It’s late January and you’re walking through the Loy Norrix hallways. All of the sudden, you start seeing bright blonde heads popping up through the crowd. Surprised, you wonder, “why are there so many guys going blonde?” The answer is simple: the men’s swim team has bleached their hair.
As another successful swim season wraps up, the men’s swim and dive team bleach their hair as a mark of team comradery and connection.
“A lot of people think it’s kind of a hazing thing, but we do it because it helps us feel like we’re together as a team,” said sophomore Andrew Bol. “When we all show up to a swim meet, we’re all wearing suits. We all look nice, and we all have the bleached hair. It feels like a shared experience.”
The bleached hair, suits and soon-to-be buzz cuts, all provide the team with a sense of unity. After being on the team for more than three months, swimmers form a brotherly connection with the guys they swim with and cheer on.
Especially for seniors, bleaching or buzzing their hair can have a sentimental effect. Seniors are likely to have bleached hair or maintain their buzz cut even after they graduate, transitioning into college with the visual impact of the high school swim team on their heads. Bleaching and buzzing their hair is something swimmers don’t take for granted, as it’s a memory of a past season and a high school swim experience.
After bleaching their hair, the swimmers have almost no choice but to buzz their heads. Some swimmers will take a different approach and cut their hair into different styles before the buzz. Some swimmers decide to take a walk on the wild side with a mohawk, fohawk, low taper fades and sometimes even going completely bald.
“They bleach it because they’re gonna buzz it anyway. The bleach will essentially kill your hair, so the guys who do that plan to buzz their hair anyway for the SMAC tournament,” said sophomore Ty Hamilton.
After around a month with the bleached blonde hair, the swim team will shave their hair off completely. Besides shaving off their hair, they will also shave their legs and arms. Keeping the idea of limiting water resistance in mind, the less hair the better for a swimmer looking to glide through the water like a torpedo.
“We shave our heads by the end of the season, so it doesn’t really matter what your hair looks like during the season because it’s gonna be gone soon anyway,” said junior August Johnson.
As the swim season gets closer to the SMAC tournament, their tradition of buzzing their hair is getting closer as well. The week before conference tournaments, many members of the swim team will completely buzz off their hair, almost as a pre-playoff ritual for the conferences, or as a testimony to the season and the memories they have made together.
“We do it because it’s something fun to do as a team, and then some of us will shave our heads for the conference meet,” said sophomore Doug Borman.
Holding an impressive record of 7-1, the swim team has achieved many feats this year. From beating Lakeview for the first time in over 20 years and sending multiple swimmers to states, the swim team has a lot to remember about the 2024-2025 season.
