Virginia Tech is fielding hundreds of requests for permission to produce T-shirts, hats and other items in memory of the 32 students and faculty members slain in last month's campus massacre.

University officials are wary of memorial merchandise after unauthorized products showed up for sale soon after the April 16 shootings.

"There was a real explosion of unlicensed and frankly inappropriate material on eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ) and some other Web sites," said Christopher Clough, the school's director of marketing and strategic communications. The sites quickly removed them.

"Anyone that wants to express themselves can make a shirt," Clough said. "But it does get a little tricky. The hard part is trying to track those things and make sure they're handled appropriately."

After the shootings, manufacturers had to increase production of licensed Virginia Tech products. Nike (nyse: NKE - news - people ), for instance, could not keep up with demand in the mid-Atlantic region, company spokesman Dean Stoyer said.

"There has been a groundswell of people who are wanting to buy Virginia Tech merchandise to show support," said Steve Glosh, assistant director of Virginia Tech Services Inc., which operates several bookstores. "It's been gratifying to see people reach out that way."

So far, the only memorial shirts sanctioned by the university are being distributed through a student organization called Hokies United. The design features a ribbon symbol in the school's orange and maroon colors on the front, with the school logo on the back. The shirts are available online and go on sale Saturday in campus bookstores.

Proceeds from the shirts will go to a fund for victims' families, Clough said, but unsanctioned items may not benefit the university at all.

Other universities have adopted Tech's colors on their own merchandise.

For instance, Penn State University quickly designed shirts in the Hokie colors bearing the Penn State lion logo. The school waived its licensing fee, and profits from store sales went to Tech's memorial fund.

"You look around and you say 'that could have been us,'" school spokeswoman Annemarie Mountz said. "I think the students felt that particularly."