It’s Friday, and I’m not wearing purple.

Every Friday since the beginning of school, students have been allowed to wear purple apparel over their uniform.

“Purple Fridays” are one of the things that Principal Madelyn Ball has brought back since becoming our principal, and it’s one of my least favorite.

I’ll admit that it is not entirely without merit. The fact that she is allowing us to have a slight change in our drab uniform as long as we behave is commendable.  While I like the idea of students getting special privileges for good behavior, the exclusiveness of this day bothers me.

Instead of allowing students to wear the colors of the team for which they’re rooting, Ball only allows students to wear purple or their regular uniform.  If students wear the colors of an opposing team, they could be punished for being out of uniform.  In short, if you are a Ravens fan, you have nothing to worry about.  However, if you support any of the other 31 teams in the NFL, you have a problem.

I am a Steelers fan.  Yes, most of you just threw this paper on the ground and stomped away in disgust, but it’s true. While the Steelers are an unpopular team around here, Ball doesn’t realize that I live five minutes from Pennsylvania, have family in Pittsburgh, and absolutely adore Troy Polamalu’s luscious locks.  Let he among you with amazing hair throw the first stone.

I try to remain relatively low -key about football in school, but this is another issue.  I can try not to brag about winning the Super Bowl six times while the Ravens have only won once.  But the fact that I won’t be able to get out my yellow tights and root for my team when the rest of the school is able to do the same in purple makes me wonder why there is freedom of expression for some and not for others.

So now I speak to Ball directly.  I know that you grew up in Bal’more, but is it fair to force your football team on the rest of us?  This is my simple plea: turn a color-blind eye to the colors that we wear on Friday.

Feel free to limit the colors to those teams that play on that specific weekend, but allow a bit of friendly competition. Unless you’re afraid the Steelers are going to win it all.  Not to harp on it too much, but once again, we’ve won the Super Bowl six times.    If you feel a little threatened, I suppose I understand.

See you at the Super Bowl.  We’ll be the ones with the trophy.

Martha Schick is a Managing Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.