Meet Hokie Stone, Virginia Tech’s *other* awesome pregame tradition

Virginia Tech football has some pretty awesome pre-game traditions, including the famous “Enter Sandman” entrance. One of them involves touching a slab of rock that’s perched right outside the entrance to the field.

It’s a slab of Hokie Stone, which has been above the players’ tunnel in Lane Stadium since 1965, and every player touches the stone before walking onto the field for games. On the sides of the stone, it reads, “For those who have passed, for those to come, reach for excellence.”

Hokie Stone is dolomite limestone, a rock-forming mineral. It’s most commonly found in Appalachia. It can have shades of pink, red, gray, brown, and black colors. You can see the stone throughout VT’s campus.

Virginia Tech started constructing buildings on-campus with the native stone as early as 1899, when it was used to build the on-campus YMCA. A second building on campus was built with the stone in 1914. Then in 2010, a committee passed a resolution that all campus buildings should be built with Hokie Stone.

”It’s become a tradition, VT Geologist Bill Henika said via ESPN. “Hokie Stone is Virginia Tech, and Virginia Tech is Hokie Stone. It started when the school was looking for an alternative to brick construction and it was material that was available right on campus. But now it’s something that when people think about their alma mater, they think of the look and feel of the buildings.”

In the timeline of geology, dolomite formed at the same time as fish, insects, and reptiles, making it somewhat of a geological newcomer. The formation of this limestone was an earth-shaking event. Continental drift forced the coastal plains of Africa and North America to collide, creating wrinkled layers of faults and folds. As these layers were pushed near the earth’s surface, they formed the stone that distinguishes Virginia Tech today.

Environmental changes caused the color variations of Hokie Stone. The older pinkish dolomites resulted from their formation during an era when the region faced an arid, desert-like climate that had a bleaching effect on the rocks. The darker gray and black colors come from a time of swampy and wetter conditions.

Virginia Tech started mining Hokie Stone from a quarry in Blacksburg back in 1958, and it supplies 80 percent of the stone that’s made every year.

Non-Virginia Tech fans had some mixed reactions to them, but you can understand the history that’s behind it.

Here’s what former VT head coach Frank Beamer had to say when the helmets were unveiled:

“The outside world may have to do a double-take, but the Hokie Nation will know exactly what it is: Hokie Stone! And it’s something we’re proud of, Beamer said via VT Athletics. “The reason I like it, is because it represents what this program and this University are built on. Each piece, in its place, serving its purpose, doing its job, and when it’s all working together, it’s rock solid and it’s something special. That Hokie Stone … represents what we’re all about, a foundation that we’re proud of, built on brotherhood, loyalty, leadership, Ut Prosim, sacrifice, service, honor, and duty.

Virginia Tech also wore these stone uniforms against Tennessee in 2016’s game from Bristol Speedway:

And these were worn for Virginia Tech’s home opener against Delaware.

Television viewers on Saturday night will likely get to see Hokie players slap the stone up close and personal before heading out against No. 2 Clemson on Saturday night. ABC broadcasts do a great job of showing unique pregame traditions.