An Alumni Apparel Line Tees Off

By Linn Parish

Four Eagle alums walk into a pub in Ireland. It sounds like the start of a joke. Which it is, kind of, since there were plenty of laughs on this particular evening of merrymaking, especially after a comical men’s room encounter left the (somewhat inebriated) group in stitches. What isn’t a joke — though all four would tell you they’re having fun with it — is the growing business venture that took its inspiration from that night 10 years ago.

But the origin story comes a little later. First the business.

That venture, Cooked As A Goat LLC, is a lifestyle apparel retailer started by Kory Kelly ’98 and three former EWU offensive linemen: Jeff Christiansen, Paul Terrell and, most famously, former Tennessee Titan and Eagles football legend Michael Roos, all 2005 graduates. 

Since its formal launch last January, the company has built a customer base with its online store and pop-up retail presence, while also making in-roads into the co-branded merchandise market as they navigate the crowded collegiate gear licensing landscape.

“We’re very excited about it, and it really feels like we’re gaining some very strong momentum,” says Kelly, whose legendary enthusiasm for his alma mater earned him the EWU Alumni Association’s Eagle4Life Spirit Award in 2023. “Our goal was to leverage local, and I absolutely think we’re doing that. And even a bigger spot than we probably could have imagined.”

Eags fans might have seen the Goat gear for sale at tailgates in the upper parking lot outside of football games last fall, or at Reese Court occasionally during home basketball games. Avid sports fans, if they were paying close attention, might also have spotted NFL Hall of Famer Jared Allen wearing a Cooked As A Goat t-shirt on the ManningCast show that’s hosted by fellow football legends Peyton and Eli Manning.

This spring, patrons of Qualchan Golf Course in southwest Spokane will be able to peruse a small selection of gear featuring both the course and the Goat. Other courses will likely offer the apparel in the near future and, if talks with the Eagle Store continue to progress, shirts, hats and other pieces could soon be co-branded with the EWU logo and the Goat insignia— a relationship that would generate royalties for Eastern. 

But while the business is off to a good start — both profitable and self-sustaining in less than 18 months — all involved say they’re committed to keeping their years-long friendship as the primary priority. 

“All four of us are friends first,” Jeff Christiansen says. “From the beginning we said, ‘If we do this, how do we structure it so we can maintain the friendship first; so the Goat doesn’t become more important than the friendship?’”

“The friendship is 100 percent,” adds Terrell, who is himself an Eagle4Life Spirit Award winner. “If this ever gets in the way in any form or fashion, it’s simple: We’re done. That’s one of the pillars of doing this.”

Another pillar is building their brand by word-of-mouth awareness, a strategy that is already paying dividends. On the South Hill in Spokane recently, a different set of four guys walked into a local watering hole, this time a coffee shop. While they’re ordering their morning caffeine blasts, one of the baristas says, “You have to tell me about your sweatshirt.”

Paul Terrell, who is part of this ensemble, doesn’t miss a beat as he launches into his now familiar explanation of the Cooked As A Goat logo. Maybe you’ve seen it already: an upside-down goat with legs in the air and X’s for eyes, the suggestion being that the goat depicted is likely no longer with us. 

The explanation of the Cooked As A Goat brand is that it’s activewear for people who “go hard, go all-in and get cooked,” regardless of where their passion lies — from golf to skateboarding to a multitude of other activities. The four Eagles are well-versed in the elevator pitch. 

Sometimes they even tell the origin story. 

It’s the spring of 2016, and the three former linemen and Kelly traveled to Ireland to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day — on the golf course, of course. They spend the evening of the big day in a famously festive pub. Fast forward to the early morning hours. Christiansen and Terrell need to make a stop at the restroom, or “the jacks” in the parlance of Ireland. There they happened upon a fellow patron, unsteadily doing his business, phone pinned precariously between his ear and shoulder. 

“You have to come get me,” they overhear the man say in a charming but barely intelligible brogue. “I’m cooked as a goat.” 

The two former football players look at each other, trying not to laugh. They then returned to their party and relay what they’d heard. 

