Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Athletes in the Arts podcast, hosted by Stephen Karaginas and Yasi Ansari.
Speaker: Greetings and salutations again to one and all, and welcome to the Athletes in the Arts podcast. Once again, I am Stephen Karaginas, and once again, I'm joined by Yasi Ansari. I hope you're doing well today and that today is your best day yet. We are part of the Athletes in the Arts Coalition, a group of 17 different sports medicine and performing arts medicine organizations, so please go to athletesinthearts .com for more information and resources on performing arts medicine.
Speaker: If you like our show and you just feel like helping us out, please feel free to leave a review. So today, let's talk about mascots. They've been around sports for decades. They're beloved avatars of school spirit and pride. They're adored by children as whimsical characters. The school mascot is a part of sports tradition, especially in the college football world. To some degree, they're in pro sports. But really, when you think of mascots, you're thinking about college sports.
Speaker: Now, when you think of high school mascots, that usually means like a cheerleader or a student wearing an outfit for a few home games at night, more or less moonlighting a handful of times per year. So not much stress to be a mascot in high school. But when you think of college mascots, the stakes go up.
Speaker: You may be on ESPN, you're running onto a field, you're doing skits and performances on football game days, maybe you're doing televised basketball games, you're at tournaments and pep rallies, other school events. This is now a serious gig. And then you have the elite mascots, the cream of the crop, the ones you identify immediately when you see their face. And at the top of this list is arguably the most popular
Speaker: And at the top of this list is probably the most famous and popular mascot in the country, Sparty, the Michigan State University mascot. Someone like him performs at games and pep rallies and school events, but also at weddings, anniversaries, quinceaneras, bat mitzvahs, corporate commercials. Everybody wants to say hi, give you a high five, hug you, say go green, go white, the whole nine yards.
Speaker: But what most people don't realize is what it takes to be Sparty, to perform over 100 times a year, booked out to 2026. What the necessary physical stamina is, the team that's needed to keep Sparty safe and at the top of his game.
Speaker: That is why the guests on our show today started what essentially is the first mascot sports medicine program in the country. With us today is the director of the Sparty mascot program, Sue Petrasen and Sparty's research coordinator, Ashley Triplett. So Sue, Ashley, thank you very much for being on our show today. How are you guys doing? Pretty good. Yeah, I'm doing great.
Speaker: So Sue, I wanted to start off with you for a bit, because this is like a fascinating topic to me, because I went to Michigan State for medical school, and Michigan undergrad, and Yahtzee's from UCLA, and we all had this college experience. We've all seen mascots, but I've never had anybody talk to me about what goes into a mascot program. So how did you start in the mascot program at Michigan State? How does this whole thing start? It's an interesting story, because I've been with the university 39 years.
Speaker: And I worked, I worked 25 years in about 28 years in university housing, which has of course changed names. So I worked in the housing system. And then I had an opportunity to move to the alumni office. So Sparty is a part of the alumni office. He's not part of athletics, which most school mascots are. And he was, we had a program called the Student Alumni Foundation.
Speaker: And he was a part of that program. It was pretty much run by students. There was a 20 -hour week employee that worked with them, but that employee had other responsibilities. And as the alumni office started making changes to, you know, update their systems and stuff, someone said, oh, well, Sparty's really a program, so congratulations, Sue. He's yours.
Speaker: So I was given this program that I was aware of that there were some challenges with it and I quickly had to figure out what do you do with a mascot, right? But at the same time, I was also doing homecoming and alumni travel and I had supervision responsibilities for budgets and that type of stuff. And over time finally realized that there was no way that I could do everything.
Speaker: So the department said, okay, let's kind of rework this. And it's been about 10 years that I've, so I've had responsibility for the mascot program. Now I've had some other responsibilities thrown in there, but main, my main responsibility is the program. So it was what, I mean, you don't go to school for mascot, mascotology, right? I mean, there's no programs. And when I went to school at Michigan State, there wasn't a mascot. So Sparty officially started in the form that he is now in 1989.
