What Is a Hokie Anyway?

With pursed lips and a last few well placed strokes of my forest green crayon I realized I had just finished a masterpiece. Age 8, and the best T-Rex ever seen stood out on a piece of lined paper made for learning to write out upper and lower-cased words in cursive. Following my lead and shared admiration, my mom took the precious canvas and adorned it upon the fridge next to a scribbled grocery list shortly after getting home that day.

"Wow, who drew the dog? And why is he green?" regrettably fell from my dad's lips later that evening. By looking at the drawing, now, I too would have mistaken the coupled circles with various lines jutting, and scribbled about, to look like a hairy couch: with two shorter legs, screaming "RAWR".

From my vantage point, whatever I created was what it was supposed to be. Sure, to help those at home I'd often inscribe in my best penmanship what it actually was, not for my own recollection however, but for whatever idiot had to ask.

Nonetheless, I was crushed. How are some adults so stupid I thought.

Fast forward twenty years to a bar, sometime in the fall, on a Saturday afternoon and the same kind of frustration wells up.
"Why is your mascot a turkey? And what the hell is a Hokie anyway?" slurs out of drunk guy's mouth as he dizzily stares at the same screen.

I could go into O.M. Stull's original cheer containing the word used for the first time in 1896 or how being first called "The Gobblers", local resident and appointed mascot Fred Meade once had his turkey actually pull him in a cart, later only relying on the bird to gobble on command during key plays.

I could go on about the entire history of the mascot, terminology, and traditions. Instead I simply say, "it's not and I am."

A Hokie is a reflection of the spirit, loyalty, and creativity of it's fan base. It has evolved over time, but the symbol, complete with the most unique color combination in all of college athletics, remains inseparable from those who identify with it.

We drew it up, and for those silly enough to ask what it is, merely need to read the words "Hokie" written below.