STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — The pages of his scrapbook contain the kinds of memories many college students can only dream of.
There’s the photo with 40 to 50 college-aged women surrounding him on campus in front of the Nittany Lion statue. That was the day his fan club finally met him after countless notes and well wishes anonymously sent to his fraternity house.
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There’s also the letter, sent from an Iowa football fan to then-Penn State president John Oswald, thanking Oswald for the display of athleticism Penn State showed at the football game. The fan wasn’t thanking Joe Paterno’s team, but rather the Nittany Lion mascot, Andy Bailey, who chased a streaker in Kinnick Stadium during a game in the mid-1970s. Bailey still gets a chuckle out of that note.
There’s also the memory of hearing Ray Scott call his name on broadcasts the night Bailey was paid $100 so the mascot could make an event appearance. He ended up with the tale of all tales, as his night ended in a van shared with Stan Musial, Jim Palmer, Rocky Bleier and Larry Csonka. A driver somewhere had an autographed piece of paper with the Nittany Lion mascot’s signature right below Musial’s.
“I said, ‘This isn’t gonna be worth anything after I sign it,’” Bailey said.
Such is the life of the Nittany Lion, one of the most recognizable mascots in the country. For whoever puts on the suit, there’s bound to be unforgettable memories made. With the help of a fund in memory of Norm Constantine, who was the Nittany Lion from 1978-1980, the Penn State mascot now receives a scholarship. It’s the equivalent of an in-state scholarship for tuition, so whether the Nittany Lion is from Pennsylvania or not, it’s receiving a significant chunk of financial aid.
However, it’s not a job one lands solely for the tuition break. It’s a year-round sweat-fest, complete with hundreds of events — in the case of former Nittany Lion Zach Sowa, who held the position for three years, more than 1,200. Some schools use multiple mascots to keep them fresh during games and allow them to be at as many events as possible, but there’s only one person serving as the Nittany Lion in Happy Valley. Penn State aspires to keep it that way.
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The hectic schedule adds to the rigors of the job, but it gives the crowd a consistent presence and the mascot gets to own the character at all times.
That means shedding 8-10 pounds of water weight while running through Beaver Stadium during a football game and then packing up the suit in a blue duffel bag and taking it home to wash or douse in Febreze. With about four suits per person these days, there can be a quick change out of the sweaty, smelly costume before scurrying off to the next event — on a football Saturday, that sometimes means a home women’s volleyball match across campus just hours later.
There are plenty of perks, like attending mascot camp (where one learns how to perform in costume), having an up-close view for sporting events and getting to interact with university officials who the student would otherwise probably never meet.
The Athletic tracked down four former Nittany Lion mascots to ask them about their fun, crazy and hilarious experiences in the suit. Their stories did not disappoint. They are:
- Andy Bailey, Nittany Lion from 1975-77
- Dave Johnson, Nittany Lion from 2005-07
- Jack Davis, Nittany Lion from 2015-17
- Zach Sowa, Nittany Lion from 2017 to February 2020
What do they do now?
Bailey: Retired after a 31-year career with Merck pharmaceuticals
Johnson: Health and physical education teacher at Liberty High School in Bethlehem, Pa., and a director of curriculum for a fitness company
Davis: In his third year in a rotational program with Mars. Headed to UMass in August to pursue an MBA and master’s degree in sport management
Sowa: Graduated in May with a degree in cybersecurity and will start with Deloitte as a cybersecurity analyst
How does one decide they want to be the Nittany Lion? Did you always dream of being the mascot?
Bailey: “When I was a freshman, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I just loved the Lion. … I was in Sproul Hall, 707 Sproul, and I didn’t go to one of the (football) games because I had some studying to do. And so I listened to the game on the radio and (then-Nittany Lion) Bobby Welsh was interviewed. And I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is the greatest thing.’ And I thought it would be the greatest job in the world to be the Lion. But then the next breath I said to myself, ‘That’s one in a million. That’ll never happen.’ … So, it was just ironic that I would join the same fraternity that Bobby was in and I approached him my sophomore year because that was like in the early winter, and I said, you know, ‘What would it take?’”
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Johnson: “When I got to Penn State, I actually started out in the Blue Band. I played the saxophone. My freshman year, they had Lion tryouts. So my roommate was like, ‘You’re kind of weird. You should consider it.’ So I said, ‘Yeah, why not? It’d be fun.’ I had no expectations of getting it or anything like that. … Being involved in so many athletic events between the Blue Band, the basketball pep band and the volleyball pep band, I was just always around the Lion. And I was like, that looks like a lot of fun. So I tried out freshman year and I did not get it.”
