Druley: STCE swimmers now come with bleach

"You're not going to be able to miss it," she said. "Not when it's bleached."

Working alongside ME Salon owner Mary Ericcson on Saturday, Ribeiro, a stylist at the St. Charles shop, aided the St. Charles East boys swim team in the first stage of its ritual makeover for next month's IHSA postseason.

Equal parts solidarity and serendipity – bleached blonde hair bears the closest resemblance to gold medals, after all – the bleaching measure is one shared by several teams. Still, there can be some novelty attached, at least until the Saints shave their heads in a few weeks.

"It's just funny to see a bunch of boys coming to get their hair done," Ribeiro said.

Ribeiro, whose son, Gehrig, is a former East swimmer and water polo player, said about 40 Saints visited the salon.

The initial plan called for waves of 10 athletes at a time. Instead, the pack largely walked in at once.

Stylists deal in volume all the time, so the surprise wasn't much of one, all things considered. Neither was the process.

"For bleaching, you mix the bleach, put it on their hair, let it sit for 20 minutes, let them have the hair get past orange and go to blonde," Ribeiro said. "Sometimes they have to go under the blowdryer with a cap on to help the color get lighter quicker. Other than that, there's not much to it."

Listen up: Traditional head shavers – not bleachers – St. Charles North swimmers prefer having discerning ears instead of hair.

"Feels like a Metallica kind of day," North Stars coach Rob Rooney grinned before a recent practice. Moments later, he started playing the heavy metal group's music over the pool sound system as athletes began warming up.

"We listen to a lot of Kid Cudi, Dr. Dre. We always have the Pandora on. Anything that will get us going," North senior David Chokran said. "You can't listen to slow stuff during a hard set."

"It just depends, really, on their mood," Rooney added. "A little bit of rap, a little bit of [Metallica]."