Some students want to keep shirts
The proposal to redesign the game-day shirts has received mixed reactions.
“Whatever we do, we need to be unified,” said last year’s ASUSU Athletics Vice President, Tyler Olsen, who helped create the current game-day shirts.
Olsen expressed concern that unless there is a big marketing effort made, not everyone will buy the new shirts and the crowd will be wearing many different shirts.
Toni Lehman, a senior studying exercise science, said, “The cool thing about the [current] game-day shirt is that it gives unity. If they switch, the crowd will be half new, half old and it will ruin it.”
Olsen said he will support Jimi Jorgensen, current ASUSU athletics vice president, in whatever he decides. However, Olsen recommended forming an ad hoc committee to give feedback about what people in the university and community want.
“If the majority wants to change it, then we should change it,” he said.
During the men’s basketball game Friday, the opinion of everyone approached, including that of Big Blue, was to keep the shirts.
“The game day shirts, I like them. Keep them,” he said.
Avon resident Dennis Hansen said, “Why change a tradition? We’ve got it going, stay with it.”
Hansen’s 11-year-old grandson, Trace, said he loves his game-day shirt and wears it even when he’s not at basketball games.
Staci Meacham, a sophomore in music therapy, said she is also against the change.
“Keep them,” she said, “It is the coolest thing to see the entire student section in the same shirt.”
Lee Badger, owner of Lee’s Marketplace, has sold between 9,000-10,000 game-day shirts in his stores.
“I have a hard time with them wanting to change the whole design,” he said, adding that he is especially concerned if they change the color of the shirt. “You’ve got this sea of blue created. It would scare me to change to another color,” he said.
“I have never seen the community more involved with the Aggies than the last few years with these shirts,” he said. “I don’t think everyone is going to go out and buy a new shirt. If we stay with this one, we will have more people with a common shirt and a common cause.”
Olsen said he likes the current design. He said the No. 1 on the front gives “almost a feeling of arrogance. It says, ‘We’re number one, you can’t be number one.’
“I think it looks so intimidating from the floor,” he said. “It is unique. You can see someone from a quarter of a mile away and know they’re an Aggie fan.”
However, Jorgenson was quoted in a Feb. 28 Statesman article saying, “we encourage students to design the front of the shirt.”
“We don’t necessarily have to keep the back the way it is, but most complaints are about the front,” he said.
Olsen said he is concerned about marketing the shirts because right now, there is no marketing taking place. It took a lot of time out of his schedule to get the shirts out to fans, he said.
“Tyler did such a good job getting the shirts out to where the community has access to them,” said Alisha Jarrett, a senior in family consumer and human development. “It is kind of a slap in the face to Tyler to go out and design new ones,” she said.
Jarrett noted that the shirts can be seen all over campus.
Olsen said another thing to consider is if new shirts would be cost effective for families in the community. New shirts every year would not be possible, he said, but maybe every other year.
“My goal is to have a blue stadium, whether wearing this game-day shirt or another one,” Olsen said.
-ashschiller@cc.usu.edu