Davis: “I thought it was probably the coolest job you could have but not really one on my radar as attainable. Then my sophomore year, I was fooling around. My roommate had a photography project, and I think he had to do something in motion and it gave me an excuse to try to learn to do a backflip and have somebody there to call the ambulance if I hurt myself. And after teaching myself to do a backflip there, just watching YouTube and not having enough regard to my head, I started looking into that maybe it was something I could try out for. I saw that the current Lion was a senior, and so I trained pretty hard for the next seven months to try to prepare for that tryout.”
Sowa: “My parents actually went to Penn State and met at Penn State. I joked in my interview to be the Lion that my desire to be the Lion was to serve the university as a thank you for introducing my parents to one another. … Once I decided that I was officially going to go to Penn State, I knew that the Lion tryout was open to anybody and I thought that I would just try out to have that fun experience and say, ‘Oh, I once tried out to be the Nittany Lion.’ I don’t even know what happened along the way (laughs). I was somehow selected, and as you can imagine my life absolutely changed.”
The tryout process has evolved over time and now includes an application, an in-person interview and an audition. Knocking out 50 one-armed pushups is a requirement. Some train with a weighted vest to prepare for the bulk of the costume and what used to be the additional weight of carrying a massive flag across the football field on game days.
To prep for the obstructed vision that comes with putting the head on — which is actually a football helmet that’s repurposed to be the Lion head — some blindfold themselves. Davis also put on a couple winter coats and then tried landing backflips that way.
Bailey and Johnson both made spot starts in the suit when the Nittany Lion was injured, once with a broken rib the day of a Cotton Bowl pep rally and then with a broken arm following an unsuccessful dunk at a Penn State basketball game. Even with those fill-in experiences on their mascot résumé, they still weren’t guaranteed the job when tryouts rolled around.
(Kevin Jairaj / USA Today)
What was the most intimidating part of your tryout?
Bailey: “I probably wore the suit about 10 times before the official tryouts began. And back then they probably interviewed about 40 candidates. There was a lot of interest, but it was just an interview. But they told me up front — and I had never met any of the administrators before or the athletic director. But Richie Lucas (1959 Heisman Trophy runner-up and later a Penn State assistant athletic director) said, ‘Now, Andy, we know that you filled in for Bobby Welsh, but we’re not going to take that into consideration when it comes to making the decision.’ And I said, ‘You know, I understand.’ … But the next question was, ‘Well, how many times did you fill in for Bobby?’ So they didn’t really have any idea! … I was just very fortunate that they selected me. … I would follow Bobby, which was huge shoes to fill.”
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Johnson: “I think for most people it’s being in the suit for the first time. … The suit kind of absorbs a lot of your movement. … You have to learn to really elaborate your movements and kind of go over the top with waving because what’s over the top normally looks fairly normal. And also the vision is a huge thing because you go from being able to see everything to just basically tunnel vision. … During the tryout itself, I think the most intimidating part, it’s gotta be the one-armed pushups because 50 is a lot. And you know, back in the early 2000s, Penn State wasn’t scoring 50 points. … To drop down in front of everyone and know that they’re critiquing your technique, being able to do 50 in a row, you know, there’s adrenaline that factors in, but they’re looking at the depth of your pushup and they’re looking at your legs and all that different stuff.”
Davis: “The interview process can be fairly intimidating initially when you sit down because you have about a dozen people in the room. For me, they had it at the Nittany Lion Inn and they’re seated in a U (shape) at tables around you and then there’s kind of the one chair that’s kind of the hot seat where you sit down. Everyone’s very friendly and the questions aren’t — they’re not grilling you too badly, but that can be pretty intimidating.”
Sowa: “It was my competition. … The people who tried out against me included a former cheerleader who was right there along the Lion for a couple of years, watching his every move, knew exactly how to act as the Lion and everything. … Besides him, there was a gymnast. … He was an absolutely unreal tumbler. … Besides him, there was a kid who was big into dancing. He was very good. Besides him, there was a kid who had already mascotted professionally for a few years for a minor league baseball team. I was like, ‘Geez.’ I mean, I consider myself fairly well-rounded and, like, I have decent hand-eye coordination, but I’m just not a standout athlete or dancer or anything like a lot of these other guys are.
“So I put together a skit and it didn’t even go well! I threw a backflip, which I had learned my senior year of high school in my backyard. I landed on my face. I was splat on the ground and I had to quickly improvise. So I just started doing one-arm pushups and acted as if I meant to do it. It was wild to go against that competition and somehow still come out on top. When they called my name, I thought they were joking.”
