"I keep getting bad haircuts--horrendous hair cuts,' says David S. Franklin '96. "I have a permanent hat head now."

"And I used to have a side part, but that won't go anymore," says Franklin, removing a white and orange Princeton hat to expose a truly bad haircut.

...and Other Excuses

For some students, the baseball cap can be a statement of belief, political and otherwise.

"It's a conservative, Irish Catholic statement," says Brendan M. Murray '93 of his Notre Dame hat. "And I'm a fan of what the Catholic Church represents."

Murray says rooting for Notre Dame was a part of his education.

"I went to Catholic school, and the nuns urged us to pray for them to win on Saturday," says Murray. "And I've continued to do that."

Daniel L. Kosowsky '93, who is Jewish, says he would cover his head with a yarmulke anyway. So when he has a bad hair day, a cap accomplishes a dual purpose.

"I'm going to throw something on my head anyway," says Kosowsky, a Brookline native who prefers caps for the hometown Celtics and Red Sox.

One group of students has started wearing hats with the letters "FCS" embroidered-standing for "Final Clubs Suck."

On a lighter note, other students use baseball caps to demonstrate their hometown pride.

"I'm from I.A-that's why I'm wearing it," says Marc E.Warner '94, who dons a black Los Angelers Raiders cap in the Lowell House Dining Hall. "It's just been my style since I knew what style was."

Fernando A. pizarro '96 found his cap an ally when he wanted to change hairstyles.

"I'm letting my hair grow-and it's in that yucky in-between stage," says Pizarro, wearing a white crew hat with crossed oars.

Not everyone is so forthcoming about their choice of headware. One student wearing an Atlanta Braves hat-red and blue, with a gaint white "A"-snorts that he wears the hat because "this is one grade I'll never get at Harvard."