Greetings to all!

Here’s the second article about the great world of mascots. This time, I’ll cover how to become a mascot and what a typical work day is like on game days.

Honestly, did you ever stop and think about what the job of a mascot must be like and how demanding it must be?

People often look at a mascot and think that it’s an easy job. It’s funny to see people play with a mascot, but few take the time to wonder how demanding it is and how some people can actually make a living at this.

As with any profession, it takes talent and specific skills to be a mascot. To be a very good mascot, you have to make a lot of sacrifices and have lots of talent in certain areas. For example, you have to be imaginative, creative, athletic, a good dancer, acrobatic, humorous, have instinct, and also be able to accept how hot it is inside the costume!

In a few words, I have given you an idea of what is needed to be a good mascot, but you also need 3 to 5 years of related experience and have a good teacher to become a pro mascot.

In my case, I had one of the best teachers in the world. Jean-Claude Tremblay taught and directed me like a master. Without him, I wouldn’t be here telling you about the great world of mascots. He helped me to develop my style and make a living at this all over the world.

To be a mascot, I took different classes: dancing, stunt, improvisation and, finaly, gymnastics. It helped me to be more creative and imaginative as well as react well according to the circumstances and to be a good dancer in public. Jean-Claude gave me lots of advice and followed me closely for a few years.

You must know that during the summer, it can be extremely hot! If it’s 80 or 90 F outside, you can easily add another 20F in the costume. That’s right! Sometimes, we work with temperatures of 120F. That’s really hot and one has to be in great shape because we can lose from 5 to 8 pounds during a game.

Being in shape is important. We have to continually train during the year by exercising, running and walking a lot. We also have to be careful about what we eat. This profession is a lot like being a hockey or baseball player or any type of professional athlete.

You can now imagine how difficult this job can be, but if you have never lived it, you can’t really know how fun it is. Giving a show in front of 55,000 people is extremely electrifying!

Now, let’s take a look at a typical work day. For example, if there’s a game a 7:30pm, I get up early, have a good breakfast and than walk for an hour. When I’m back home, I relax by watching television, and at about 1:30pm, I take a nap for about 2 hours. I usually eat Italian food at 4pm and head towards the stadium/arena 2 hours before the game where I go to my room and get dressed an hour before the game. During the game, I drink lots of juice and water. Finally, I have a meal after the game and relax at home for about an hour before going to bed.

In this article, I tried to show you how what it’s like to work as a mascot and what one has to do to become one. At first many people think that it’s easy, but with a closer look, we can see that it’s not. Athletism and lots of sacrifice are required to be successful.

That’s only one side of the coin because on top of all that we have to prepare skits, music, stunts and also clean the costume. We also need different outfits for the mascot and gadgets to entertain the public.

After many years of doing this, I can fully appreciate how lucky I am that I really enjoy what I do.

I hope that these articles will help you better understand the profession. My dream is to one day open a mascot school in order to meet and help people who want to become mascots and to allow them to make a living in this fascinating mascot world.

If you have comments, suggestions or stories for me, you can visit my website at www.promascot.com or send me email.

See you soon!