ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 10, 1996 TAG: 9603110055
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-18 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
Back in the old days - the heartbreak days of Hokie fandom - Legends Sporting Goods in Roanoke sold maybe 24 Virginia Tech jackets during the Christmas retail season.
This December, "Lord, I'll bet we sold 150 Tech jackets," manager Mike McCoy says.
"One guy had a double extra-large, and he needed a large. I told him I couldn't get it until fall, and he says, 'That's OK. I'll keep it.'''
A man willing to keep a two-sizes-too-big, $124.99 Christmas present says a lot about what winning basketball and football seasons are doing for Tech-based marketing.
Virginia Tech Bookstore head Don Williams describes the new enthusiasm for the Hokies' high-priced, trendy jackets made by Starter:
"When you go to the mall, if you do have a Starter jacket, you have arrived."
The gravy train started to leave the station just over two years ago, when Tech's football team went off to Shreveport, La., and returned with the university's first bowl win since 1986.
That Independence Bowl victory was followed the next year by a Gator Bowl appearance, a loss avenged later that year by an NIT championship basketball team.
Two months ago, the football team reached new heights. The Sugar Bowl championship sent 30,000 Hokies 'pokeying through New Orleans' French Quarter on New Year's Eve.
And let's not forget the ranked basketball season that's followed. Sugar Bowl gear has been spotted in Cassell Coliseum for weeks, and all manner of Hokie maroon-and-orange merchandise is racking up record sales as the basketball season reaches its zenith this month.
"The Sugar Bowl really, really boosted our sales," says Richard Workman, manager of Leggett in the New River Valley Mall.
The bad news for Tech is that it earns no royalties from the $1.3 million in sales of Sugar Bowl-related items sold thus far, says Martha Geisen Hale, Tech's licensing director. That goes to the bowl itself.
But even before the big New Orleans victory, Hale's office reported logo merchandise royalties for Virginia Tech worth $159,219 for the last half of 1995. That was up 13 percent from $140,975 for the same period in 1994.
Before that? Royalties reached $141,000 for the entire fiscal year ending June 30, 1993.
When someone buys a Tech sweat shirt or other licensed merchandise, the university earns 7.5 percent of its wholesale price. After expenses, the money goes back to the university to spend on merit-based scholarships. For 1994-95, that amounted to $165,518.
The phone's been ringing off the hook in Hale's office, where she oversees approval of all manner of Tech-related stuff you see sprouting on store shelves:
Classic desk clocks, Hokie Bird earrings, Virginia Tech spring water, a child's matching maroon Virginia Tech turtle neck and white-and-maroon striped pants. Coming soon to stores near you: Hokie pasta, shaped like little turkeys.
And the heavy little figure of a football player crouched down for kickoff? That's a prototype pawn for a chess set.
Just recently, Reebok, one of the big-league sporting goods companies, sent in a jacket for her approval.
It's Hale's job to approve designs and protect Tech's logo trademarks.
"If something's rude, crude, or talks about alcohol or drugs, we reject it up front," she says.
Beer cans, for instance, get the thumbs-down.
"As far as designs that I wouldn't buy, I really tend to let the market decide," she says.
At last count, 302 vendors had their designs for throw rugs, pen sets, tote bags, portable grills, stadium cups, hats, bean-bag chairs, mouse pads or glass tables approved through Tech's licensing office - just one stop in the road to marketing Tech products.
Among those glad they're sitting in the front row: Starter, the big company famed for outfitting pro teams. Its sales of Tech products have boomed a whopping 400 percent since it minted its first Tech jacket in 1993, says spokeswoman Robin Wexler.
"As it compares within the state, [Tech's] outselling Virginia 2-1," she says. "It's our No.1 selling school in Virginia."
In fact, the tables have turned entirely since Tech first approached Starter - makers of red-hot Chicago Bulls jackets - back in '93 about outfitting its team on the sidelines. Now, Wexler says, they're making the team's football uniforms next year.
But Starter may not have the contract sewn up; Nike's interested, too. Tech associate athletic director, Jeff Bourne, says bids haven't gone out yet, and it's too soon to say who'll get the nod to make the uniforms for the fall.
Still, it certainly signals Tech's arrival in the big time. Whoever makes the team uniforms no doubt is dreaming of all those jerseys they will make that will go on sale to fans next fall.
With this explosion of merchandise comes its distribution, now growing statewide. More and more Northern Virginia stores are expected to begin carrying Hokie products, says Hale.
"Obviously, it shows that we're successful now," says Dave Braine, Tech's athletic director.
LENGTH: Long : 108 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON/Staff. 1. Laura English, an employee of theby CNBVirginia Tech licensing office, wears logo sunglasses and earrings
licensed by the school. Behind her is a neon light in the shpe of
the Tech logo. (ran on NRV-1). 2. Virginia Tech golf balls (top) are
one of the products that passed the school's licensing office. 3. A
pair of earrings (right) were rejected for licensing because Hokie
was misspelled. 4. Martha Geisen Hale, Tech's licensing director,
has the job of approving designs and protecting Tech's logo
trademarks. color.