The Student Government Association and the Basketball Club recently unveiled a new twist on an old concept: navy blue V-shirts featuring the University-recognized V logo. This was done as a result of president Nestor Fernandez’s campaign pledge to develop a new V-shirt and improve school spirit. Both clubs believe the new shirts will help to unify the student body.

Unfortunately, that will not be the result.

Over the summer, SGA, the Basketball Club and the University Band, the group that has sponsored the sale of the shirts for the past six years, met to discuss the possibility of revamping the V-shirt. Talks went nowhere, however, as the band was not keen on the idea of abandoning a design it created and has stood by for so long.

Whether a new design is necessary is debatable. A simple block V in blue on a white shirt may not be in the top rotation of what fashion-conscious Villanovans would normally wear, but it is simple and highly visible. The new shirts are more appealing but will probably get lost in the other blue Villanova T-shirts the bookstore offers. The main advantage to the new shirts is the availability in a variety of sizes. Typically, the band’s white V-shirt is offered only in large and extra-large sizes.

The new shirts will also be customizable, in the sense that a group interested in sponsoring the program can have their logo screened onto the back and distributed to its members. The Basketball Club has already adopted this; other groups are bound to follow. The band still displays the Villanova fight song on the back of its shirts, which is more appropriate for a basketball game.

Most importantly, though, the fact that there are multiple V-shirts floating around means that the student body, even if each of its members buys and wears the shirts, will never be unified at the basketball games. SGA and its members will wear one shirt, while the band will be sporting another. Whichever one the student body chooses to adopt, there will still be a significant faction wearing the other shirt. This does nothing to create unity amongst a student section that is better known for wearing J. Crew and Abercrombie to games over clothing that supports the school.

It’s disappointing that SGA would move on a new shirt without the band’s blessing. Additionally, since they chose a concept that the band developed, it seems that SGA is stealing the band’s main fundraising campaign. If the two groups could not reconcile their differences over the summer, SGA should have scrapped this campaign and looked for another way to increase spirit while supporting the original V-shirts.