A few months ago I created a few t-shirt designs featuring some of Purdue Mens Basketball's top players; E'twaun Moore, JaJuan Johnson, Lewis Jackson, and Robbie Hummel. A lot of my friends liked the images once I showed them, as well as those individual basketball players liked the designs. Friends of mine pushed me to create shirts with this design; they all wanted them.
Along with a friend from Boiler Brass, I contacted University Spirit's custom apparel shop. I use to work there so I knew the inner workings, as well as the people that still work there. I showed them the designs and asked them if there was anything I needed to change. Nothing was wrong with them so I set up a facebook event. At the end of the first week we had over 700 people invited, close to 200 confirmed members, and over 100 maybes. I set up a survey on the site so we could get a general idea of numbers. After one week we were averaging 3 shirts per person, with around 70 people taking part in the survey.
I was really excited, until the second week rolled around. I was sitting at work checking my email, when I received an urgent message from Purdue Athletics. In short, I was told to stop selling these shirts, and that I would be receiving a cease and desist letter from the office of Morgen Burk; Purdue's athletic director. According to NCAA bylaw 12, you cannot sell any item with the name, image, or likeness of a Student Athlete. Any violation of this could result in making those student athletes ineligible to compete. And that is how I almost ruined the dreams of thousands of Purdue fans.
Jason Miller
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