Superfan 2.0 Mixing Historic Tradition With Future, Untapped Vision

In 1997, juniors Jeff Bridge and Chris Millette hatched a vision to turn BC athletics events into an electric atmosphere. They foresaw a passionate student body united by its own uniform, painted in gold and welcoming all with a defiantly-proud statement. The student-led group, made up of students, would wear its own jersey, a yellow t-shirt emblazoned with the colors and attitude of the Eagles.

They sprung their idea that year within a small group but decided its future stage required more than just a dedicated few. It had bigger aspirations, and the next year, their brainchild shocked a nationally-televised audience into witnessing the debut of the Superfans. A rabid student section stretched around the corner of an end zone and enveloped the visiting team's entry tunnel while chants and cheers echoed through the night. It resonated with the undergraduate base and birthed a student section rivaling any in power conference sports.

The duo had no idea their shirt would turn into a full-blown tradition, but it's still a fixture among the BC fan base more than 20 years later. Now, as the new era dawns for a new shirt, the tradition revival remains at the forefront, uniting generations with a new twist for a new era of BC athletics.

"We have a really strong tradition of a shirt founded by students," Jamie Di Loreto, the Associate Athletic Director for Marketing and Fan Engagement, said. "This 'Superfan 2.0' idea is really trying to remember what this shirt meant, and it's becoming the next campaign within it. The core of the shirt is how it is by the students and for the students. That's now going to carry into the next generation. It opens options for students to change year-to-year, and it's left in the hands of student voting.

The shirt is a phenomenon among Boston College because of how the students latched onto it. It expanded into the fabric of the university and united every corner of campus. Orientation leaders moved students on campus with the shirt and taught new Superfans about its meaning. Annual slogans heralded individual classes, but it all blended into a yellow and gold mass in Conte Forum or in Alumni Stadium.

"Jeff and Chris coordinated an ad in The Heights to really promote the shirts," Jamie Di Loreto, Associate Athletic Director for Marketing and Fan Engagement, said. "They ended up selling them during that first year, and there was such a popularity that they coordinated to work with orientation leaders. They started to distribute shirts to the freshman class, and the bookstore sponsored it so students could receive one."

At its height, the Superfan shirt exceeded any expectation from that initial game against Virginia Tech. It lived without an interruption for nearly two decades and remained largely untouched. The school's yellow shifted to a Vegas-style gold, and every class received a new slogan. Every student, though, continually cycled synonymously through the wheel and splashed a type of collective individualism into the collaboration on campus. The united appearance rooted at athletics events, which itself enjoyed a golden era of success.

"The shirt went along with a 'Superfan 101 welcoming event that taught the students about the different traditions at BC," Di Loreto said. "They would wear their shirt to the event, and it evolved in such a way that the class picture was taken with everyone wearing their Superfan shirts during move-in week. It was a great tradition, and the demand was high for the shirts."

The tradition relied on participation, though, and the last decade altered its perception and appearance among the BC student population. The yellow shirt's usage waned with nary an explanation, and usage decline lacked an obvious answer or fix. In response, Di Loreto listened to students to find the reasons why an annual rite seemed to be fading away.

He engaged both the Campus Activities Board and the Nest, which is BC's student-athletics fan club, and discovered students fostered more desire over design. They held affinity for tradition, and the idea of a shirt tradition resonated. The new classes simply wanted to explore their own self-determination and discovery.

"In the last four to six years, there was a significant drop in the interest of students wearing the shirts," he said. "We held focus groups over four years, and the feedback was that the students didn't connect with the style from the late-1990s. Two years ago, we worked with them to remove the slogan because they didn't want the slogans anymore. Other feedback was that they preferred a maroon color and wanted new options for the design of the shirts themselves.

"Yellow was our primary color, and it transitioned to the Vegas gold color that we used," he said. "The color popped on game day and was great, but the students didn't have the same connection to the style. They wanted to keep the tradition of having it come from the students and incorporate Superfan designs within that." Out of the final eight design students, two incorporated the former Superfan logo.

The final voting resulted in a complete redesign of the Superfan shirt. It changed to maroon and underwent an evolutionary concept to its graphics. A contest elicited student response, and after nearly two dozen submissions, a bracket of eight final choices appeared on social media.

"The students came up with the bracket idea," Di Loreto said. "They selected the top eight, and the decisions came from those designs. Some had a traditional Eagle design, and others had Gasson Tower. We had slogans on the back. The committee selected them and ran it similar to a March Madness bracket, which we wanted to hold around the week of the ACC Tournament."

The vote restricted itself by maintaining the integrity of a student-led vote, and it generated a clear and substantial buzz. Voting returned immediate results within the first 24 hours even as students settled into remote learning environments necessitated by the coronavirus crisis.

"We wanted to hold the bracket around the week of the ACC Tournament, but we ran into a transition period as students moved out," Di Loreto said. "So we pushed back by a week with what would have been March Madness.

"We also found that students wanted the front from one shirt and the back from another," he said. "So we stayed sensitive to combine ideas with the committee. We learned people liked one over the other instead of whole designs. Since this was a vote for the students by the students, we tracked the votes, which helped us break everything down."

The result blended a time-honored tradition with new, independent thought. The design itself resembles nothing of its predecessor; a soaring eagle between an arched "Boston College" is on a maroon background, and Gasson Hall will adorn the rear with a perched bird and "For Boston" typed twice underneath it.

It nevertheless retains all of its past value. The shirt, which is the combined product of Myles Hahn and Dagny Belak, two BC students, is an unintended callback to when two undergraduates designed the original idea. Like then, it's a movement run entirely by students and intends to create a continuous, unified student body to pop before a national television audience.

The vision, rebooted and refocused, is itself a subtle, undiscovered reflection of its past. 22 years separate design periods, a reflection nobody could ever predict but fits the BC mold ever-so-perfectly.

"The goal is to engage the students consistently, " Di Loreto said. "They can encourage the alumni at that point. They can be the energy. A student section is the heart and soul of a (college stadium), but coordinating those things needs consistency within the students. They know each other the best, so we want them to lead with enthusiasm."

The new Superfan shirt is a rebooted, modern take on the students' own athletics uniform, and it's a way to continue pushing forward. The attitude resides in the same vein as what's on the field itself, how blended throwbacks mix with new styles almost every year. Things push forward and enhance the love of what came before it, and the possibilities for the future remain endless.

"The yellow shirts will continue to be kept by the bookstore," he explained. "We encouraged students and removed slogans, but we wanted to manage (the shirts) and not give them up. Now we can focus on maroon outs for games. We could even bring back the gold for a gold out, and we're looking at different ways to continue this tradition. We want our alumni to know that the tradition is always going to be kept on at BC.

Superfan 2.0 Mixing Historic Tradition With Future, Untapped Vision

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