior class officers cannot accommodate everyone’s differing opinions.