When Mascots Fight…
…an angel loses it’s wings. No wait. That’s not it. The saying goes, “When mascots fight, one of them loses their head.” Yup. That’s it.
Don’t believe it? Well, we have proof. In last week’s Ohio vs. Ohio State game in Columbus, OH, this became true. As Brutus the Buckeye was leading the Ohio State football team out onto the field, he was attacked by Rufus the bobcat from Ohio University.
Side Note: Could these two schools have picked nerdier names for their mascots? Goodness. Why not Maxwell? Or Gertrude? Or Harry Potter? I bet their respective chess clubs chose the mascots name. No offense to chess clubs… It’s just chess clubs are really nerdy.
Speaking of nerdy, Ohio State’s man behind the over-sized Brutus mask takes his job very seriously. Here was his response on the incident on a message board this past weekend:
I figured someone would mention this, and yes it was me that was Brutus during this. I’m only going to comment on this once so here’s the story.
Basically myself and another cheerleader were running the flag like any other game leading the team out onto the field. All of a sudden I see the bobcat running at me. Obviously at first I was very confused and then realized that he was going to try and tackle me. As he went to tackle me, I lowered my shoulder and sent him to the ground and his head popped off (the pinnacle of mascot embarrassment). I then figured that was over with so I started to walk towards the endzone and was firing up the crowd. All of a sudden I feel someone jump on my back….it was the bobcat. He starts legit punching me so I jump and fall back on my back so that I land on him. He keeps punching so I throw him off of me and walk away.
It wasn’t planned and he almost got thrown out of the game. A lot of people asked why I didn’t wail on him and my response is not only did I not want that to be my last game (Big 10 has VERY strict rules in regards to mascot fights) but I didn’t want the bobcat and OU to make headlines off of Brutus’ name and fame. After the first two OSU touchdowns I decided to exact my revenge with a little more class by waving the flag directly in his face and repeatedly pointing to the scoreboard…..and that’s all I have to say about that.
All I read was:
Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah. I’m a big panzee and I wouldn’t fight back. Blah, blah, blah. I’m boring. Blah, blah, blah. I wear a scarlet and gray striped rugby shirt. Blah, blah, blah. Buckeye. Blah, blah, blah. Big 10. Blah, blah, blah. I got him back by pointing at him. Blah, blah, blah.
I’m glad he gave us non-mascotters an inside to the job by telling us about “the pinnacle of mascot embarrassment.” I mean, heck, had he not have made that known, I would have thought that the pinnacle of mascot embarrassment would be being tackled at midfield by the opposing team’s mascot in front of 100,000+ in your home stadium. I’m glad he informed me that it’s not.
Of course, Ohio University may want to suit Rufus up for their football team considering they lost, 43-7. Frank Solich, the Bobcats’ head coach even said, “Obviously we needed to tackle the guy with the ball, not the mascot.”
