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When you're bestowed with the kind of Hollywood coolness that showers Kliff Kingsbury, you have to keep an eye on it lest it swallow you up like a boa.
The Texas Tech football coach seems to have realized this because he's asking local retailers to stop making stuff with his likeness on it because, criminy people, it's not about him.
"Coach Kingsbury desires to have that focus redirected towards the football program," read a letter from Texas Tech that was sent to retailers, according to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. "So we are looking to shift the focal point off of Coach Kingsbury and back to Texas Tech Football."
Specifically, Texas Tech will no longer be licensing anything with the words "Kliff, king, hero or legend" in reference to Kingsbury, because apparently that has gotten to be an issue in Lubbock. There is a lot of that stuff out there already, and Texas Tech isn't trying to crush any local business. It's just asking, albeit firmly, that this merchandise be phased out.
The T-shirt guys don't seem to be too put out by it.
"Kliff has been very generous to allow his image and his likeness to be used in commerce. He doesn’t have to do this, but I think he knew it was important to unifying that fan base,” Stephen Spiegelberg, manager of Red Raider Outfitters, told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. “But really, fans are buying Texas Tech products because it’s Texas Tech.”
But when it comes to Kingsbury's image, this isn't even the half of it. You may recall that back in March, a Lubbock clothing manufacturer emailed Texas Tech with a grand plan for marketing Kingsbury as a D-list celebrity, getting him all outfitted in the coolest clothes and having him turn up at fashion shows and the like.
Some wondered at the time whether Texas Tech was interested in implementing those ideas, but it now appears Kingsbury isn't trying to become Vincent Chase anytime soon.
