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How Patrick Mahomes II, Joey McGuire worked with adidas to bring Texas Tech football a new look
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- How Patrick Mahomes II, Joey McGuire worked with adidas to bring Texas Tech football a new look
It's no big secret that three-time Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes II played a big role in securing an apparel deal between adidas, one of his sponsors, and the Texas Tech athletics department, where he made his name at the collegiate level.
Kirby Hocutt, director of athletics, credited Mahomes with getting the agreement between the two parties done back in November. Now that the 10-year deal between Tech and adidas has officially begun, we know a bit more about how the deal came about.
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Speaking from the concourse at Jones AT&T Stadium on Monday, senior associate athletics director Robert Giovannetti said Mahomes' role in the deal was multi-faceted. Not only did Texas Tech football 's most famous alum push for the deal, it'll be his logo the Red Raiders sport on their new uniforms.
GRAND REVEAL: LOOK: Texas Tech football unveils new adidas uniforms
"He always invites Kirby to his summer golf tournament," Giovannetti said, "and Patrick was just talking to him about, hey, we need to get adidas and Texas Tech together. He talked about his new brand, his gladiator brand, and so that kind of kicked things off."
Mahomes, Giovannetti said, also wanted to introduce his new logo — shaped like the helmet of a gladiator with his initials — to the college level and yearned for Texas Tech to be the first to incorporate it.
"There's a couple other schools that wanted to be first," Giovannetti said. "Patrick wanted Texas Tech to be first."
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So far, only the football and baseball team uniforms — he signed with Tech to play both before sticking with football — will feature Mahomes' gladiator logo, though others will join the fray later. Giovannatti said Mahomes will have more apparel announcements later this fall.
The big reveal Monday came with the football team unveiling its new uniform combinations. Texas Tech will still have red, black and white jerseys and pants and continue to sport either black or white helmets. No other uniforms are slated to be revealed for the football team for now.
Head coach Joey McGuire, Hocutt and Zane Perry, the football team's equipment manager, were big parts of the pitch meetings with adidas for the football uniforms. Giovannetti said adidas sent a contingent of designers — one of whom was the Stanford tree mascot in the 1990s when the Cardinal played the Texas Tech women's basketball team in Lubbock — to discuss options.
McGuire had a vision for what he wanted the uniforms to look like.
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"It truly was a collaboration going back and forth of, hey, here are some ideas," Giovannetti said. "Joey felt really like in football that he wanted them cleaner and less detail, and I think you saw that in what they actually look like today."
Other Texas Tech teams will reveal their new uniforms in the coming weeks with the women's soccer team next on the docket. In teasing the first day of reveals, Tech's football X (formerly Twitter) account posted snippets of team captains getting their first look at the gear.
"They've gotten it in little bits," Giovannetti said of the players," but the other night right down there in the locker room at the south end zone, we were able to show the football players, the captains, the uniforms and they went nuts.
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"And if you watch our social media, we had to bleep some things out. They were so excited when they saw them. ... The early reactions have really made us feel good, too, about the partnership for sure."
Texas Tech's head football coach Joey McGuire attends football practice, Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023, at the Sports Performance Center.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Mahomes, McGuire worked with adidas to bring Texas Tech football its new look
