With spring comes Powder Puff and with Powder Puff comes the infamous game of getting a personalized T-shirt name passed.     Each year the junior and senior girls play each other in a flag football game. Practices for the event start a week or so before.

One of the most exciting parts about Powder Puff, for some, is picking a name that will appear on the back of a shirt which is then used as a uniform for the game. A panel made up of mostly administration, but also teachers and student government students and teachers, is in charge of accepting or denying each girl’s prospective name.
“There are no set requirements,” said senior Powder Puff commissioner, Tiffanie Nguyen. “You just have to get it passed by the (administration). (However), this year they were really strict on death (related names and other sensitive topics).”
Junior Chloe Miller experienced the death-related rejection.
“I’m actually (very angry) about (the rejection) because my first choice (of name) was ‘Chlo Milla the Killa’ and when they told me I couldn’t use it I thought that it was ridiculous,” Miller said. “It’s Powder Puff and it’s all just suppose to be fun.”
This year Nguyen said that the panel searched each questionable name using the website “Urban Dictionary” – a website notorious for defining slang.
“It’s really funny because everything is bad on Urban Dictionary either way, so it doesn’t really make sense,” Nguyen said.
Hunter Loomis, a senior, tried to get the name Watson printed on the back of his T-shirt, which is a reference to Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson. However, the panel searched Watson on “Urban Dictionary” and found an inappropriate reference around the name.
For a number of students, many have found that their seemingly innocent names had some apparent drug reference attached.
“(Last year) I tried to get ‘Slad into yo DMs’ (and) I was pretty annoyed and disappointed because they didn’t even notify me (when they changed) my name,” senior Sydney Ladrech said. “I think it was very unfair because instead of just asking me (that it meant) ‘DMs’ (as in direct messages), they just decided to Google it and they found some random drug reference associated with it … and assumed it was what I meant.”
Yet, some names get past the scrutiny of administration.
“My Powder Puff name is EmScHOE, except on the T-shirt ‘hoe’ is not capitalized, but I fully plan on bedazzling the word ‘hoe,’” said junior Emily Schofield.
Even though Schofield’s name could be seen as inappropriate by some, she still said she would have been disappointed if it was rejected.
“It would have … been extremely disheartening. Nicknames are given by others to their beloved friends, and yes sometimes they’re silly,” Schofield said. “We’re in high school! We all know words like ‘ass’ … exist! We’re paying for the T-shirts, so who cares? We’re just some teenage girls out here trying to have a good-hearted time with our friends.

Gazette reporter/Caroline Palmer