Downey football players can be seen walking around campus alternately wearing their jerseys, dress shirts and neckties on days after games. Not many people know, however, that there’s a purpose behind their attire.

Wearing jerseys to school is “considered a privilege,” according to junior and varsity football player Alberto Campos. He says jerseys symbolize a team win, whereas their formal attire means the team has lost their most recent game.

“Dress shirts show that we mean business,” Campos said. “It’s a kind of punishment after a loss since we want to wear our jerseys to school to show we won a game.”

According to freshman football coach Gordon Weisenburger, the policy differs for freshman football players, who initially could not wear their jerseys until their first win. Weisenburger says the policy was altered for the freshmen team since they lost several games so far this season.

“As long as they had a good week of practice,” he said, “they were allowed to wear their jerseys to school.”

Freshman football player Kyle Hudspeth says he enjoys wearing jerseys more than dress shirts to school.

“We want to wear our jerseys to show we finally won a game,” he said. “We wear them to show pride.”

Football players with a longer tenure than Hudspeth have a mixed reaction of the jersey-dress shirt policy.

“Nobody likes wearing ties,” said varsity football quarterback and senior Steven Cervantes. “It motivates us to want to win a game and wear the jerseys to school.”

His teammate and senior Chris Avila agrees and says there are penalties for not wearing the appropriate attire to school.

“If we don’t wear the shirt and tie, the coaches make us run a happy hour, which is conditioning after practice,” he said.

The Vikings are looking forward to dominating this year in football and hope to outwear

their jerseys to dress shirts.