The $5 Yell That Named a Nation

In 1896 the Virginia General Assembly gave the school a longer name. Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College became Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute. Nobody was going to say all that, so people shortened it to VPI.

The university’s 150th-anniversary chronology dates the change to March 5, 1896.

That created a small, very real problem. The school’s spirit yell ended with “Virginia, Virginia, A.M.C.” and those letters no longer fit. So the Athletic Association held a contest for a new yell. The prize was five dollars.

Yells were nothing new on campus. An older one went “Rip, Rah, Ree! / Va, Va, Vee! / Virginia, Virginia! / A-M-C!” An 1895 yell started “Hicki! Hicki! Hicki!” Tech’s Special Collections team likes to point out that, with one different contest winner, fans might be yelling “Let’s go, Hickies!” today.

The winner was O.M. Stull, Class of 1896. Special Collections gives his full name as Oscar Meade Stull, 1874 to 1964. He was a senior in applied chemistry from Lexington, Virginia, and served as cadet first lieutenant and adjutant, the ranking cadet officer that year.

He was not shy about his motive. About 60 years later, Stull recalled that he was surprised his yell won, but “I needed the five spot.”

Special Collections says the yell is said to have debuted on July 2, 1896, when cadets traveled to Richmond for the laying of the Jefferson Davis monument cornerstone.

In a 1956 letter to library director Seymour Robb, Stull said he was surprised the yell had lasted 60 years. It has now lasted 130, and it is still going.

Here is the 1896 original, as Virginia Tech prints it: “Hoki, Hoki, Hoki, Hy. / Techs, Techs, V.P.I. / Sola-Rex, Sola-Rah. / Polytechs, Vir-gin-ia. / Rae, Ri, V.P.I.”

And here it is the way Hokie Sports prints it today: “Hokie, Hokie, Hokie, Hy! / Tech, Tech, VPI / Sol-a-rex, Sol-a-rah / Poly Tech Vir-gin-ia / Ray rah VPI / Team! Team! Team!”

Two changes stand out. At some point an “e” was added to “Hoki.” Tech’s 2006 traditions booklet suggests it was either for looks or to head off people mispronouncing it. And “Team! Team! Team!” got tacked on to the end.

Spellings drift a little from source to source. Special Collections and the plaque on Stull’s grave both write “Vir-gin-i-a,” with one more beat.

Wikipedia’s entry on the cheer adds a finish: after the last line, students hold one hand against a fist, thumb out, to make a turkey and wiggle their fingers.

This is the question every Hokie gets asked, and the honest answer is the best one. It means nothing. Stull said he made up “Hoki” as an attention-getter. It was a sound, not a word.

Special Collections notes that in 1890s yells, the rhythm and tone mattered more than the words anyway. Stull needed something that would carry across a field. He got it.

Then the word took on a life of its own. It soon became a nickname for all Tech teams and loyal fans. Athletics now gives the official definition of a Hokie as a loyal Virginia Tech fan.

It has even knocked on the dictionary’s door. Collins English Dictionary hosts a new-word proposal for “hokie,” defined as the nickname for Virginia Tech sports teams and for people loyal to Tech athletics. It was submitted on November 10, 2012, and its status reads “being monitored for evidence of usage.” That makes it a proposal, not an accepted entry. Yet.

The cheer was not the only thing that changed in 1896. In 1891 the new student-run Athletic Association had picked black and cadet gray, to match the cadet uniforms.

That looked fine on a cadet. It did not look fine on a striped football jersey. On the field, black and gray read as prison garb, and the athletes complained.

So in 1896 a committee went looking for something better. It chose burnt orange and Chicago maroon, because no other college used that combination. It is still an unusual pair.

The new colors debuted in October 1896 against Roanoke College. Special Collections says it was not the season opener but the second game, at home. VPI won 12-0.

That first orange-and-maroon jersey carried a large V over a smaller P. The team went on to finish 5-2-1 and closed the season with a 24-0 win over VMI.

The same round of changes also brought the motto Ut Prosim, “That I May Serve,” and a college seal. A new name, a new yell, new colors and a motto, all in one year. 1896 built a lot of what Tech still looks like.

Stull is buried in Stonewall Jackson Cemetery in Lexington. On March 20, 2009, the Roanoke Valley Hokie Club placed a 500-pound Hokie Stone memorial with a bronze plaque at his grave. Don Huffman led the effort, and the cadet Honor Guard attended.

The plaque carries his cheer in the original spelling, “Hoki” with no “e.” It is a good place to remember that the name on every Tech fan’s shirt started as one cadet’s five-dollar idea.