HokieBird

Gobblers

Before they were the Hokies, Virginia Tech’s athletic teams were known as the Fighting Gobblers. The university says the name started in 1909, when football coach Branch Bocock started a “Gobbler Club” for his players, and that name showed up in print that same year. Another story goes back to when the school was a military college called VAMC. Cadets had to eat without looking at their plates; doing so was called “gobbling” and got you in trouble.

Athletes got bigger portions and were allowed to gobble their food because meal time was short, so the sports teams became the Gobblers. The 1909 football team was the first called the Gobblers in print, and it became the official nickname in 1912. By 1913, a local man named Floyd Meade, who worked at VPI, trained a big turkey to do tricks, like pulling him in a decorated cart before a football game. Live turkeys stayed on the sidelines through the 1950s.

Fighting Gobblers

The first permanent costumed Gobbler took the field in fall 1962, when civil engineering student Mercer MacPherson raised $200 to create a costume with a head resembling a cardinal and real turkey feathers dyed in school colors. It debuted at the annual Thanksgiving Day football game between VPI and VMI. The costume was modified in 1971 to include a long neck, making it over 7 feet tall, and the name was changed to the "Fighting Gobbler".

HokieBird

Before the 1981 season opener against Wake Forest, Virginia Tech’s football coach and athletic director Bill Dooley pushed for a new mascot look and name, responding to old stories about students “gobbling” their food. The turkey-like figure that appeared was called “the Hokie mascot,” “the Hokie,” and “the Hokie bird,” all taken from the “Old Hokie” cheer. This eventually made the Hokies the official team name. The costume used today first showed up in 1987, when Frank Beamer returned as head coach.

Even though Beamer put the Gobbler back on the football scoreboard, the Hokies nickname had already stuck. The current HokieBird made its debut at that year’s home opener versus Clemson, rolling up in a white limousine. Curtis Dvorak, who played the HokieBird from 1995 to 1996, won the National Cheerleading Association championship in 1996 and has been the Jacksonville Jaguars’ mascot, Jaxson de Ville, ever since. Todd Maroldo, the HokieBird the following season, won the same championship in 1997 and later became Sir Purr, the Carolina Panthers mascot.

The HokieBird was popular enough to appear on Animal Planet’s “Turkey Secrets,” which airs around Thanksgiving. Today, “Hokie” usually means any Virginia Tech student.

Off the field, the HokieBird hosts community events, rollerblades across campus, replies to tweets, and drops by classrooms, dorms, and dining halls. Its official X account is @TheHokieBird. No one knows how many students play the HokieBird each year, and the tryout process stays a secret.

Traditions

Before football games, the HokieBird leads the charge onto the field as students jump up and down in the stands to Metallica's "Enter Sandman". After scores, cheerleaders carry out a bench and weights for the HokieBird to perform bench presses—one for every point VT has scored—or sometimes situps or pushups. The HokieBird has crowd surfed from the bottom of the Corps of Cadets student section to the top. At graduation, students who portrayed the HokieBird are allowed to wear the giant orange bird feet; in theory, no one knows who the HokieBirds are until graduation day.