Speaker: So he's, Marty is 35 years old. Correct. So prior to that, he was a part of a fraternity and he was part of a, we've done a bunch of research trying to find out who he is. He was part of a fraternity and he was part of the ROTC. And it was just people that had gotten together and made this head at that point, which we still have, it weighs about 60 pounds. And the students would wear that to get into the stadium for the game. And then they would take it off.
Speaker: So it was their access to the football games. And then in the late 80s, our alumni office, the executive assistant, or the executive director at that time, had gone to a conference and had seen a table tent from another school. And I want to say it was Wisconsin and saw this mascot and said, hey, wait a minute. We need to redesign.
Speaker: you know, let's get our mascot taken care of. And they asked our Dave Jordan was his name. He was the graphic designer for the alumni office. And he actually developed Sparty. He was the one that actually developed him and pulled him together. And then at the time they, you know, what's Sparty going to look like? How's the costume going to be? They actually went and sent David Russell, who was our first Sparty. They sent him to Atlanta to a company that made costumes and said, here, make Sparty.
Speaker: with this information. So his height is actually what's formed our height for our party. So he was the first model for it. He was the first model for it, yes.
Speaker: Huh. And so then it's from that point, so it's all started organically within the school itself. Correct. And then it comes into a more formal design as, you know, Dave Russell takes in and then the school starts using it. So then from there, where's my, how's the mascot go from there? So at that point, the university president at the time decided that the mascot belonged to the alumni office.
Speaker: and said, you know, Sparty will be a part of this program at that time. And you can go back in our history and look at the many varieties of suits that were used over the time. And the program was put in the alumni office, of course, the first several years it was run, you know, by students because it was part of the student foundation, the alumni foundation, which was part of the alumni office. It was run by that for several years. And then as time moved on, you know, people realized the brand that they had in Sparty.
Speaker: and his significance of being places and said, okay, and that's how things transitioned. And eventually it was like, okay, Sparty's, you know, he's yours, you know, basically figure it out. So that prompted me to get into start researching and looking at information. And of course, like I said, there's no website.
Speaker: you know, we didn't have websites back then. Okay, right. Let me just really go back there. Right. And I hadn't really as a student paid attention to it because there wasn't the official Sparty. And I didn't go to a lot of games and stuff like that. So I started paying attention to him more.
Speaker: And then started working with the students that were there at the time and trying to, you know, decide who, who was Sparty, you know, because we went through and like, what is his character? What does he look like? I mean, the suit was made by five or six different companies. And I don't even want to say companies. It was like, you know, this, this gentleman made the head and this person made his boots. I mean, his boots were made locally by a vendor in town, you know, and then this person made his chest plate. And the problem was nothing matched.
Speaker: The school has gone through the many different colors of green, nothing matched. And then when the university, when the athletics green that we have, or the green that we have is actually an athletics based color, that's when we decided we really needed to brand him the right way, make sure his colors matched and find a vendor to develop him.
Speaker: So how do you take Sparty from this point now to a national mascot level where he's doing commercials for ESPN and he's doing all sorts of like, I mean, he's got national profile now. How does it go from just being like this school mascot to something that everybody across the country recognizes?
Speaker: Well, he was, when I first started doing the program, he was still doing like ESPN commercials and big 10 media had started then, you know, the big 10 media's had started and he was doing that kind of stuff. And it was just a request. And typically everybody went through athletics because they thought he was athletics. He belonged to them. And, um, we would start getting requests, you know, for him to be at events. And I think people had just seen him and, you know, there are Sparta, I mean, there's Spartans all over the world.
Speaker: So people knew Sparty and they were like, oh, hey, can we get him in his commercial or can we do this or can we do that? And as you look at some of the old video, I mean, I love going back and look at some of the old commercials because I can see his character and what he did and what the suit looked like. So he just quickly became, everybody wanted him. And at that time they weren't doing a lot of outside events. It was mainly university events.
