Hokie Bird
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Hokie Bird is the official mascot of Virginia Tech. It is not an actual live turkey.
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[edit] History
[edit] Gobblers
Virginia Tech's first mascot/nickname was the "Gobblers". The origin of the "Gobblers" is not really known. One story claims it was coined in the early 1900s as a description of how Tech athletes would "gobble" down their food. Another story claims that the 1909 football coach, Branch Bocock, wanted better spirit amongst his players and initiated them into an informal "Gobbler Club."
Whatever the origins, the name was already popular when Floyd "Hard Times" Meade, a local resident, had a large turkey pull a decorated cart before football games. Meade paraded the mascot around the stadium during the game, and even trained it to gobble on command. This tradition continued after another "turkey trainer" took over in 1924.
Fans and sports writers adopted the "Gobbler" nickname and began to use it to describe the team. In 1936, a costumed Gobbler joined the live gobbler for at least one game. The use of a live turkey mascot continued well into the 1950s, and the first permanent costumed Gobbler took the field in the fall of 1962.
[edit] Hokies and HokieBird
However, "Gobbler" nickname was not to last, at least not as the official nickname/mascot.
In the late 1970s, the university hired a new football coach who heard that the Gobbler mascot was based on athletes gobbling their food down, so he began promoting the "Hokie" nickname and even removed the gobble from the scoreboard. Coach Frank Beamer had it reinstalled.
In 1982, the appearance of the Gobbler mascot costume was changed to one that looked like a maroon cardinal with a snood. Thus, people started to call it the "the Hokie mascot," "the Hokie," and "the Hokie bird."
The costume worn by today's HokieBird made its first appearance in 1987. The HokieBird has won national mascot competitions and has been so popular that the mascot landed an appearance on Animal Planet's "Turkey Secrets," shown annually around Thanksgiving.
[edit] Traditions
- The HokieBird is an active supporter of all Virginia Tech athletic teams, particularly the Virginia Tech Football and Basketball Teams.
- Before games, he leads the charge onto the field as students jump up and down in the stands to Metallica's "Enter Sandman".
- After scores, the VT cheerleaders carry out a bench and weights for the HokieBird to perform bench presses. He does one bench for every point VT has scored. Sometimes, in lieu of bench presses, the Hokie Bird has done situps or pushups.
- The HokieBird has also been known to crowd surf from the bottom of the student section to the top of the stadium.
- At the graduation ceremony, the students who are the HokieBird are allowed to wear the giant orange bird feet. In theory, no one is supposed to know who the HokieBirds are until graduation day.
