The Official History of Green Shirt Thursdays

Ok, here goes. After the Alumni Race in 2001, Coach Hamel was selling the Prep North Cross Country shirts. Now for those who are not familiar with the St. Louis area or anything of the sort, Prep North is the high school that our coach went to and ran cross country for. It has since closed. Coach Linhares had his high school shirts remade and some of the runners bought them since it is the 'history' of the program since coach modeled his program after his high school coach's program. So Brennan Connor and I both wanted one and we were going to purchase one. We weren't sure whether to buy the green one with the yellow letters or the yellow one with the green letters. Now at the time I wanted the yellow one with the green letters one because Coach had that one. Green was actually a JV shirt at Prep North. But then Brennan told me that we should both buy green ones and then we'll wear them on Thursdays and they will be Green Shirt Thursdays. And so it began....It started off strong and some people were picking up on it. Green Shirt Thursdays soon became a symbol of the newly formed BAMFOs, a faction group within SLUH XC. But there was a bump in the program my senior year (2002) when I left my green shirt in either Kyle Gonnerman's car(minivan/gonnervan) or his house. So for a few months I was without a green shirt. This was the dark ages. However, a few lads, namely Matt Killiany and Dan Flanagan, managed to keep it alive during those months. Finally Kyle returned my shirt to me and we began to spread the word. Here at Truman, we purchased some stylish pea-soup-green shirts and had "Thursday" pressed on the back. They are also size small, so they are nice and tight and the ladies love them. They are all like, "why aren't you wearing your green shirt?" and I am all like "It's Tuesday." So that is pretty much the story. And if that doesn't inspire you to wear a green shirt, I don't know what will. To all the ladies out there, buy a green (preferably tight) shirt and write Thursday across it. Then you will be almost as cool as me. Then you can take a picture of yourself, well it'll be better if you have your roommate, or even Matt take a picture of you and then have the pictures developed and give it to Matt and then he will e-mail it to me and then I will see the support of the greatness of Green Shirt Thursdays. And as most of you know there is a tough date coming up for those of you that only own one green shirt. I luckily have three: my Thursday shirt, my Prep North shirt and my Minnesota shirt that I bought at three in the morning one night in Minnesota this past November. But St. Patrick's day falls on a Tuesday or Wed., so you should wear your Green Shirt on St. Pat's day and the following Thursday. You don't have to worry about washing it because having a green shirt on is more important than having a clean shirt on. And (for the ladies) you can always put on some perfume or something to cover up any unwanted scents. I prefer Curve for Women. And there you have, at long last, the history of Green Shirt Thursdays
By: Kevin Crean
Edited by: Matt Killiany

The collegiate years saw Green Shirt Thursdays grow from its humble beginnings on a cross country team to a widespread following. Many SLUH XC alums took their Green Shirts with them to college and spread the good news of Thursday. I took it as my personal responsibility to get as many people to wear Green Shirts on Thursdays as possible. I began by writing a reminder on everyone's marker board on my floor early every Thursday morning (I had chemistry lab at 7:30, so I was awake before everyone else). People continued to forget to wear their Green Shirts, so I began sending out messages over AIM to everyone on my buddy list to remind them to wear their Green Shirt on Thursday. These are the messages found in this archive. They progressed from short, simple ad slogans to longer, more complex songs over time. For some, even the AIM reminders were not enough. They claimed they had no Green Shirts. In response to this, I designed and had printed (thank you to the good people at the T-Shirt Place who charged me $1.50 less per shirt than they were supposed to) the Official Green Shirt Thursday Shirts. The picture is the design on the front of the shirts. These shirts were distributed to friends and family who in turn gave shirts to their friends and families. They also served as the jerseys for the GST intramural soccer teams at Dayton. Similar stories of success occurred at several other colleges and others are in progress. I even found a completely independent group of Green Shirt Thursday followers. In the post-collegiate years, the messages will continue being sent and posted and hopefully those who have been exposed to Green Shirt Thursdays will take the tradition with them.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The Shirt of Thursday

Hello Green Shirt, my old friend
I’ve come to wear you once again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the Shirt of Thursday

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of
A Green light
That split the night
And touched the Shirt of Thursday

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People dressed in shirts that no one should ever wear
And no one dared
Disturb the Shirt of Thursday

Fools said I, you do not know
Thursday like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the Shirts of Thursday

And the people bowed and prayed
To the Green God they made
And the sign flashed its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, the words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the Shirts of Thursday
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