With phrases like ‘I went to Syracuse and the dome was great,’ ‘Stay Hydrated’ and ‘Just Syracuse,’ the trend of students creating and designing their own T-shirts is one that has been a tradition at Syracuse University for years.

Ally Abrams, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, is one of the newest students to join the Syracuse T-shirt making business. She started last summer on a whim when her sorority sent an e-mail saying University Tees, a T-shirt franchise that started out of a dorm room at Miami University in 2003, was looking for independent contractors.

After being hired for the job, Abrams said she worked all summer to set up her branch of University Tees. She re-branded the company ‘Cuse Custom Tees’ to relate more to SU students. Now, she said, she prides her company on being very accessible, cheap and easy to use. Cuse Custom Tees has just scored Juice Jam as one of its events for this year.

Abrams said her accessibility makes the company different. ‘What sets us apart is that I can meet with someone at Starbucks at midnight if they want to or it can just be done by email,’ Abrams said.

Individual attention, speed, and a good price are essential to a T-shirt business. Josh Fishman, a sophomore entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises & marketing major, said he worked individually with each of his 200 plus customers last year when he made his ‘Stay Hydrated’ T-shirt for MayFest. He only had two weeks to satisfy all his clients.

‘It took a lot of time – all the organizing, the pick up and making sure everyone got their shirt,’ Fishman said. ‘I used a lot of Excel sorting and marking them as paid or picked up. I did it in two weeks and then it was all gone.’

Fishman started out thinking it would be cool to make a shirt for MayFest and showed a couple of his friends a design.

‘I got 10-15 friends to order because that was the minimum for screen printing, then next thing I know 200 people were ordering them on Facebook,’ said Fishman, who plans to sell a new design for MayFest 2010, making his T-shirts a tradition.

But the overall tradition of students starting shirt businesses at SU is no new phenomenon. Holy Shirt, a widely used T-shirt company for SU students, was founded by an SU student in 1987.

‘There was a young boy who came from a big family who came to SU and needed to work his way through Newhouse,’ said John Groat, owner and founder of Holy Shirt. ‘That boy was me.’

Groat decided to start his business for a very specific reason and he said all the money he earned while in school went straight towards his tuition. After school the money from Holy Shirt eventually bought him a modest house, and helped to expand the business into what it is today.

‘Its been baby steps over the years,’ said Groat. ‘It’s been like the little engine that could.’

Each T-shirt company is started for a different reason and to fill a different niche. Holy Shirt helped put Groat through college but it is now passing on its legacy and is the starting place for other T-shirt businesses. Fishman said he used Holy Shirt to print his MayFest shirts, as do many clubs and Greek groups on campus.

Fishman and Abrams both said that while they make money with their T-shirt businesses, they don’t do it for the money.

‘It was really cool because all over Mayfest people were wearing my shirt. And now I see them wearing it in the gym,’ said Fishman. ‘That’s what its all about. Its just a cool idea you have, something you can share with people.’

ampaye@syr.edu

Published on August 30, 2009 at 12:00 pm