Hey everyone!
We've been posting the past few weeks, but we wanted to make a thread given the summer break to ramp up for the year.
As an intro, we're the Hellraisin Hokies! A new spirit org at Virginia Tech. The founder of the org is a grad student that came from the University of Houston, after starting an org there to bring spirit back to it's Sports programs.
Given that Virginia Tech is going back to in person next semester, and half of the student body would have not experienced a true Enter Sandman by that time, we want to also capitalize on that by expanding Hokie energy around campus, promote social events, and live in the name of Ut Prosim by working on service projects as much as we can. We already have 111 members across all classes and classifications (Undergrad -> PhD), and we are hoping to add more! If you are a current or incoming student, please send a PM and we will add you to the GroupMe!
Further on, our first task to work on is spirit. The goal would be to prevent the fire drills happening in the middle of the game, especially in the student sections!
Understandably, this post is in the Football forum. Feel free to post stories or suggestions from other sports or years as well, to prevent duplicate threads. You can also directly suggest some on our form here, for our current members to discuss!
If you could please answer these questions:
What are some old traditions, stories, in game events that you loved and were more student-organic that you would like to see brought back?
What would you NOT want to see return?
What types of chants/events/traditions were forced upon everyone by Athletics, and not really liked?
Anything else you can provide?
Also, if you have any ideas or so on how an organization like this could be run within Virginia Tech's culture, please let us know. Schools have different cultures and all, so we want to orient it around the spirited Virginia Tech.
Comments
1) Stick it In. HokiePokie back to the original time.
2) noon games. White Effect games. White jerseys at home. paper airplanes unless coordinated for when we hit a long throw over 30 yards and we "let the bombers go".
3) can't think of any.
4) Replace the irrelevant White Effect game with the relevant Enter Night game with Black Jerseys
5) not sure
Re #1: see my banner above.
1. Stick it in, na na hey hey, three blind mice
2. White Effect, the Hokey Pokey, the vote for song crap where the Jumbotron seemingly always plays bon jovi
3. White effect, losing to inferior in state programs
4. Seriously, nuke the Hokey Pokey from space. Sorry VTubas, but that shit is sooooooft.
5. If it's successful, it will 100% be coopted by SGA, and will probably become lame.
It was soft when we started losing in 2012. It wasn't a problem when we were crushing teams 62-3. Or in the middle of a tense game against Miami.
Responding to 5:
I ALMOST had this issue at Houston. I made sure to tell the students taking over to NOT become part of Athletics/UH/Anything, but to work WITH them. It ended up working out when I started this in 2018.
The alumni told me that some of their most famous groups that started out student-wise, were absorbed by something to do with the school. We had the Bleacher Creatures start out as a prank vs Texas A&M back when we were in the SWC, which then got absorbed by athletics, which then was taken up by the Honors College.. Therefore, to be a part of the group that painted up and 'was rowdy', you had to pay an extra 1000 a semester to be a part of a book club where it didn't really aid you in your major or anything (I don't know about Tech's, UH's was bozo, but we snuck in their library all the time). So yeah, that sucked and excluded a bunch of students.
Another one was the "Coog Crew". Started in 2005, became the "Official Hype Squad" of UH, but didn't put out any effort to recruit. They were pretty strong in 2006 and maybe 2011 due to our BCS run, and even got Craig Biggio from the Astros to come out for a meet and greet, but it also got absorbed by Athletics and became inactive. When I first pitched the idea, Coog Crew tried to absorb me into their org, which would have become part of Athletics. Rejected the idea straight on.
There was a third official group called the Swearing Sailors that expanded from a Houston high school, but that somehow ceased to exist after a while. No idea why.
So when I started mine (Coogs of CV3), it was just me, a Marine vet (lived in VA so we did do Stick It In at a few games ;P), and four other people I met from a parties chat. An alumni reached out to me on Reddit and asked if I wanted to help bring back a tradition that was seemingly cancelled for a fire hazard (can't be true because it's newspaper confetti), and said he knew a guy that was up for it. Turns out it was Robert Boudwin, the guy who was the Rockets mascot for 20 years and came to do Marketing at Houston after he retired. He shared the same vision as us with that being that antics should be student run and not Athletics forced. So we got our seal of approval. This was the result for the first time back.
We were going to remain unofficial until our merch website got taken down. The Merch went towards our projects and highlighted UH Traditions, chants, etc. Well, because of that, we had to become official to continue selling them. It was more like a 'promise'. Eight months later, they take down our entire site. The people that ordered from us included local politicians, big ticket alums, etc. And nowadays when we are wearing out stuff on campus, UH took pictures and posted them to their social pages XD
Yet when we agreed to be an org, it was (and still is) a 'we will work with you but not for you' type of deal. Now, we are the only recognized spirit organization at UH. The rest are gone. We're 200 members strong!
In short, if this is successful, we won't let it be PART of Athletics, or SGA, or anything. We'll work with them, but not for them.
Hellraisin' Hokies is a bit of paying homage to the OG Cassell Guard name, Hollerin' Hokies.
Sorry for the very long post and story behind things, I like talking about histories sometimes and why I try to make things the way they are!
Stick it in coming back was the greatest thing to happen to VT in 10 years. We need more of it.