Once the mascot is named following the public tryout, there’s been an increased effort over the years to try to keep the Nittany Lion’s identity a secret. The face covering inside the Lion head now adds to the mystique. The Nittany Lion conducts no interviews until his or her time in the suit is complete. To date — and without knowing the gender of the newest Nittany Lion, who started last winter and would’ve made a football debut at the Blue-White Game in April — there has yet to be a woman in the suit. Sowa uses gender-neutral pronouns when discussing his replacement to keep people guessing.
During football Senior Day, if it’s the end of the Nittany Lion’s collegiate career, he will take off the head and reveal himself. Sowa did so this past season.
One of the perks of being the Nittany Lion these days includes priority class scheduling. It helps accommodate for the countless events and games they need to attend. Even with that in place, some go as far as trying not to tell their professors about their mascot duties unless it’s absolutely necessary. They don’t want special treatment or to blow their cover.
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The challenge of keeping it as secretive as possible is part of the job some of them love. Thinking on their feet and going as far as handing their phone to a friend and then signaling to them while in costume with something like a point to the sky to fire off a text message to those questioning their identity can help cover their tracks.
What was the hardest part about trying to conceal your identity? Did your roommates know?
Bailey: “It wasn’t a secret then. … The Collegian would include my name with the photograph of the Lion and they had different articles. There was a fan club on the third floor of Hastings (Hall), the Nittany Lion mascot fan club. … They would leave messages at the fraternity house and would send little items. It was very nice, very supportive. Sometimes they’d leave a note, and one of the pledges would tell me your fan club called and that they were watching ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and saw the Lion and were thinking of you. … I got this call saying this group wanted to do a photo at the statue, so I said, ‘OK, I’ll be up there.’ I was walking up Burrowes (Street) to the statue and there’s like 40, 50 girls at the statue and they’re all screaming and going crazy. All of a sudden one of them said, ‘We’re your fan club. We’re the ones who have been leaving you messages.’ ”
Johnson: “Most of the people in the band knew who I was. And that was OK. … What was actually the bigger challenge was when I was the Lion, it was one of the first years that we had Facebook. People were posting pictures and all these things. On my account, I didn’t have my face anywhere. I just had like pictures of the Lion because my name was always public knowledge. You could always go on Penn State’s website and learn that Dave Johnson was the Lion. But I just didn’t want people to know who I was. … My roommates would help out. If we would be out somewhere, whether it was at a social event or at a bar later in my time there, someone would say, ‘Hey, aren’t you the Lion?’ I’d be like, ‘No, actually, my roommate here is.’ And they would do one-armed pushups if they had to, or whatever they needed to do to kind of keep the charade going.”
Davis: “My roommates all learned how to do one-handed pushups, so if somebody was at a party and the rumor started going around that Lion was there, they could throw them off the scent. … It’s a little tricky though because everyone knows that I’m a huge Penn State football fan. I was the guy with my chest painted in the front row for a lot of the games doing Nittanyville, and all of a sudden I’m ditching those groups and I’m not there anymore. So, I told a lot of people that I was on the cheerleading team, that I tried out and made it. Then they’d ask, ‘Why don’t I see you on the field?’ I’d say, ‘Well, I’m not a very good cheerleader, but I’m back in the locker room.’ … A rumor got out when I was interning for Mars. They had a lot of Penn Staters interning for them and that I was the Nittany Lion, and of course I denied it all summer. But then I had to take off during Big Ten media days. Things like that started adding up and they grew increasingly suspicious.”
Sowa: “I had a pretty bulletproof cover story for whenever I was caught with the costume in the laundry room. I just always said I worked with the cheer team and part of my responsibilities included washing the costume for the Lion because there’s no way he has enough time to do his own laundry, right? It was pretty funny because I had the same excuse with the big bag. You carry around the big bag and I’d just say, ‘Oh, I’m meeting up with the Lion to give it to him. He needs it for an event.’”
No matter how much preparation goes into being ready for the moment, performing at football games can be difficult to put into words. A packed Beaver Stadium with a crowd of 107,000 people staring at you, hanging on your every lift of the arm, is exhilarating and full of logistical challenges.
There’s an itinerary to follow, and it starts hours before the team takes the field. The Nittany Lion makes numerous appearances before the cheerleaders lift the Lion up and run it through the crowd while fans wait for the football team’s arrival.
(Matthew O’Haren / USA Today)
Once in the stadium, there are countless spots the Lion has to be in at certain times. It’s all well-orchestrated, but there’s always room for improvising — especially the more comfortable the person gets in the role.
