Victory in Motion

Fairfield Dolan alumnus Drew Arciuolo ’18 helps propel his family’s legacy forward at VKTRY Gear.

Founded in 2015, VKTRY Gear has built a reputation in elite sports for its flagship VKTRY Performance Insoles—known to athletes simply as “VKs.” Shipped directly to MLB clubhouses and NFL and NBA locker rooms, the aerospace-grade carbon fiber insoles are worn by more than 700,000 athletes—Olympians, Hall of Famers, and National Champions.

Yet for all its presence in professional sports, the story of VKTRY (pronounced “Victory”) did not begin with elite competition or cutting-edge materials. Its origins lie in a family trade—shaped by generations of shoemaking—and today carried forward by Fairfield alumnus Drew Arciuolo ’18, who serves as VKTRY Gear’s vice president of marketing.

Drew’s great-great-grandfather learned the shoemaking craft in factories in Italy’s Apulia region. His great-grandfather, Francesco Arciuolo, immigrated to the United States and opened Arciuolo’s Shoes in Milford, Conn., in 1921. The store was later passed down through the family—first to Francesco’s son, who grew the business to specialize in corrective footwear and orthotics, and then to Drew’s father, Matt Arciuolo.

While studying at University of Bridgeport, Matt met and later married a political science major from the institution one town over—Felicia Salerno of Fairfield University’s Class of ’83.

As the Arciuolos started their family together, Matt went on to become a board-certified pedorthist, specializing in custom footwear and orthotics. When he was tapped by the U.S. Olympic bobsled and skeleton teams to improve their explosiveness at the start of the race, he set to work on what would become the first incarnation of the VKTRY Performance Insole.

“They told me that if I could get them one-thousandth to two-thousandths of a second faster in the push before they jump into the sled, that is the difference between not even placing and winning a gold medal,” said Matt.

Using technology originally designed for braces to support injured athletes, Matt created an insole to help athletes run faster, jump higher, and better protect against injury. Working alongside his son Christian, he eventually developed what would become the first energy-returning insole of its kind. After years of testing and refinement, the breakthrough paid off. At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the U.S. men’s bobsled team captured its first Olympic gold medal in 62 years—with Matt’s carbon-fiber insoles beneath their feet.

While Matt, Felicia, and the rest of the Arciuolo family continued to operate Arciuolo’s Shoes and refine their gold-medal winning insoles, Drew—their youngest son—was forging his own path. A student at Notre Dame-West Haven High School, he focused on baseball and academics, “maybe in that order,” he later admitted.

Success in both pursuits led Drew to follow his mother’s footsteps to Fairfield University, where he had a four-year career with the Fairfield Baseball program and graduated in the Class of 2018. Carrying on another family tradition, he also met his now-fiancée, women’s soccer alumna Holly Habyan ’18, during his time at Fairfield.

On the baseball diamond, Drew played nearly 200 games for the Stags from 2015 to 2018, highlighted by three seasons as Fairfield’s starting center-fielder. He was a two-time All-MAAC honoree, a 2018 All- New England Second Team pick, and earned a place on the MAAC All-Championship Team in 2016, helping the Fairfield Baseball program to its first-ever conference championship and NCAA postseason appearance. Drew still ranks among the top 10 all-time in hits as a Stag, racking up 216 in his four-year career.

In the classroom, Drew was a double major in marketing and management, earning MAAC All-Academic Team and Dean’s List honors. Along the way, his coursework in the Charles F. Dolan School of Business began to spark new ways of thinking about the family business.

“Funny enough, at that time I was thinking more about the shoe store,” he recalled. “That had always been the primary focus of the family. But by my junior and senior year, that’s when lightbulbs started to go off, and I started thinking about how things we were talking about in class could be applied to VKTRY.”

At the time, the now-patented VKs were being lab-tested for performance and injury prevention at Lafayette College, Southern Connecticut State University, Harvard Mass General, and the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut. Additionally, one of the first VKTRY prototypes was tested by Drew and his Fairfield baseball teammates, earning rave reviews, valuable feedback, and even some assistance in choosing a new name: VKTRY.

Just as the rigorous tests were confirming that the carbon-fiber insoles were ready to hit the market, a recent Fairfield graduate with a degree in marketing was ready to officially join the family business.

“There was no pressure from my parents, and my mom was encouraging me to travel and see the world and go work for somebody else. Fairfield and Fairfield Baseball have such a big alumni network, and I had some opportunities if I wanted to take them,” said Drew. “But I was interning at VKTRY—just making insoles in the back room and starting to get a little involved in the marketing, and I thought, ‘This is too perfect.’”

A few short years later, VKTRY Gear boasts more than one million followers on a TikTok channel featuring Olympians and high-profile professional and collegiate athletes. In addition to hosting many of these videos himself, Drew oversees a team of content creators and editors collecting footage from across the United States. A plaque from YouTube recognizing 100,000 subscribers sits on the “Collaboration Station” in VKTRY Gear’s Milford headquarters, a scant two miles from New England’s oldest shoe store, now operated by Drew’s brother Matthew II.

“Drew has embraced the marketing side of the VKTRY business—the details and the metrics and data—that have brought us to new heights,” noted his mom, Felicia. “And I thank Fairfield for that foundation. He took what he learned and was able to put it to work immediately, and we benefitted immediately. Fairfield was the perfect training ground.”

Among the 700,000 athletes to wear VKs in 2025 are three-time NBA Slam Dunk Champion Mac McClung, Pro Bowl wide receiver Ladd McConkey, the U.S. Olympic volleyball team, and four teams particularly close to the Arciuolo family’s heart: Fairfield men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball, and—of course—baseball.

“It’s an amazing full circle moment. When I’m talking to Fairfield teams, I can’t believe I’m standing there,” said Drew. “It started with an idea, and the way things all had to work out to be what it is today is crazy to think about, and Fairfield was an integral part of it, no doubt.”

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