Gonzaga’s Ben Gregg signs NIL deal with Varsity Icons

Gregg’s latest NIL opportunity has immortalized his iconic flexing pose

Ben Gregg ended the first half of Gonzaga's NCAA Tournament victory over the Kansas Jayhawks on an emphatic note. As he skied in for an offensive rebound, beat Hunter Dickinson to the ball and laid it in through contact for a 3-point play, the 6-foot-10 forward sprung to his feet and flexed his muscles to the crowd, letting out a roar at the same time.

The straight-armed flex was a go-to celebration all season for Gregg, and while he’s not quite sure where it came from, Zags fans can expect to see more of it from the rising senior in the future — both on and off the court.

“I come across as such a mellow guy, I don’t really know why I get to flexing and yelling so much,” Gregg said. “Something just comes over me I guess and it just brings out the yeller in me.”

Gregg’s latest NIL opportunity with Varsity Icons, a sports company that creates action figures for college athletes, has captured his signature pose in the form of a six-inch, injection-mold plastic figurine of Gregg that’s now available for pre-order ahead of its release date in late October, just before the 2024-25 college basketball season.

Photo by Steven Dewitt, Varsity Icons

Steven Dewitt, a lifelong Bulldogs fan from Texas and co-owner of Varsity Icons, was inspired by his Gonzaga fandom to rethink the idea of sports action figures that was first made popular by Starting Lineup in the 1990s and early 2000s. Toy figures of the biggest players from the NFL, NBA and MLB were a hot sell for Kenner — and later Hasbro — as stars like Mickey Mantle, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird were all the craze for young sports fans. But as popularity declined, production stopped in 2001, right around the time Dewitt was in high school and the Zags were still emerging as a true force in the college basketball world.

Now, the Bulldogs are a regular in the NCAA Tournament and Dewitt believes he’s found the right Zag to model the first of what he hopes is a long line of action figures.

“Man, how cool would it be to bring the Starting Lineups back now that we have NIL?” Dewitt asked himself one day. “Who’s someone that I want to represent our brand from the get go?”

“And for me it was no question: Ben Gregg,” Dewitt said. “Just what he does in the community, what he does on the court. Great guy, great family. We're blessed to have Ben on board as our first athlete.”

With that in mind, Dewitt brought the idea to Ben’s father Matt Gregg during last year’s West Coast Conference Tournament. Matt collected the Starting Lineup figures when he was younger, even shelving a John Stockton Utah Jazz figure among others in his collection. Matt handled most of the details from there, and over the course of Ben’s junior season, Dewitt started the process of designing prototypes. 

For a figurine that doesn’t have movable arms or legs, the pose had to be just right. After seeing multiple images online of Ben striking his arms-down flex, the decision became clear to Dewitt. Throw on Gonzaga’s royal blue throwback uniform, and the Ben Gregg action figure was ready to hit the shelves.

“It's pretty sweet,” Ben said of his figurine. “It's crazy that to think people are gonna be buying buying figurines of me and putting them in their houses or bedrooms or whatever. It's kind of surreal.”

Ben’s action figure collection slightly differed from his father’s growing up, as Ben was a “big WWE guy” and had all the big-time wrestling superstars as toy figures. NIL wasn’t around in college athletics when he first arrived to Gonzaga as a freshman in 2020, so needless to say he never envisioned himself having an form of memorabilia as a college athlete — let alone a figurine.

“Having this made of myself is definitely special in the fact that it's in the Gonzaga jersey, kind of a dream come true in both ways: Having that action figure and me representing Gonzaga, the place I want to be my whole life and play for,” Ben said. “It’s super awesome. I'm super excited to work with these guys.”

Dewitt admitted it was a lengthy process to get to this point — he’s currently trying to get the Gonzaga bookstore to carry the figurines for purchase — but that hasn’t deterred him from setting his goals beyond signing just one men’s basketball player from Gonzaga. If all goes well with the Gregg figurine, Dewitt hopes to add more current and former Zags to his clientele list, including Dan Dickau, Adam Morrison, Frank Burgess, Drew Timme and others. He’s also a big Kevin Pangos fan, evidenced by the fact he named his dog “Pango” after the former Gonzaga point guard.

“[Ben] just exemplifies everything that we want to represent as a company, top to bottom,” Dewitt said. “I mean, honestly there's several [on Gonzaga’s roster]. They don’t recruit bad players and I’m not talking about on the floor, I’m talking about off the floor. They only recruit guys that are a good fit for their culture.”