Editor's Note: This is the final edition of “Second Helpings,” or St. Louis experiences enjoyed by our blogger for a second time. Check back next week for a new monthly series.
The realization was pretty stark, once the number was confirmed. The last time I wore the official outfit of the Saint Louis University Billiken, it was for a women’s soccer match during that program’s first season in existence, which is to say, 1996.
Since then, I’ve added 16 years and twice that many pounds to my life. Back then, I ran marathons. For fun. These days, er, I don’t. And wearing a mascot’s outfit requires some degree of fitness, it’s true. Laugh if you must, but hauling yourself up to section 220 of the Chaifetz Arena, unable to fully see, encased in a constrictive, strangely heavy suit, is a chore. It’s a task. It’s a job, quite frankly, for a much younger man. Additionally, I launched myself down a flight of icy steps on Friday night, about 40 hours before my Billiken stint, a slip that brought a laundry list of minor gripes, including a seriously sore left hip.
So. That’s all out of the way.
Wearing the Billiken suit should be a time of great joy, not of lamentation. Let’s focus on the positives and first give a nod to a man who toiled longer and harder than most at the Saint Louis University women’s basketball game this past Sunday. Having worked a men’s game just the night prior, SLU sports marketing czar Declan O’Neill had to be on-site at 4 a.m., seven hours in advance of the 11 a.m. telecast on one of CBS Sports’ cable outlets. Being a bit banged up from a ice fall... well, you don’t complain to a man who’s worked around 20 of his past 24 hours and who slept at the office in between.
Instead, you give a positive greeting and get on about your Billiken business. And that starts with a trip to a storage room deep in the Chaifetz, stacked to the ceiling with track cleats, out-of-date warm-ups, cases of sponsorship bric’a’brac and, inside of a large blue bag, the raw ingredients that go into a Billiken mascot uniform. There’s a full bodysuit at the base, a set of shoulder “muscles,” and a blue uniform top, which slides over both of those. There are gloves, rising just shy of the elbow. For the feet, a pair of oversized, tennis shoe-styled slippers. And, lastly, the head of the Billiken, a bulky thing, that quite honestly deserves its own paragraph.
Billiken Mascot Action from Thomas Crone on Vimeo.
As you might guess, there’s a certain funkiness to wearing the head. You start with a very particular smell, created by dozens of wearings over the course of a year and not completely taken out even when the head’s cleaned, which it recently was. That sensation, I vaguely remembered from last time, even though that retro Billiken was an entirely different set of gear. The head’s been replaced in the past few years, too; key to the construction is an interior bicycle helmet, attached to the lid by heavy, metal clamps. Though the velcro on the chin strap was worn away Sunday, that helmet, itself, keeps the whole thing from tipping off your shoulders, along with some elongated panels along your chest and back, giving additional stability. Your eyes are two small, mesh openings, which also allow in a bit of oxygen. To see through them, you have to rotate your entire torso.
And that’s where things get interesting.
Moving through the concourse, it’s quite possible that a very, very small person will come up to you, tapping on your leg or side, wanting to say something. Because children are way down there, you wind up in more than a few deep bends to slap hands or, even, to give autographs. Parents will stop you for photos and random adults will do the same, or they’ll hang their hand out for a high-five or fist-bump. The littlest kids sometimes freak out and there were at least two of them near tears on Sunday, though I managed to slide out of each situation before the scene got too intense.
Throughout the game the Bills was called on for a few, on-court duties. Holding an oversized novelty check for the “shoot for cash” game was one. (Kid tossed ‘em short, missed all three.) Cheering on the bungee game, in which players attempt layups, as their opponent is yanking them backwards. (Guy contestant beat female contestant, handily.) And then the real test of tests. During the first half, three contestants were dressed out in amusing costumes: as a chicken, a cow, and a carrot. They made a shot each, then sprinted up dozens of steps, jockeying with and pulling on one another, before slapping the Billiken’s hand at the top of section 220. I think the cow won, though I didn’t really catch what was happening, as I was mostly focused on regaining my breath and not tipping over for an epic, YouTube-worthy swan dive.
Though staying upright for that, I had some, for lack of a better term, “moments.” During that cow-chicken-carrot race, I accidentally punched the Junior Saintsation cheerleader next to me, whom I never saw until uppercutting her. Wow, sorry! Not only punching kids, I later clocked one of the spirit team coaches, again, solely through tossing my arm out into unseen space. Later, in one the Chaifetz’s miles of hallways, I got entangled in a series of sheets used to buffer the public from off-limits areas; not surprisingly, the sheets, and the variety of metal stands attached to them, went down in a heap.
In almost every one of these three incidents, I quickly affected the “what, me?” posture, hands out to the side, palms upturned. Who can stay mad at a Billiken, when admitting his foibles?
Being a Billiken for a second time was fun, but I’m pretty sure that I won’t be donning the blue-and-whites at age 59. Mascotting I cede to the young.
