By PAUL HATCH
Volleyball excitement has hit BYU. And many students, parents, and local residents have been wearing their excitement on their sleeves.
The BYU bookstore said it has been selling more volleyball T-shirts than ever before.
“It has been our best selling sport shirt,” said bookstore worker Clayton Carter. Carter, 23, a marketing communications major from Sacramento, CA, said people have been buying anything related to the volleyball team.
T-shirts and hats have been selling out and volleyballs with the BYU symbol have also been popular items, he said. Carter said that around the middle of the season the volleyballs started “selling like crazy.”
“We probably sold only one ball in the six months before that,” Carter said.
Carter said the week before the volleyball championship game the bookstore had crowds of 50 to 60 people who wanted to buy BYU apparel. He said many of the customers were buying shirts and hats to wear to the championship match.
The bookstore will begin selling National Championship T-shirts around the first of next week, Carter said. He said he has already received about 20 pre-orders.
“People are calling all the time,” he said.
One reason the sales have been so high is because the bookstore is the only source of BYU volleyball apparel. Carter said the bookstore buys its shirts from Gear, the only company licensed by the NCAA to print the T-shirts.
Benny Ek, a worker at DP Sports in Provo, said a few people have come into his store looking for volleyball items. But Ek said DP Sports doesn’t carry any BYU volleyball clothing.