Speaker: And it was really left up to the students. So if someone said, hey, I'm having a wedding, can Sparty come to my wedding? They would send an email or something out to the students and say, hey, Sparty's wanted for a wedding on Saturday night, who wants to go? So over time, we really developed that into a system because when I had the program in 2015, I was getting everything by email and I was working everything off of an Excel spreadsheet.
Speaker: And it was like, okay, this isn't going to work in our system. And it was just me at that time. So at that time, we actually developed a program. We have an online program that we developed from scratch with a local vendor to manage all that for us.
Speaker: Dan, who was the director before I was, he was starting to get that kind of stuff organized. And then we started saying, okay, look, Sparty, Sparty, he belongs to the university, not to the students, he belongs to the university. So we really put some emphasis on the fact that we needed to make sure that he represented the university. And that's the biggest thing we tell our students now is that Sparty is the university's representative. So -
Speaker: I was going to say when Sparty's invited to weddings and graduation events or other events, do the people who are inviting Sparty have to be alumni?
Speaker: Because they don't. Oh, they don't. Typically, they are typically either, you know, the bride or the groom or someone is, you know, have a connection to MSU. But and I will tell you that, you know, Stevie, you'll get this, we've actually done weddings at the big house. Oh, because there was a bride that was, you know, a Spartan in the groom was a Michigan brad. And mom said, you know what, I want Sparty there.
Speaker: You know, so, you know, we and we do weddings, we've done weddings all over the country. So it's just not limited to local weddings, we do them wherever. And that's kind of prompted. And I think the TV commercials that we have done and with the success of our athletic programs and now the success of a lot of the, like, we've done, we just did a big,
Speaker: videos shoot with the College of Education because of their rankings. They want Sparty and their stuff. And admissions wants Sparty and their stuff. So Sparty is all over now. And he's recognized that way for what he does. And so the money that Sparty gets, it goes back to the alumni.
Speaker: goes back to the SPARTY program. The SPARTY program. So it funds his travel. It funds his, you know, $15 ,000 a pop for a uniform, right? It funds those. It funds, because they last about three years. The uniforms? Yes. Right? So, yeah, so you're, I mean, it's a constant, you know, and it
Speaker: Um, you know, all the maintenance on the, the, um, the suit, um, paying the students for their time. You know, we, we keep food in their locker room. I mean, so all that stuff that goes into, you know, if they're at a football game, we could be there for 10 to 12 hours. You know, you really got to feed them. Right. You think? Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, and, you know, we travel and they get, you know, they get geared so that when we travel, we look the same, right? That we're representing. That's our big thing is we want them to look.
Speaker: is a team. I mean, we'll travel and people go, what team do you belong to? So depending on the day, we could be the golf team. We could be taking care of the football stuff. Just depends on who were there. Because you don't come out and say, well, I'm Sparty. That's all. It's a very confidential. Well, the biggest thing I learned right off the front is being a mascot is very, very confidential. You don't tell anybody. I mean, we have students that have graduated that their dad knew or their mom knew, but the other parent didn't know. Oh, wow.
Speaker: but they are on the alumni site though. Like it shows who's been a Sparty before. Correct. You don't know the current ones. Yeah. Got it. So their lips are sealed when they're playing the role. It's like Disney characters, they just disappear in the park, right? Cause you'd never know where they are. Right. Yeah. And their friends don't know. I mean, we, we, they signed an NDA. Um, we talked to them upfront and say, look, if you even talk about this at any time during the process,
Speaker: You can be removed from the position. Um, they, when we travel, you know, they're, they're, they're never, you know, disclose this party. Uh, they, we had a student Nicole who graduated, I think four or five years ago now who lived with a, in a house of girls and no one knew she was Sparty. Really? Yeah. Because she said, well, I got to go where I work for the alumni office and we're having a tailgate. So I got to work with the tailgate.
Speaker: So she's not lying. She's not lying. Right. Right. So do most of these kids have like a reveal video at the end of there when they graduate? It's like, boom, take the head off. Hey, it's me. So one of the things that we do is, and I've seen this at other schools, when I traveled to other football games and stuff, is that they'll introduce the cheerleaders or the band at the end, right? And then the mascot takes off his head.
