Autumn Spectacle: HokieBird

The HokieBird
by AutumnSpectacle.com staff

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the Autumn Spectacle is for the fans and is supposed to be fun. The HokieBird of Virginia Tech provides a public face for the kind of fun autumn Saturdays offer.

The most common questions people have is: What is a Hokie? And, is that thing a bird, a turkey or what?

Over a century ago, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University held a student contest to write a new cheer. Upperclassmen are supposed to be leaders and senior O.M. Stull wrote the “Hokie” yell, which can still be heard at home games in Blacksburg.

The yell goes like this:

Hokie, Hokie, Hokie, Hi!
Tech, Tech, VPI
Sol-a-rex, Sol-a-rah
Poly Tech Vir-gin-ia
Ray rah VPI
Team! Team! Team!

The word “Hokie” was conjured up by Stull simply because he needed a word that would be an “attention-getter.” Up until then, VT athletic teams were known as the Gobblers and “Home of the Gobblers” was proudly posted on the outside of Lane Stadium until recently. However, after the school adopted the yell, Hokies became the permanent nickname.

Though the costumed mascot is a depiction of a fictional bird that resembles a turkey, he has become a fixture on the VT sidelines. His performance on gamedays has made him a crowd favorite.

At some schools, the cheerleaders or students will do pushups after each score for the number of points their team has on the scoreboard. Not the HokieBird. The cheerleaders bring out a bench and barbell and he gets a workout doing bench press.

His calling card comes at the end of the third quarter during home games. He leads the 65,000 Hokie faithful in doing a group performance of the “Hokie Pokie.” When you watch a six-foot tall bird gleefully turning himself around, it begs the question: what if the Hokie Pokie IS what it’s all about?

For more Traditions & Pageantry, click on the masthead and Chris Schenkel quote.

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“College football has a spirit that lives; it has tradition that is unshakable."
- Roger Staubach, in The Rites of Autumn