MASCOT ALERT!!!! Wolverine mascot-guy spotted. (No joke)

Submitted by James Burrill Angell on

Not kidding here. I'm facebook friends with an athletic department employee who is down with the Cheerleading team in Daytona Beach at the National Cheer and Dance Championships (at which they were going for our fifth National Championship in a row but finished in 3rd).  Was just watching the post with their routine and there absolutely positively a guy in a "wolverine" costume and a #17 Michigan jersey doing the routines with our cheer team during the competition. Checked their twitter account and it wasn't the same post or routine. In the one I saw on Facebook they appeared to be outside in a band shell looking thing. Will try to get a screen shot and post but its definitely there. Is this the furry face of things to come?

The Maizer

April 7th, 2017 at 4:55 PM ^

I'm usually the one defending it being okay to call anything people want a "sport." Having said that, requiring a person dressing up in an animal/caricature kind of costume in order to be eligible for said "sport" kind of calls its legitimacy into question.

Bando Calrissian

April 7th, 2017 at 5:03 PM ^

Yep. This is not a "sport" any more than anything related to a marching band is a "sport" (sorry flag corps and drumline people). They're performance genres.

Don't get this one at all, or why the Athletic Department would want to put their imprint behind something that requires a mascot that the fanbase clearly and historically has not wanted. Canham, after all, just about had Willie the Wolverine taken behind the Grad Library and shot when people tried to make that a thing. This is no better. But, apparently, is now legitimate.

Lionsfan

April 7th, 2017 at 6:45 PM ^

Good lord you're insufferable.

They use a mascot for like 1 week, for 1 cheerleading competition. It's been going on for years now, and no mascots have ever shown up on the sidelines.

It's better than "Willie", and using this in a competition doesn't make a gameday mascot "legitimate".

Also, nobody except you and the other poster you replied to has called it a sport

The Maizer

April 8th, 2017 at 12:26 AM ^

I don't even know how to respond to this. I wasn't calling into question the actual "sport"ness of cheer competition. I even said I'm usually the guy that defends that kind of thing. I merely think it's ridiculous that the "sport" is degraded by requiring a mascot in order for a team to be eligible. It would be as ridiculous as saying your team wasn't allowed to play football unless your field was also a display screen playing children's cartoons.

Wolverine Devotee

April 7th, 2017 at 6:58 PM ^

I will and go ahead because it is. 

No one would be able to fathom how much work that team does and what kind of schedule they have.

Think of the day-to-day life of a Varsity athlete at Michigan that practices and does S&C workouts along with their classes, and then add in the fact that they also have to go and cheer on other teams at Michigan as part of their sport. And this one competition is what they train for all year long during practice. 

A good friend of mine has been on the team for two seasons now. 

It's been a Varsity sport since 2012, along with Dance. The upcoming new multi-sport arena is going to be built to also house those two teams. 

MGoViso

April 8th, 2017 at 9:44 AM ^

I don't mind your defense in principle, but I think your use of hyperbole went a little far.

"No one would be able to fathom..."? Not Tom Brady, not SEALs, not Jim Harbaugh, etc?

I am sure they work extremely hard (literally, near one extreme of the range of work), but I think lots of other folks do too.

FauxMo

April 7th, 2017 at 4:55 PM ^

If I was with the cheerleading team in Daytonia Beach at the "National Cheer and Dance Championship," I wouldn't notice a male mascot in a Wolverine costume if it fell on my face and started wiggling... 

LSAClassOf2000

April 7th, 2017 at 7:29 PM ^

What's funny is that I realized that this competition - which is about this time of the year and requires us to fake the whole mascot thing - would mean that this thread was bound to appear almost like clockwork. This blog, in its own amusing way, has a certain predictability about these things. 

WolverineHistorian

April 7th, 2017 at 6:18 PM ^

I'd still love to see a screen shot. I'll bet it looks better than that wolverine mascot Sparty fans made in 2003 for the Chris Perry game. That thing looked like a paper mache, blue and yellow teddy bear.

Lakeyale13

April 7th, 2017 at 7:50 PM ^

Dude, you're watching dance / cheerleading!?  So you must be the guy who goes down to his local Elementary School and leaves a trail of candy that leads to a pile in his lap?  Creepy Yo!