On Thursday nights before home games, the Western football team doesn’t strictly watch film and study the playbook.

Instead, they relax and get their hair cut.

Set up in the kitchen at senior running backs Marell Booker and Tyrell Hayden’s apartment is a chair, apron and all of Booker’s haircutting equipment — including a straight edge razor, wall clippers, an apron and shaving cream.

“It’s really like a little barber shop in our apartment on certain days,” Hayden said. “If one person gets their hair cut, they’ll bring about five or six people over to our apartment, and we’ll all talk.”

Booker has taken the role as team barber, holding the ability to cut bald fades, even fades and temp fades — and he isn’t stingy with the clippers.

Booker said he takes requests from anyone on the team and even a few coaches.

“I cut so many heads I don’t even know where to start,” Booker said. “I can do pretty much anything.”

Booker began cutting his own hair when he came to Western, unwilling to either pay for someone else to cut his hair or allow someone else to touch it.

“I was scared to let anyone mess my head up, so I thought I’d mess my own up,” Booker said.

Through cutting his own hair, Booker found his niche in trimming his teammates’ hair too.

Hayden said he’s no longer afraid of the damage Booker could do. He left as a satisfied customer after Booker’s first cut and said he has it trimmed weekly by the team barber.

“He told me he messed up a bunch of times, and people used to make fun of him,” Hayden said. “Then he started cutting other people’s hair, and they saw he could do a pretty good job.”

The demand for haircuts has become so large that Booker now has assistants, including his “intern,” junior kick returner Dexter Taylor. Booker said he even lets Taylor take the lead cutting role sometimes.

And while there’s a shop setup back at his apartment, a barber’s chair in the Toppers’ locker room fulfills most of the team requests. In exchange for the cut, players and coaches throw $1 in a jar, and at the end of the season, the team will donate the sum to a charity.

Senior linebacker Taurean Smith said it’s things like Booker’s barber shed that bring the team closer together.

“It helps him get to know everybody on the team,” Smith said. “It lets people see who he really is and his character towards everybody else. He’s helped a lot of people out.”

But Booker‘s clippers haven’t helped everyone.

Junior receiver Quinterrance Cooper, whose hair is among the longest on the team, said he doesn’t need the freebie.

“He’s not gonna cut my hair,” Cooper said.

Booker said he’d be happy just to trim it.