What started as a small business selling t-shirts has turned into selling more products. Senior Zion Hodges, a student athlete, wanted to start his own t-shirt business to make some money.
Although Hodges started by selling products in person, he now has his own website for purchasing. Hodges’ business has grown quickly with more and more supporters. This caused him to have a lot of love for what he does. He has even made t-shirts for the athletic trainers to wear. Mallory Gizowski, an athletic trainer, supports Zion.

“I support Hodges in any way I can. I have gotten to know Zion pretty well over the past two years, and when I heard about his small business, I couldn’t help but be excited for him. We as a sports medicine/ athletic training group wanted to order athletic training t-shirts for this year. I talked with my co-worker, Caitlin, and our athletic director, Mrs. Woolard, about the idea of ordering t-shirts and supporting one of our student athletes, and they were all on board, Zion created the whole shirt himself, and we were really happy with how they turned out! “ Gizowski said.

Hodges has a few words on the people who have supported him throughout his journey.

“I’ve gotten a lot of support, especially from you know, schools and teachers like that. What teachers and schools have supporting athletic trainers now, Mallory and Caitlin Bender, Tina Wollard and a few teachers, unfortunately, I don’t really know,” Hodges said.

Brooke Ellingsen, one of the student trainers at Grayslake North, tells us how she comes to support Zion.

“I have become a friend to Zion this year and have been to all the football games and cheered him on,” Ellingsen said.

As time goes on, Hodges has been shown lots of love for his business and continues to grow throughout the year.

“I think it is amazing Zion already has his own t-shirt business. For a young individual to be able to run a business, attend school full-time, play sports and look for schools is something not many people can do. It really shows how truly amazing this young individual is. I have no doubt that Zion will be very successful when he grows up,” Gizowski said.

There are some pros and cons to running a business.

“Pros is you get your own free merch and you know you get to create, you know, be creative in that way. A con I will say is getting yourself out there. It’s way harder than, like it seems, very difficult. All right,” Hodges said.

Even though there are some issues to having a business, Hodges provides a comfortable clothing brand.

“So I use the Fruit of the Loom. Those are the types of t-shirts I use, and t- shirts, sweatshirts, sweatpants, backpacks, backpacks, hats,” Hodges said.

But as time goes by, he starts to sell more and more of his products and tells the true meaning of his shirts and logos on them.

“I like positivity. My brand tries to influence world peace. So far, I’ve sold 20 shirts. A few backpacks, actually,” Hodges said.

To order a t-shirt go on @ceo_msu Instagram and it will provide more details or find Hodges for more details.

“You can come to me, and I can send you a link and you can go on the website. Just choose whatever you want. And then if you want to customize, you can just let me know,” Hodges said.