According to senior captain Peyton Morrison, the football team got together Nov. 6 and 7 in order to dye their hair.

“On Monday and Tuesday, the whole team got together at my house to bleach our hair before our first State game,” Morrison said.

Morrison said that all of the players dyed their hair blonde as a team, although it was not required.

“It was not mandatory, but all of us did it because we wanted to,” Morrison said.

According to Morrison, they decided to bleach their hair blonde because senior Jonny Sorenson declared they would do it in the event they qualified for State.

“Back in June at the University of Minnesota-Duluth football camp that the entire team did, Jonny said we would bleach our hair if we went to State,” Morrison said. “Now that we are here, we decided to go through with it.”

Coach Rob Griffin said he believes the team’s willingness to do that is telling of their cohesiveness.

“I do think that this is another showing of many the type of chemistry we have as team,” Griffin said. “This group is willing to do anything for each other, and that has shown on the field all year.

Morrison said the captains were in favor of the team bleaching their hair because they are proud of their achievement and want as many people to come to their game as possible.

“The intent of doing it was for us to bring attention to our State game,” Morrison said. “We have worked towards it all year and want as many students as possible to support it.”

According to Griffin, the coaching staff was not involved in organizing this event or convincing players to participate.

“The captains came up with this whole thing by themselves,” Griffin said. “We, as a coaching staff, like the idea of them doing something like this as a team, but did not make it a mandatory thing to do.”

Despite the fun of such a team activity, according to Griffin the team still needs to focus on their upcoming game.

“Sure it is fun to do something cool and make memories as a team off the field, but at the end of the day it isn’t going to go a long way in terms of helping us compete,” Griffin said. “Nobody cares what your hair looks like once you put on your helmet and step between the lines.”