Photo courtesy of Round-Up

Coppell High School class of 2002 wear their senior overalls in the student section at a pep rally. Senior overalls have been a tradition since the early 2000s as a way for senior girls to represent their school spirit and pride in Coppell.

Coppell High School senior Alex Cooper walks through the school doors wearing a pair of overalls she worked on over the summer. 

“Alex” is spelled in cursive across the front with patterns of red, white and black flowing up and down the shape of the overalls. Soft blue, purple and pink cascade showcased  in a tailored design across the back with patterns and fabric unique to her identity. 

For every Coppell football game at Buddy Echols Field, senior girls wear their overalls to school to show their school spirit and CHS pride. Since the early 2000s, the tradition of wearing overalls has been carried on by senior girls at CHS. 

“Last year, I would always see the girls walking around wearing their overalls,” Cooper said. “I realized that it was a tradition that I wanted to be a part of.”

The front of the overalls follow a homogenous structure with “Coppell” pasted upon the left leg and “Cowboys” pasted on the right in Coppell’s signature red, white and black school colors. The only slight deviance is the name of the overall’s wearer. 

It is the back of the overalls that lets creative freedom fly high. 

In crafting overall with a range of colors, fabrics, patches and paint, seniors simultaneously craft their individuality. Upon the back of the left leg are the words “Class of” with  2024 on the right. 

“With the front, everyone has kind of the same look,” Cooper said. “But with the back, you can make it any color, kind of fabric or pattern and it makes it so much more specific to you and meaningful to what you stand for.”

The idea for the overalls sparked in the mid-1990s as a response to a joke about Coppell being ‘country.’ When overalls were first introduced to the CHS campus, however, they looked different from the ones we see today. 

The overalls were the typical blue denim, not white, and were more flexibly designed the way each senior wanted. In comparison to the variety of fabric and patches used today, seniors typically exclusively used paint.

Still, overalls were a way for the seniors to express themselves.  

“The overalls were not as crazy as they are now,” CHS 2001 graduate Erin Martin said. “We just painted them, and it was much simpler. By the time my sister was a senior in 2005, people had started going all out with the fabric and patches.” 

In the past, senior overalls were not just a tradition continued on by the girls, senior boys were able to create their own overalls to show their school spirit. 

“I remember a time before the tradition started,” AP English teacher Linda Moore said. “Though I don’t remember when girls started wearing them, I remember making my daughter’s overalls in 2009 because I have a memory of my fingers being burned by the hot glue gun while I was gluing on the patches.”

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