Speaker: Oh, we don't do that. Oh, our feeling is we first off, because it's so confidential and so secretive, and we don't want to scare the kids, right? The kids know that is Sparty. And we don't want there to be any, you know, like, oh my gosh, it's not Sparty. So what we do is we work with the students at the end of their senior year and develop a reveal video.
Speaker: And it's like 90 seconds, and they provide us all the pictures or the videos that they want. And then our team puts together, we have a videographer in our office, puts together the video. So it shows them from start to finish, like the events they've been to. And then the last thing they do is they show that they're Sparty. And as well, they wear his boots across stage at graduation.
Speaker: Oh, that's very cool. So cool. You know, the president doesn't know who they are. I mean, you'll get deans and directors that'll be like, you didn't tell me that with Sparty. And I'm like, we don't want you to know. Right. Right. There's a whole story behind Sparty. There is. There's a whole story behind him. Before we get into what you love about Sparty, Sue, because I am going to be asking you that question at some point. Ashley, I want you to share a little bit about
Speaker: your role with Sparty too. So I know that you've been working with the program since 2019 and one of your major roles is really understanding the physiological responses of those individuals who are serving as mascots. And so something that comes up for me is if Sparty can't take
Speaker: his or her or their helmet off or, you know, their mask off during like a game. How are these people keeping themselves cool? Is there a fan in this costume? Are they taking like a silent break somewhere and having one of those like water fans, you know, put on to them? Like I need to know what is happening. How is Sparty staying healthy in all of this?
Speaker: Yeah, that's a great question. I think a lot of people just assume that there's an air conditioner in the suit or there's fans or something like that. And unfortunately, we don't have anything like that. So we do a lot of the students, obviously, whenever they need a break, we just say, you know, let us know and we'll go take a break and they can take the head off and get some water and cool off. We have fans, we have ice.
Speaker: We're really willing to do whatever we need to do to keep them cool while they're in suit. And they're really good at signaling and somehow telling us in Sparty's language that they need a break and we need to take some time for them to cool off. But the goal is to never get them to that point where they are really struggling. We want to stop that before it happens and make sure they're well hydrated and cool when they're in suit.
Speaker: Have you only been working with Sparty or had you worked with other mascots in the past?
Speaker: No, so my background is actually in sports medicine research and working with athletes using wearable technology. So that's kind of how I got brought into this. So I did my undergrad, my master's and my PhD at Michigan State. So I'm kind of a long life Spartan. But yeah, I got involved originally just because of my background in wearable technology. So I'll let Sue kind of tell you guys how she kind of approached the kinesiology department to kind of get some help with
Speaker: you know, learning what's going on physiology wise. But yeah, my background is in wearable technology. So doing like heart rate monitoring GPS in soccer and ice hockey. So I thought we could kind of apply some of those principles to mascots and use that technology to help us collect some data.
Speaker: So, yeah, and we've kind of just gone from there and Sparty is kind of our first one, but we'd like to expand and collect some other mascots and see some of the differences with these different suits that they're wearing and the different demands.
Speaker: how did the alumni program, you know, what came about where the alumni program was like, we need to reach out to sports medicine. Something must have happened. Some right. Um, there were several things. So I was working with the students and seeing the suits and seeing them take them off and be soaked, right? Cause they, all the sweat. And then we had a, um, we used to in Trevor city, Michigan, there's a big cherry festival.
Speaker: And that was one of the things that, so the mascot would go up and they would expect Sparty to be in suit from like an hour before the parade started and then walk the parade for however long it was and then do events afterwards. And when some of that first started happening, I'm like, this is not good, right? This is just not, it's just not right. And we were getting students that, you know,
Speaker: people wanted them in suit for two or three hours at a time. And I'm like, this isn't good. So I remember going to, and people were telling me, oh, it's no big deal. They're students, they're young. And I'm like, okay. I was always concerned about the fact that they put the head on and going, you know, in 10 years, I don't want them to come back to me and say, hey, you know, my neck hurts or my back hurts. So I started paying attention to that stuff. And we had done some research on the suit to have it re -evaluated because it used to weigh 60 pounds and we knocked it down to 30.
