Everything about Virginia Tech Hokies totally explained
Virginia Tech sponsors 18 sports and competes at the
NCAA Division I level. (
Football is IA.) Virginia Tech's men's sports are
baseball,
basketball,
cross country,
American football,
golf,
soccer,
swimming,
tennis,
track and field, and
wrestling. Virginia Tech's women's sports are
women's basketball,
cross country,
lacrosse,
soccer,
softball,
swimming,
tennis, and
track and field.
Traditions
Virginia Tech's sports teams are called the Hokies, except for the swim team, which uses the variant "H
2Okies," a play on the chemical formula for
water. The Tech mascot is the
HokieBird.
The word, which originated from the
Old Hokie spirit yell, penned in
1896, is often used interchangeably with "
Fighting Gobblers" to refer to sports teams, fans, students, or alumni. The official university school colors - Chicago Maroon and Burnt Orange - also were introduced in 1896. The colors were chosen by a committee because they made a 'unique combination' not worn elsewhere at the time. The mascot is the
HokieBird, a
turkey-like creature. The teams were originally known as the "
Fighting Gobblers," and the turkey motif was retained despite the name change.
The stylized
VT (the abbreviation for
Virginia Tech) is used primarily by the athletic department as a symbol for Virginia Tech athletic teams. The "athletic VT" symbol is
trademarked by the university and appears frequently on licensed merchandise.
During the early years of the university, a rivalry developed between the
Virginia Military Institute and Virginia Tech, then called VPI. This rivalry developed into the original "Military Classic of the South," which was an annual football game between VMI and VPI on Thanksgiving Day in
Roanoke, Virginia. This rivalry continued until 1970 when Tech's football program became too large and too competitive for VMI. Today, Tech's major athletic rivalries include the
Virginia Cavaliers (see
Virginia-Virginia Tech rivalry), the
West Virginia Mountaineers, and the
Miami Hurricanes.
Virginia Tech's
fight song,
Tech Triumph, was written in 1919 and remains in use today. Tech Triumph is played at sporting events by both the Virginia Tech band,
The Marching Virginians, and the Corps of Cadets' band, the
Highty Tighties. The
Old Hokie spirit yell, in use since
1896, is familiar to all Tech fans.
Virginia Tech Sports Today airs weekly on television stations in the Southwestern Virginia area and
Comcast SportsNet.
Conference affiliation
Tech teams participate in the in the
Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), which the school joined in
2003 after a tumultuous trek through five different conferences in the previous decade, most recently leaving the
Big East in the controversial ACC expansion.
In 1921, Virginia Tech joined the Southern Intercollegiate Conference (now
Southern Conference), which contained 19 schools by 1922, all current members of the ACC or
Southeastern Conference (SEC). In 1932, thirteen schools left the then-gigantic Southern Conference to form the SEC and in 1953, seven more teams left to form the ACC.
Frank Moseley, Virginia Tech's director of athletics and football coach, believed that the new Southern Conference was a lower tier of competition and sought membership in the ACC, but was turned down. In 1965, Tech left the Southern Conference to become independent. In 1977, Virginia Tech once again sought admission to the ACC and was once again rejected.
In 1978, Virginia Tech joined the
Metro Conference, winning the conference
men's basketball championship in their first year.
In 1991, Virginia Tech was invited to join the
Big East Conference for football only. Members of the Big East football conference included
Boston College,
Miami,
Pittsburgh,
Rutgers,
Syracuse,
Temple, Virginia Tech, and
West Virginia. In 1994, Virginia Tech was turned down for full membership in the Big East.
In January
1995, Virginia Tech and
Virginia Commonwealth University were ousted from the Metro Conference and subsequently filed a lawsuit against the conference. The lawsuit was settled when Metro agreed to pay the Hokies $1,135,000 and Virginia Tech joined the
Atlantic 10 Conference, along with fellow newcomers
Dayton and
LaSalle in June 1995.
In 1999, the Big East agreed to accept Virginia Tech as a full member in all sports. Virginia Tech ultimately paid $8.3 million to join the conference, $1.1 million of which was actually paid after the school left.
In April 2003,
Mike Tranghese, commissioner of the Big East, dropped a bombshell — that the ACC was secretly trying to lure away Big East members. Over the next several months, the ACC held meetings and discussions. Ultimately, Virginia Tech was invited to join the conference, along with Miami. Boston College was added the following year. Virginia Tech finally had achieved what Frank Moseley had sought so long ago — membership in the ACC.
When Virginia Tech was invited to join the ACC, former
Roanoke Times sports editor
Bill Brill expressed his displeasure, saying "Virginia Tech won't win an ACC championship in my lifetime." When Virginia Tech's football team proceeded to do precisely that in their very first season in the league, Brill's house in Chapel Hill, North Carolina received hundreds of mocking phone calls from angry Virginia Tech fans, curious to learn when the funeral arrangements would be held.
Football
Virginia Tech participates annually with the
University of Virginia for the
Commonwealth Cup.
Men's basketball
Women's basketball
Virginia Tech's women's basketball team, led by coach
Beth Dunkenberger, is a fixture in postseason play, having received a berth to the
NCAA tournament each season from 2003 to 2006. Virginia Tech's women have been in postseason play every year since the 1997-98 season,
Bonnie Henrickson's first season as the head coach of the Hokies. In the 2006-07 season, the Lady Hokies will return to the NCAA Women's NIT for the first time since the 2002 season, marking their tenth consecutive postseason appearance. They benefitted from the modified rules of the tournament. Starting in the 2007 season, the WNIT will accept at least one team from each conference. The highest-finishing team that misses the NCAA tournament from each conference is guaranteed a spot in the WNIT. The Hokies finished 7th in conference play, and the top six were selected for the NCAA. They play their home games in
Cassell Coliseum.
Soccer
Baseball
Virginia Tech's recently retired
baseball coach,
Chuck Hartman, finished his career as the fourth winningest coach in Division I baseball history with a 1,444-816-8 record, including a 961-591-8 mark in his 28 seasons at Tech.
Golf
In 2007, Virginia Tech golfer Drew Weaver became the first American to win the
British Amateur golf tournament since 1979. Weaver edged out 2006 Australian Amateur Champion Tim Stewart and earned an invitation to the 2007
British Open.
Non-Varsity Sports
Hockey
Virginia Tech Ice Hockey was formed in 1984. In the fall of 1995 they joined the newly formed ACCHL and have competed there ever since. In 1996-97 they were crowned the regular season champions with a record of 13-1. Currently the Hokies play out of the Roanoke Civic Center and recently drew the biggest crowd in team history of 5200+ to the VT vs. UVA game on 1/19/07. They became the first non Carolina team to win the Canes Cup on 1/14/07 by defeating the
Duke University Blue Devils,
NC State University Wolfpack and the
East Carolina University Pirates. The team website can be viewed at
HokieHockey.com
.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Virginia Tech Hokies'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://virginia_tech_hokies.totallyexplained.com">Virginia Tech Hokies Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
