In this day and age, long hair, better know as “flow” is a style that teenagers yearn to have. On some, it looks good but on others, it looks down-right atrocious. For example, Chris Hemsworth, better known as “Thor” can rock the flow and still pull some ladies.

A few students here at Elder High School have tried to grow their hair out like that but drastically failed. A student that comes to mind is Austin James, also known as Tito. Austin is a senior here at Elder and he took the risk of growing his hair out. Austin has been supporting the flow since last December after getting a buzz cut and has never looked back since. Some say that is a mistake but he loves it.

When Austin was asked how the idea came about he said, “I was over at my friend Sam Paff’s house and Tina, Sam’s mom, came in and told me how much she loved my hair slicked back after I took my hat off so ever since that day, I gave it a shot and grew it out. It was mostly just to [tee] Sam off but I wanted to see what I would look like so I kept it.”

That decision was a huge mistake because in my opinion, he looks terrible.

Austin is a very confident man and I respect that about him. He just shakes all the hateful comments off and goes on with his life. He told me that most people don’t say anything to him or say that they like it. I’m not sure who is telling him they like it but those select group of people may want to get there eyes checked.

Even in the hallways at school I will hear sarcastic comments such as “nice hair” or “looking great today Tito”. Austin said those are people that are jealous that they cant do the same. I beg to differ.

A few days ago, on September 10, Austin announced that he was going to get it “trimmed” and a bunch of people were getting excited because they thought it was going to look somewhat decent. As it turns out, the “trim” was getting what seemed like a few strands of hair cut off because you couldn’t really tell a difference.
One of Austin’s classmates, Joe Schroer, weighed in on the topic. When I asked what he thought about it he had a quick response of “disgusting”. I couldn’t have said it any better myself. Joe, a captain on the football team, came up with a petition for Tito to get his haircut. The deal was that if 30 football players and five coaches signed it, Tito would cut his hair. As a former player on the team, I was able to participate in the campaign and sign my name and witness 30+ people to sign it. I believe only four coaches signed it but it was a great turn out and the hair should’ve been gone.

The slogan for the petition was “Cut the Hair or Cut Tito” which is very straight-forward if you ask me but Tito didn’t fulfill his duties of leaving the team so who knows what will happen. One can catch James with his greasy hair sticking out of the back of his football helmet while he’s making all the number 88’s in football proud hanging out on the sidelines on Friday nights.

All in all, Tito has had his fun of having the hair but now it is getting out of hand and it needs to go as soon as possible. He would be doing others a favor if he cut it so all of us would not have to look at that thing growing on the top of his head every day. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know I’m even getting tired of saying things to Austin about his hair but maybe that’s just me.

It’s not that I want to but more that I have to just to remind him how bad he looks with it. Tito is a good friend of mine but I would enjoy his presence a lot more if he would cut it but it’s not my decision.