The rest, as they say, is a retail-origins history. 

“Cooked as a goat” quickly became an inside joke for the four Eagles and their golfing friends, particularly when those friends were, uh, cooked. With Terrell, a graphic designer by trade, taking the lead, they soon crafted a handful of custom apparel items featuring the stylized goat. These were meant to be one-offs for themselves.

Still, before long they found themselves sharing “goat stuff” with their other golfing buddies, a cluster of roughly 15 men largely assembled by Roos (who, we should note, was inducted into the EWU Athletics Hall of Fame in 2016 and whose name currently adorns EWU’s football stadium). 

The group began referring to each other as goats and talked about “getting cooked.” Yes, the saying has its roots in excessive drinking. But for these friends the meaning began to evolve into something deeper, and they’d talk about getting cooked when referring to going all-in on an endeavor; to giving it their all. 

Early on, they noticed that the apparel sparked conversation, similar to the exchange with the South Hill barista. Over time, they began to ponder whether they had developed something with wider appeal than just their friends group. 

They’d talk about starting a business together. On the surface, it appeared they had all the pieces to make a go of it. Terrell had the design chops, and Kelly had built a career in sales. Christiansen works in lending at STCU and understood business finance, while Roos brought all the contacts from his 10-year NFL career. 

Christiansen says one initial challenge involved learning how to communicate about business together. 

“There are two types of conversations you have, the one with your buddies and the one that’s more business oriented,” he says. “Early on, I think there were some lost-in-translation pieces as we were talking about what we wanted out of it; what we thought was most important. We never fought about it, but we’d have a conversation, circle back, and realize that’s not what the person meant at all.”

But they kept going on golf trips together, usually to Ireland or Scotland, and kept talking through the idea. 

Terrell refers to himself as “the biggest heel dragger” in the group, at least when it comes to going into business with friends. “I do some apparel work for clients, and I know what it involves. It’s parallel to the line of work I’m already doing. So, I had concerns about some of the reality of the business versus the excitement.”

While the business is off to a strong start, none of the four co-owners expects to quit their day jobs. Nor do they have illusions about making big money… “If it happens, wonderful,” Terrell says, “but that’s not necessarily the goal. This approach gives us the opportunity to grow slowly and navigate that growth properly.”

Indeed, the sports apparel market is saturated, and the fact that the Goat concept doesn’t fit into one niche — such as a company that makes golf apparel exclusively, for example — has both the advantages of broader appeal and the drawbacks of a more diluted marketing focus. In 2024, the four of them took a trip to Las Vegas to decide, once and for all, whether to go for it. They came home committed to the concept.

While the business is off to a strong start, none of the four co-owners expects to quit their day jobs. Nor do they have illusions about making big money. Instead, they’re reinvesting revenue generated by sales into the company. 

“If it happens, wonderful,” Terrell says, “but that’s not necessarily the goal. This approach gives us the opportunity to grow slowly and navigate that growth properly.”

Christiansen concurs, adding, “If you were to run this by a business class at Eastern, they might say, ‘Why didn’t you raise funds or do a big national advertising blitz?’ But that’s not what we’re really about. It could be years before we even see a penny back.”

As the business evolves, the golf trips continue. They still largely involve visits to Ireland and Scotland, though they don’t typically revolve around St. Patrick’s Day anymore. Many of the courses don’t open until early April these days, in order to better preserve the grounds.

Why keep going back to Irish and Scottish courses? In response, Kelly quips, “How much time do you have?” Adding, “it’s so green, so open. It is one of the birthplaces of golf. Some of these courses are older than America. You don’t get that type of culture, history in the U.S., especially on the West Coast.”

And while there aren’t any direct links between the apparel and EWU — yet— the four partners view Eastern as sort of an informal, honorary silent partner in the venture. 

“It’s such a big part who we are and what we do for fun. Almost all of our friends are Eastern folks. It’s hard to have Eastern be such a big part of your life and not have that tie-in to what we’re doing,” Christiansen says. “And I think the brand fits with Eastern. To be successful there, at some point, you have to get cooked.”