ACC/SEC Traditions Virginia Tech

Today we start our tradition series with Virginia Tech.One of the biggest is Enter Sandman.

From VT.EDU:

Written and recorded by the heavy metal band Metallica, “Enter Sandman” has been played in Lane Stadium since 2000 as the football team enters the field. The tradition of students jumping up and down during the song started on December 1, 2001, when a Marching Virginians band member started jumping during the song and was joined by his colleagues. The tradition eventually spread to the basketball teams’ entrances in Cassell Coliseum.

From VT.EDU:

The lunch pail

The famed Virginia Tech lunch pail symbolizes the blue-collar approach of the Hokies’ football defense, developed by assistant head coach and defensive coordinator Bud Foster. Foster’s Lunch Pail Defense Foundation provides scholarships for high school students from the New River and Roanoke valleys, as well as assisting the families of those awaiting organ transplants.

In 1995, the original lunch pail was acquired by the mother-in-law of co-defensive coordinator Rod Sharpless. The pail once belonged to a coal miner, and after the record-setting defensive season, the lunch pail became an iconic element of the Hokie football lore. The battered and rusting pail, which now contains the names of the 32 Hokies who died in the tragedy on April 16, 2007, travels wherever the Hokies go, and its care is entrusted to a defensive leader.

This photo of the pail is from my interview at ACC kickoff in 2018

The Hokie Stone

From VT.edu

Virginia Tech exhibits its character and pride every day via its buildings, most of which are made of Hokie Stone, a limestone common in Southwest Virginia. It was first used in campus building construction in 1899, and today, all new central campus buildings must bear the distinctive stone.

Hewed by hand and varying from grays, browns, and blacks to pinks, oranges, and maroons, no two stones are the same color. Since the mid-1950s, the university has operated its own quarry.

The hokies have several traditions that we talked about with Bryan Manning from Gobblercountry.com. Check out our interview and learn about the traditions at Virginia Tech.