Mascot camp helps characters wow crowds, take the heat
When he saw school spirit start to lag last year, Max Marcucci decided to boost it by taking a job as the school's first full time mascot — a jaguar.
Though a nickname is still in the works, he has developed a tough-guy persona for the character, and learned crowd-pumping techniques and how to cope with unruly fans.
"The gestures, the moves, the walks; there is a lot that goes into being a good mascot," said the 16-year-old Marcucci, who will be a junior at Thomas Jefferson High School in Jefferson Hills this fall. "Some of it looks like improv, but it's not. It came from training."
Marcucci, like many other student mascots across the nation, has honed his speech-free acting and self-preservation skills at a mascot camp taught by former professionals.
The training sessions teach high school and college students character development, dance moves and how to entertain different age groups.
"The same way Jim Carrey and Tom Hanks prepare for a movie character role, we help (campers) indulge into the role of their mascot when they put on the suit," said Erin Blank, owner of the Brownstown-based Keystone Mascots.
Blank said her four-day camps in Hershey average 15-20 people and have trained minor-league hockey and baseball mascots, a Penn State "Nittany Lion" and a Disney park mascot.
She stresses safety, which includes pairing mascots with spotters, providing safe places for them to take breaks and making sure they don't become overheated in their suits.
She teaches that assigning companions to mascots protects them from bullies and helps them maneuver in their costumes, many of which combine big feet and poor visibility.
"I never used to have to worry about it, but now there are costume kidnappers, head stealers and tacklers you have to consider," Blank said.
Cait Norman, a high school mascot for three years, could not believe how rough fans can be on mascots.
"They'll body-check you," said Norman, 18, who dressed as a cedar tree during football and basketball games at Lebanon High School in Lebanon. "They're trying to look cool. Really, you're beating up a mascot. What's so tough about that?"
Sending Norman to camp helped Lebanon High get the most out of the mascot, said adviser Terri Johnston.
"There are a lot of unwritten rules of mascoting like not talking in costume," Johnston said. "It's something you have to learn how to do."
Learning to engage a crowd without words is what makes a mascot successful, said Dave Raymond, the original Philly Phanatic, who now runs a mascot boot camp.
"This takes practice in front of a mirror," said Raymond, owner of Raymond Entertainment Group in Newark, Del. "Every subtle nuance of movement up to very large movements is very purposeful."
He teaches mascots how to do everything from creating a back story for their characters to managing the heat inside the costume to sewing and cleaning their suits.
"There is a lot that goes into it that some people don't realize," said University of Pittsburgh junior Michael Nuzzo, 21, who is "Roc," the school's panther mascot, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.
Nuzzo said it's important that "Roc's" personality, which he described as "a mix between Hercules and Mighty Mouse," doesn't change just because the people wearing the costume do.
"There is another person that does it with me, and we have to practice and make sure we are on the same page with our entertaining styles," Nuzzo said.
He, too, took mascot safety lessons at an NCAA-sponsored camp in Philadelphia.
And though Nuzzo said he has been crowd-surfing and confronted by "brutal" fan sections, so far he hasn't had a problem beyond a child pulling his tail.
"Alumni and fans really embrace the panther; they love it," he said. "I don't see it ever getting dangerous."
