Regarding Stadium Cups
Bear with me. There’s a point to all of this. I promise to eventually get to that point,
but I’m not in any hurry.
Back in 1975 or 1976, I obtained my
very first Hokie Cup. It was a solidly
constructed orange cup with three maroon “Fightin’ Gobblers” decorating the
side. I still have that cup. It’s valued and treasured, residing on a shelf in
my cluttered garage.
Like many of you, I made it through
my college Bill Dooley years drinking from repurposed Hokie cups gathered from
Lane after drinking the Hokies to another win or loss. Those cups were life-savers, hydrators;
mixing companions.
After college, I took a small cup collection
with me to my first apartment and used them as my primary beverage
holders. In fact, to this day, I rarely
use glassware, choosing instead one of my trusted Hokie cups.
I’ve written about the souvenir-sized
Hokie cups dispensed at VT games here several
times in the past twenty years. As I
recall, back in the mid-late 1990’s the large white cups with HOKIES spelled
out in block letters on the side were rugged, HUGE, and eminently
serviceable.
Enter the post-MV1 era.
In an attempt to milk cash from
thirsting spectators, the athletic department ordered smaller, flimsier,
candy-assed (my new favorite expression) cups.
Holding a full large cup in your hand after a few warm-up parking lot
drinks immediately presented the real danger of serious spillage. Gone were the solid cups of the magic years;
replaced instead with an inferior product.
Either in 2003 or 2004, the
athletic department decided it was time to beef up its souvenir cup. Perhaps this was due to my daily email
assault on Jim Weaver’s electronic and paper mailboxes. Who knows? Regardless, a new cup was
born. Flexible, yet sturdy. Large, yet
functional. “HOKIES RESPECT That’s what it’s all about” is what it said. Jim
Weaver’s oft-discussed attempt to tame the rabble. While the campaign fell flat, the cups were
fantastic! They used these fabulous cups for a couple of years before moving on
to a bigger, glitzier black cup featuring various stars from that year’s
team. While I liked those cups, too,
they weren’t as auto-friendly. Too big
to fit an ordinary cup holder. Fortunately,
I had relatives that needed them.
But as a couple of years passed, I
grew concerned that my stash of marvelous 2004 Hokies Respect cups was slowly
diminishing. The cups were not the
problem. They weren’t disintegrating. It
was my fault entirely. I’d misplace one
or step on another. Let a friend use one without telling them how valuable they
were to me. It really was all my
fault. At one point, I was down to just
two serviceable cups.
The Miracle in Salem.
On June 9, 2012 I found myself attending
the Group A, Division 2 state baseball championship at Salem’s Kiwanis field
where The Greene Dragons of William Monroe defeated Chilhowie 5-4 in extra
innings. At one point, I wandered over to the concession stand to get a Coke. To my utter shock and joy, the attendant served
up my drink in an authentic, brand-new 2004 Hokies Respect cup. In fact, situated in a corner of the shack,
was the largest collection of Hokies Respect cups I’d ever seen. There must have been hundreds of them. So I bought drinks for all my friends and
collected the cups. I went around the
bleachers after the game nabbing any left-behind cups. All told, I ended up with about ten mint
condition wonder cups.
So for the past five years, I’ve
kept the same four cups in rotation,
They are showing signs of wear and tear though. The “Hokies Respect” is fading. The cup now says, “That’s… it’s… -out.” Fortunately, I still have four or five 2004
cups in reserve.
Which brings me to the point of this whole story.
When it comes to plastic stadium
cups, I know what I’m talking about. I
may not know how to diagram a defensive alignment or why a defensive end can’t
“gain the edge” on every play; I do understand cups.
At the Delaware game, I purchased
my usual souvenir cup just before the opening kick-off. I was looking forward to the new 2017
design. Who would be on the cup? Would it be “Hokies Respect II” or some
clever design. Would the cups be
durable?
It turns out that the new cup is
black like last year’s cup, but it is decidedly taller and thinner, much like
the cups at the Bristol game last year.
In fact, when I went back and compared the cups this year to last year,
I noted that the capacity went from 32 ounces last year to 24 ounces this
year. But here’s the real kicker. The
price for the souvenir beverage went from $5.00 to $5.50. While the cup design
was great, the ruggedness was apparent, and the cup’s potential for fitting in
an auto cup holder seemed promising, the change in size and price seemed
downright miserly. Last year, the large
souvenir cup cost $0.16 an ounce. Now
the large beverage is up to $0.23 an ounce.
That’s almost a 44% increase in cost! Scandalous! This unconscionable
greed-grab harkens back to the euphoric post-national championship daze when
ticket prices sky-rocketed and flimsy cups became the norm.
I’m not mad because of the cost
spike. I’m not even mad because the
little girl sitting next to me kicked over my drink before I even had a second
sip. I’m just not mad at all, really.
Honestly, that’s what it’s all
about.