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Life for the mascot wasn’t always this structured. Bailey can attest to that, as can the countless Nittany Lions like Johnson who repeatedly — and often unsuccessfully — tried dunking over a two-foot box at Penn State basketball games. The problem for the Lion was it never knew where the box was going to be placed and it was painted black. They’d get a spotlight put on the mascot, which would fill the inside of the mask so the Nittany Lion couldn’t see what it was supposed to be doing.
“It was just a comedy of errors going on every single game,” Johnson said. “I’d be backstage waiting for them to bring me out and be like, ‘Well, how bad is this gonna be?’ I’d run out and hope for the best.”
The blanket toss — cheerleaders tossing the Nittany Lion in the air with a blanket — also became too much of a safety risk. The Nittany Lion must keep risk management in mind while in the suit.
Bailey laughs at that idea as he had nobody to answer to in the mid ’70s and really no limits or structure. He once brought out four German Shepherd puppies on a leash for a skit during a game against NC State and pretended the puppies were the feared Wolfpack. The crowd oohed and ahhed as the puppies “attacked him” by playing with him in the end zone.
Bailey even carried a musket into the stadium for his skit before a game against West Virginia. He said nobody flinched when he brought the firearm in, but he did get stopped with it walking home.
“I always walked from Beaver Stadium back to the fraternity house after every game in my suit,” Bailey said. “I jumped on this gentleman’s hood of his car and had the musket and we’d won like 39-0. The next thing you know, right in front of the HUB, campus police pulls up behind us and puts the lights on. … The policeman said, ‘You can’t have a firearm on campus,’ and he’s writing me up a ticket. I had to go to the vice president of student affairs to explain myself. … I said, ‘I used it in Beaver Stadium for a skit and there were state police there.’”
Regardless of the era, crowd interactions can still get interesting. The Lion will get asked to do a backflip and is expected to hit it on command. He clings to his tail as he crowd surfs at football games, especially when he goes through the upper rows of the student section, entering the ranks of those who arrived last after hours of tailgating.
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“You kind of feel like a human credit card machine at times with the amount of manhandling that goes on,” Johnson said. “You get dropped a lot.”
Crowd surfing used to leave Bailey’s back with all kinds of scratches. Sowa, at 6-foot-4, was much larger than his predecessor, Davis, who was about 5-7, 170 pounds. Sowa noticed the looks from students when he took over as they groaned and struggled to pass him through the bleachers.
“With the costume on, I was like 225,” Sowa said. “All of a sudden the students are dealing with like 50 more pounds and a much bigger dude and they would often struggle to hold me. I had my fair share of bad experiences, but I loved crowd surfing. … People complain about how heavy you are and how sweaty you are all the time.”
Some of those unscripted moments, from being asked to sign a fan’s blue and white Mustang to people passing their babies to the Nittany Lion for photos — not realizing the Lion has issues seeing out of the Lion head — create some of the mascot’s fondest memories.
What are some of the most unusual or surprising moments you had in the suit ,whether it was an interaction with a fan, a player or a coach?
Bailey: “The University of Iowa was my first trip and the first time I ever was on an airplane. I flew with the team. (Joe) Paterno greeted me at the locker room and he couldn’t have been nicer. Made me feel part of the team. … The game was about ready to begin, players on each sideline, and the next thing you know I’m on the sideline and there’s this hum in the crowd. I’m looking around like what the heck is going on? Next thing I know, I look on the field and here is this young man. Very tall, slender. He’s totally naked except for a baseball cap on and a little Iowa pennant. He’s running right down the middle of the field and I thought, ‘Oh my god. This is great!’ … I ran out from the sidelines and I started chasing him. He’s looking back and I caught up to him at about the 50-yard line. I ran track, so I was pretty fast. This guy kicked it into high gear, and here I am running behind him right down the middle of the field. He’s running right toward the student section. … He just like dove into the crowd and just like disappeared. … I turned around and ran back to the sidelines and Richie Lucas was dying laughing. … He goes, ‘Andy, what the hell would you have done if you caught him?’ I said, ‘I really didn’t think it through that far.’”
Johnson: “I was at the Bryce Jordan Center. … We were playing Michigan in basketball. … I was walking down and saw a little kid with a Michigan shirt with someone who I assumed to be his dad. So I walked over and I’m waving to everybody and the little kid waves for me to come over. … The kid says to his dad like, ‘Is this the Nittany Lion?’ The dad says, ‘Yep, it’s the Nittany Lion.’ And he’s like, ‘Now son, what do we do to Nittany Lions?’ The kid smacked my head! It really caught me off guard that this little kid would smack me. Normally when I was interacting with little kids, I would always look down at their feet so they couldn’t see inside the mask because we didn’t have the screen, so you could see my face. After the kid smacks me, I pick my head up and I look right at him, the kid makes eye contact with me and I mouth the words ‘Help me! He’s eating me!’ The kid freaked out.”
