Ivy League Football hits the national spotlight this weekend as The Ivy League Game of the Week, Presented by TIAA-CREF on the VERSUS Network kicks off Saturday, October 11 at Noon with the unbeaten Cornell Big Red (3-0, 1-0 Ivy League) taking on the Harvard Crimson (2-1, 0-1) at famed Harvard Stadium in Cambridge, Mass. Read the rest of this entry
Are you ready for some football?! It’s that time of year again and Ivysport is happy that the new season is underway. In celebration of the new season we are having a sale offering our Premium Vintage Football Shirts at an incredible 50% off! Yes 50%! Offer is good for 5 days only; from Friday the 10th through Tuesday the 14th. The shirts are very soft, comfortable and feature a distressed print for that great vinage look. They’re also knitted imperfectly; reminiscent of your vintage high school p.e. shirt. Available for all of the Ancient Eight schools.
While most people correctly associate the phrase “Ivy League” with the elite, ancient eight Ivy schools, not so many realize the only physical embodiment of the Ivy League is its athletic conference. Formally called “The Council of Ivy Group Presidents”, the Ivy League has been led by our friend and colleague Jeff Orleans since 1984. While the “Ivy League” name conjures up notions of elite schools covered in Ivy, the “real” Ivy League oversees the athletic play of some 33 varsity sports across the eight Ivy League schools. Jeff recently announced his retirement as Executive Director this year after twentry-four incredible years of leadership. This was followed by the bittersweet news of the Ivy League’s Chuck Yrigoyen departing to become Commissioner of the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
We’re trying to be a little more creative at Ivysport by engaging our customers and visitors with fun promotions. This month we’re launching on Ivysport a “Free T-Shirt A Day through Labor Day” where each day we’ll randomly select one entrant to receive their Ivy League school t-shirt of choice with complimentary shipping. Winners will be posted daily here and it’s completely free to register. Visitors can often once per day for every day of the promotion. I’m curious to see if there’s a bias toward which school is most represented…will it be Cornell, Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale? Already today we’ve received nearly 300 entrants! Good luck to all.
It only makes sense to start Ivysport’s blog with the t-shirt that launched the company. Back in 1988, I was a sophomore at Princeton University and a “work-study” student – meaning I needed a campus job to help pay my tuition. I was issued the job of working at “DFS” (the Division of Food Services) in Forbes College, which meant after attending classes and football practice all week I had to wake up at 6AM to make eggs and omelets to hung-over fellow students as they meandered into the dining all. It took about four weeks on the job to realize (and to quote Donny Deutsch) “there had to be a better way”.
I had always been interested in the camaraderie and competition shared by the eight Ivy League schools, particularly as I made my way to the other campuses while playing football for Princeton. You could by a Princeton t-shirt, or Harvard t-shirt, or even a Yale sweatshirt, but you could not buy anything that featured all eight Ivy League schools on one item. I began sketching what would become my concept for “It’s Lonely at the Top”, which featured one Ivy school crest on top of the crests of the other Ivy League schools. Thus began my career as an entrepreneur.
I printed up a batch of shirts and began selling them to students at Princeton’s residential colleges. I would knock on a door, show them the shirt, and walk away with $15 bucks in my pocket. This was way better than flipping eggs! It was only a matter of time before my now competitor, the Princeton U-Store, came calling and requested to sell “It’s Lonely at the Top” in their bookstore. Later, all eight Ivy League schools would request their own version to sell at their bookstore. To this day – 22 years later – we still receive orders, compliments, and raves about this original shirt.
Personally, after Princeton I went on to explore investment banking, consulting, working in entertainment (HBO and EMI Music), and technology, yet at the end of the day I came back to Ivy League apparel and started what today is Ivysport – the largest provider of Ivy League apparel on the planet!