"Effect" games are a stolen tradition from A&M. They are forced and I dont like it.
Hokie Poki is between 3rd and 4th
Any number 1 cheers are stupid unless we are undefeated, and/or ranked #1
I dont care about "Hey Hey goodbye", but using it on mid major teams is stupid.
In Texas we liked to say "Be spirted like TAMU but not like TAMU".
Aggies are too much.
Less music pumped through the PA. We have two bands let them play.
Enter Sandman and Hokey Pokey for life
Key Plays. And bring back the part of freshman orientation where they give a presentation on how to be a fan and when to key play it
Oh and of course go back to playing the HOAT commercial on the jumbotron.
Use the money that's going to the rights to play music over the PA to pay for new (i.e. from the last 5 years) music for the MVs and HTs! It killed me a little inside that the most recent song the HTs played when I was in was "Impression" by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Great song, we just need MORE.
Things to never do:
Overly loud pumped in music.
Mic'd up band. That was painful. The delay was terrible. They're loud enough to be heard all through the stadium. I have no idea who thought they needed microphones.
Paper airplanes.
The wave. I don't like it. I understand there are people who do. But, if it's going to be done, don't do it at times where we actually need the fans to be involved. The wave totally takes the fans out of the game.
All the clips with players trying guess songs or answer trivia. At times, it's just flat out embarrassing how bad the answers or nonanswers are. I find it hard to believe some of the sections aren't left on the cutting floor. Has anyone making these videos heard of editing?
UH played Texas Southern in Fall 2018. That was also known as our "Cheese Game". HBCU bands are a delight to watch, and they are LOUD.
Also both bands are very loud, rewatched the UNC 6OT game and could hear them perfectly.
I apologize for how vague my answer is going to be.
But when I came into VT in 2005 we were essentially coached on how to be fans and what fan expectations were. I'm not just talking about the freshman orientation stuff put on by the athletic department or student services (do they still do this?). I'm also talking about upperclassmen in organizations I was in pulling freshmen aside and telling us to go get "loud keys", telling us that on defense it doesn't have to be more complicated than a sustained OHHHHH yell, and making it clear that this is just what you do on Saturdays. Others in my dorm were most likely told the same things considering literally EVERYONE in my freshman/sophomore year dorms went to the games. With all the talk of paper airplanes and students leaving early, I wonder if football isn't as much of a priority as before. Obviously students should study... I'm not suggesting otherwise. But if we can get back to many students setting aside those 5 hours on a Saturday I think our crowd engagement and general morale can be better than ever.
Again I offered zero suggestions to you and I'm sorry about that. Maybe you can target RAs or similar folks that have regular contact with students on campus. That way they could build spirit within their halls and make school spirit a 24/7 thing.
Last thing, I applaud your efforts to make this "grassroots". Yes, it's a difficult thing to pull off and is going to be a lot of work, but I think you'll have more buy-in if it feels grassroots/word-of-mouth. Any way you can tie in social media would be beneficial as well. Make compilations of students going crazy, get somebody who makes hype videos on board, etc.
I wish you the best and hope you've found Blacksburg/VT to be as great as I remember.
So you actually gave a great answer. We did something similar down here, and a few of the members down in Houston, well, volunteered and infiltrated the orientation team to 'correct' the athletics/standard presentation. But that will definitely be kept in mind, actually coaching em out.
So that was a huge huge suggestion.
The organization at Houston has had 600 members pass through. Some left, at one point we had a mass culling, but there are about 206 in the GroupMe there. As of right now, before the school year even started, there are 114 Hokies in this GroupMe. That is obviously huge and we're all excited. It's definitely going to grow, and the officers that I picked already had the same view on grassroots/creating a central org/etc.
The one thing that made me open that application and choose VT over other places was the 2011 Enter Sandman vs Miami. "THESE PEOPLE ARE LOSING THEIR MINDS"
Also, our Instagram page is @HellraisinHokies
1) If you don't say "stick it in" you're whack.
2) I don't dislike the white effect game as much as most, but a blackout game with a once a year black uni would be so much cooler. And if they played, like, Back in Black prior to kickoff...holy shit. Hype City.
3) Hokies Respect was force-fed down everyones throats.
Hokie respect made me realize how much I hate sportsmanship.
Only redeeming quality was early on they had that commercial with the children dressed in ACC team attire and the entire stadium booing the little UVA kid lol
Or... we use our existing hype song that has the lyrics "exit light, enter night" and have the Enter Night game with Black Uniforms, obviously must be a night game.
Meant directly prior to kickoff as opposed to the beaten to death "weeeee readyyyyyy"
Return to Hey Hey Goodbye / Stick it in / original HP. That respect program is garbage.
What are some old traditions, stories, in game events that you loved and were more student-organic that you would like to see brought back?
What would you NOT want to see return?
I'm going to pile on to the "too much recorded music" bandwagon. We have two excellent bands, we should use them. (Note: I feel like this is a problem at every college game I watch). We should stick to Enter Sandman and... someone give me something else that is worthwhile for recorded stadium music. I'm having a hard time thinking of anything worthwhile. Use the bands.
Tangentially related, why does no college band play The Final Countdown when a team calls its last time out? It feels made for a marching band drumline.