Davis: “Penn State wrestling did a little event for the season-ticket holders before the season started. They had me do a game where they’ll put ankle bands on the opposing wrestlers and you tried to take the other person’s ankle band, and they had me go against Cael Sanderson. Growing up wrestling since I was 6, that was a pretty special thing to be able to do. What I don’t think Cael realized was that I had any idea what I was doing. So I can proudly say that I took his ankle band first. I was up and then he quickly after that stopped going easy. I think there’s one picture where he’s holding me upside down. I felt like a rag doll. He took it to me after that.”
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Sowa: “Something I always wanted to do, and hoped happened, happened on the biggest of stages during the Fiesta Bowl. … I turned toward the game right after they had snapped the ball and Jake Browning, Washington’s quarterback, starts rolling out toward me and overthrows a pass right in my direction. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. This is my time.’ I had to focus so hard because the visibility is horrible. Depth perception is horrible and I did not catch it smoothly at all. I had to squat down really low and caught it against my chest, but I caught the pass. … It was on ESPN for a couple days afterward.”
Put him in, coach! pic.twitter.com/3KTveffQIf
— ESPN (@espn) December 30, 2017
The moments in the suit stand at the forefront of the mascots’ college memories. Caring for the suit, however, is a not-so glamorous part of the deal. The Lion keeps the suit at all times. That means keeping it on a hook in a dorm room or locked in a bedroom at a frat house during a party or wherever they live. The suit — now multiple suits — must be in good hands.
Over the years, that’s meant brushing the costume with a dog brush to make it fluffy or sneaking it into a dry cleaner downtown with an understanding that it need not be left lying around or picked up by anyone else. More recently, it’s meant being issued a Rocket Sport Dryer, which helps circulate air and provide UV light to help dry the costume and kill bacteria. After a rainy game, the suit is every bit as disgusting as once can imagine.
The Lion has come a long way from wearing brown Clarks Desert boots and a T-shirt underneath the suit, like Bailey did. It now sports dri-fit gear, and because Penn State is a Nike school, it sports the swoosh on its black sneakers. Sure, at the core, it’s just a helmet dressed up with eyes and a fuzzy brown outfit with a tail, but to anyone who ever put it on, that costume is much more.
What happens to the Nittany Lion suit after your tenure is over? Do you get to keep any of it?
Bailey: “The only thing that I have is my scarf, which I consider pretty precious. And then I have my shoes, the desert boots which are quite worn underneath in the sole. They have big holes in them from all the dancing and stuff. There was a second pair of Lion mitts that I never wore as the mascot and I kept those. When I handed the suit off to the new Lion, it actually burned in an apartment fire (laughs).”
Johnson: “Back in 2005, it was kind of up to you at that time what you did. I gave back some of my suits. I gave them back to the university. And what had happened at that time was they would give those suits to the branch campuses, that way the branch campuses would have Lion suits that were similar to the main campus Lion. But I actually still have three of the suits from when I was there. So on occasion I’ll suit up for my daughters and just kind of run around the house.”
Davis: “You do generally hold on to that, and of course so much pride is taken with it. I have not put the suit back on since my last event, and for me it’s kind of special to keep it that way. My head, currently I do not have possession of it because it was used on ‘College GameDay.’ Lee Corso used it when he threw it as a decoy and then put on another Nittany Lion head when he chose us to beat Michigan, I believe, so it took a little damage there. I believe it’s under repair, so I need to get my hands back on that.”
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Sowa: “I still do have several costumes and it’s just because I haven’t yet passed them on. I still have a lot of props as well, and all of it is getting passed on to the next Lion.”
Sowa’s final act as the school’s first three-year student Nittany Lion was raising enough money alongside the Beaver Stadium Mic Man — who is also his close friend — to get selected to dance in THON, Penn State’s annual 46-hour dance marathon.
Wearing the heavy suit for as many of the 46 hours as possible was his goal. He took the suit on and off throughout the weekend, but with $50,000 raised for the fight against pediatric cancer by Sowa and his friend, Sowa felt his final act in costume fulfilled the Nittany Lions’ motto: serving as a symbol of Penn State’s best.
“At the end of that whole 46 (hours), I took off the costume and will never wear it again,” Sowa said. “I wanted that moment to be it because I wanted my last event to be the biggest impact I ever had.”
(Top photo: Geoff Burke / USA Today)
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