Green is the new purple

Though the campus is decorated with green and gold, it’s the purple for this year’s “Once Upon a Homecoming” theme that may confuse some students, especially anyone familiar with East Carolina. 

Purchased with $5,600 from student Activity and Service (A&S) fees, 1,200 shirts on campus share the same purple color with the East Carolina Pirates — the Bulls’ Homecoming opponent. 

“We really want to be in green,” Center for Student Involvement Director Monica Miranda said. “The opposing team’s color is purple, so we don’t want to be in purple.” 

The shirt’s primary color is grape with white letters advertising the list of the week’s events on the back and the Homecoming Superbull XVIII logo on the front. 

About 200 of the purple shirts were passed out to promote Homecoming week. By Friday, Miranda said someone brought up the oversight to the Campus Traditions Board.

“It’s a student committee,” she said. “They didn’t realize purple was the color of the opposing school.”

Though purple is an approved accent color for the university, no more purple shirts will be distributed to students this week.

Students may still get the chance, however, to grab a free shirt this week as Miranda said an order for 1,000 green shirts was received Tuesday. The shipment of the green shirts costs about $4,200, funded by the A&S fee. 

Students currently pay a $7 flat A&S fee per semester and an additional $12.08 per credit hour for a fund that Student Government allocates. This year, SG allocated $412,134 to the Homecoming steering committee. Within the Homecoming budget, $30,000 was budgeted for marketing, of which $11,626 paid for promotional items such as shirts, cups and sunglasses.

As for the remaining 1,000 purple shirts that have been discontinued, Miranda said the university has not decided what to do with them. 

Claudia Garrett, a sophomore majoring in marketing, said she feels “weird” wearing the purple shirt after hearing it is the same color as ECU. She also said she hopes she doesn’t see USF students wearing the shirts in the stands Saturday while she is playing in the marching band. 

“It is Homecoming, come on; we should root for the right team,” she said. “Next time, we should look at what team we’re playing.”

On whether students will continue wearing the purple shirt, Garrett said she doesn’t plan to throw hers away.

“It’s comfortable,” she said. “It’s a free shirt.”