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“Uniform designs and combinations are something that both our players and fans are passionate about," Pete Moris, Associate Athletics Director – Strategic Communications Text by Emily Kathleen Alberts Photo courtesy of Virginia Tech Athletics If your favorite color is not Burnt Orange or Chicago Maroon or the unusual combination of both, and you visit the Virginia Tech campus during Hokie football season, you might just change your mind. The Virginia Tech Hokies have always faced a challenge when trying to make orange and maroon look good. Let’s face it, these current school colors were chosen back in 1896 because “no one else was using them at the time” -and probably for good reason. At least they’re more colorful than Virginia Tech’s original school colors, black and grey, 16
NRV MAGAZINE
which were said to resemble prison garb. Over the years, the Hokie football uniform has undergone as many transformations as there are plays in the playbook. Online, you can view every single combination (there are 2,233,440 combos) at www.cruhland.com/ unibuilder.html if you are itching to see the history and evolution of this athletic uniform. One of the most disliked uniforms was an ill-fated orange (some called it the candy corn look) when playing against Old Dominion University in 2018. Twitter fans were not happy to
see its return when @VTEquipment posted the 2019 uniform reveal this past July. A design element that fans almost unanimously agree on is the Hokie stone. This year’s uniform does feature a Hokie stone pattern within the numbers again, though it remains difficult to discern from a distance. At least they have found a way to make Hokie stone a permanent part of the uniform. Although this year’s uniform resembles the 2018 style, the addition of a patch donning the number “150” with a football inside the zero is brand new. Fans may be conflicted
S eptemb er/Octob er 2019