Southeast to reveal mascot Saturday

Southeast Missouri State University will unveil its new Redhawk mascot Saturday, big feet and all.

"The worst part about it is the shoes that we wear. They are huge. They are heavy. We really had to learn how to move in those," said Brooke Privett, one of three students who will take turns performing as the school's mascot.

Privett, the daughter of former university regent Doyle Privett, spent part of Monday afternoon learning how to walk up stairs at the Show Me Center where the school's basketball teams play.

"I am excited about it," Privett said of her upcoming debut as mascot.

The bird costume weighs 10 to 15 pounds, she said.

The Kennett, Mo., sophomore said she's less self-conscious about performing as a mascot once she dons the costume's bird head. "You just take on a different personality," said Privett, who was one of about 20 students who tried out for the mascot role in November.

The university will unveil its new mascot at ceremonies Saturday starting with a pregame party at 3 p.m. at the Student Recreation Center. Open only to Southeast students, the ceremony will feature a birthday cake celebrating the new Redhawk mascot. Students can get dressed up for the occasion with temporary Redhawk tattoos.

A real red-tailed hawk from a St. Louis-area bird sanctuary is expected to be on hand for the pregame celebration.

The public will get its first chance to see the new mascot when it takes to the court at 4:45 p.m. Saturday prior to the 5 p.m. tip-off of the televised Southeast men's basketball game with Austin Peay. The Southeast women's team also will be in action, starting at 7:30 p.m. against their counterparts from Austin Peay.

Doors to the Show Me Center will open at 4 p.m., school officials said.

The new mascot will be unveiled along with its name, which was chosen from five suggested names: Rally, Ricky, Rocky, Rowdy and Rudy.

School officials are keeping the mascot costume and name secret until the ceremony.

Dr. Charles Wiles, director of sports marketing at Southeast, said all three students selected to perform as the mascot will get an opportunity to don the custom-made costume and entertain the crowd Saturday.

Wiles said the university currently only has one mascot costume. But, he said, there's no need to have more than one costumed student performing on the basketball court at the same time.

"It's like telling young kids that there are two Santa Clauses," Wiles said. School officials want the public to think of the mascot as a single character, not one played by several different students.

The men's and women's teams Saturday will wear their regular uniforms, which only carry the formal name of the university. But both teams for the first time will wear new warm-up jackets with the Redhawks logo, athletics director Don Kaverman said.

Southeast sports teams probably will switch to new uniforms on a sport-by-sport basis over the next year, he said. But in the middle of the basketball season it didn't make sense to change uniforms, Kaverman said.

As part of the festivities, more than 1,500 T-shirts depicting the new mascot character will be distributed to fans. Some 500 of the shirts will be distributed at the pregame party for students. The rest will be given away at the men's and women's basketball games Saturday.

Halftime activities will include shooting off special-effect streamers, Wiles said.

The Blanchard Elementary School jump-rope team, composed of about 40 students, will perform between the men's and women's games.

The Copi-Rite/Nextel blimp that hovers over the court and the crowd will drop various prize coupons.

"We will probably have the best prizes we have had all year. Everything will be jazzed up," Wiles said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123