Kim Fischer ('02)

In my freshman year for Parents Weekend, we were playing the University of Houston, the Cougars. My high school mascot was the cougar, and they had retired the costume that year, and I got to keep the old one.

My parents bring the costume. Me and one of my girlfriends did Puff Paint on a T-shirt that said "U of H." She put the cougar costume on, and so I'm out there on the track. She comes running out in her cougar costume, and we get in a fight, and I knock her out, and then we drag her off the track, and everybody's cheering. This is the old stadium, and so you go around the bleachers. We would change in a janitor's closet. She and I are just dying laughing, and I look behind her, and there's a broom, and I'm like, "Give me the cougar head." So I come back out with the head on a broomstick, marching around. The crowd goes nuts, and then I run back and I toss it in the closet, and I come back out, and everybody's cheering.

Those heads have no peripheral vision. You can barely see, and I hear this noise. It's like stomping. And I turned, and it was the Houston male cheerleaders, and they were running toward me, and one of them checked me, and I flew backwards, landed on my back and it knocked the wind out of me. You know that feeling where you can't breathe? Then my head rolls off.

So I'm sitting there, and they see that I'm a woman, and they go, "Dude, we didn't know you were a girl." All of a sudden, behind me, I hear the noise again, and I look up, and it's my male cheerleaders. It's guy cheerleaders from North Texas here, guy cheerleaders from University of Houston there. I'm lying on the ground, and I finally catch my breath, and all I could do was die laughing because I caused a guy cheerleader fight. Nobody ever threw any punches. But there were words exchanged, and it was hilarious. It was definitely the highlight of my mascot career.

Tyler Richardson ('08)

I played for Midland Lee High School, which at the time was the No. 1 team in the nation. And my tailback became the No. 1 tailback in University of Texas history, Cedric Benson. In the preseason, we played Texas, so I was down on the field and was very intentional about walking by Cedric and said some things to him, like, "Ced-B, Coach Parchman sent me here to tell you to hit the hole quicker!" He was like, "My word," and lifted up my mask. He saw it was me.

Alyceson-Grace Eke ('21)

You're not allowed to speak in the costume, but I did "slip up" a few times. One time I remember, I was at an elementary school and this little kid wasn't in the healthiest state, but he was still so excited to see me. So I hugged him and whispered, "I'm so proud of you." His excitement was worth any trouble I'd get in.

My desire to care for people is what motivated me to stay in the program. I'm an empath through and through. When I see people struggling, I try to help because I've been there. I know how it feels and I want to be there for them, even if it's breaking the rules.

Izabella Klipsch ('23)

I love seeing how excited people get, no matter how old they are. I loved having kids run up on me. Sometimes they didn't even know my name, so they would just call me a bird or an eagle, but then there would be the UNT students, and they obviously know there's a person inside. They were joking around, but they still enjoyed it.

But there were definitely some people who got very excited for Scrappy, which I thought was how excited people get for Mickey Mouse at Disney World. I'm like, "Wow! I didn't think it was that big of a deal." But I definitely did like going to alumni events. Alumni were fun, because people would tell me stories of when they met Scrappy, or for a lot of people it would be when they met Eppy. I loved just sitting there, pretending like I was having a conversation with people.