Speaker: But we had started looking at things and I just remember like almost in a panic going something's got to be done. I need something that shows people that we can't just do one person. We can't travel one person to this event or we can't have one person there because they just can't do it. And I remember walking into the sending a note to the kinesiology department going, I just need help.
Speaker: I'm like, this is not my, you know, my backgrounds in human resource and labor relations and construction management and a bunch of stuff. I'm like, I don't know this stuff. I need someone to help me look at the fact of what is happening to the students in their bodies. Because, you know, they're 18 to 22. They're like, Oh, it's no big deal. You know, I can keep going for five hours. It's not a problem, right? And then knowing the next day, they're not doing anything.
Speaker: And I turned down a couple of parades, which made national news, because I would not allow Sparty to be in parades. Oh, wow. Yeah, and I'm like, you know, proud of you, especially if I had something to do with dehydration risk, because I did dehydration heat. I mean, yeah, being in that suit, we knows about 30 degrees hotter than the outside temperature. Well, if you're in Traverse City, and it's, you know, 95 degrees outside, you know, and they're like, well, we'll just put them on a trailer. I'm like, no, it's
Speaker: It doesn't matter, right? And it made national news in the universities. And I, but I said to the university, I said, you know, our staff and the university has been very supportive. Michigan State's been very supportive of what we're doing. But I'm like, there's a student in there and I have to be concerned about his health. And we just can't allow that. And it was interesting the number of schools that came back to me afterwards and said, we just didn't want to be first, but we didn't want to do parades either. So thank you for saying no, because now we can say, well,
Speaker: they don't do it. And now even the Traverse City Cherry Festival, they don't even allow their own mascot to be in the parade. Okay. Because they said, we've realized, you know, what, or what this could be doing. So I just kind of went to the department and said, I just need, what can we do? As far as you know, was there any other program out there with any sort of mascot medicine type of work?
Speaker: that you could, any resources you could draw from or you had to go to kinesiology yourself and say, look, we need to figure this out because this doesn't exist. Right.
Speaker: As you can talk about, I mean, yeah, there's really not a lot of stuff out there in the literature. So there are some other schools now starting to do similar, like wearable tracking. So looking at, you know, body temperature, heart rate, that kind of stuff. So there are some other schools just starting to do this. But you know, five years ago, it was very limited. A lot of the work is more occupational, like environmental health type physiology that's been done, but it's not really in mascots or taking
Speaker: this population into consideration. So we were like, well, may as well be us. We can start looking into it. Sparty is pretty recognizable and it's a pretty starting this job for the students. So we wanted to take a look. So what has, so have you done any research into mascot medicine, mascot stability of health, well and wellness in the suit? What guys, what kind of things have you guys done?
Speaker: Yeah, so over the past year, we've been collecting a lot of data, particularly during basketball games and football games. So we kind of want to just get a whole body look at what they're going through while they're performing in suit. So we've been utilizing
Speaker: a vest that collects heart rate and skin temperature. And it has a little computer in it that will save all of our data. So they just put it on. It kind of fits like a sports bra, collects all the data while they're in suit. And then I can download it later and see what their response was while they were doing different activities. We also have a wireless core temperature pill that they swallow. And it has Bluetooth connectivity. So we can pick up a live body temperature.
Speaker: Yeah, it kind of gives us an idea of, you know, how they're doing throughout the course of the time they're in suit and they're performing. So we've got some data on a few different events, lots of football and basketball games, and now we're starting to get into, it's obviously summertime, so wedding season, and we're starting to collect data there as well. And Ashley, don't you, there was a test you do on all of them initially in the lab.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. We also brought them through the lab, um, last fall and we've done a second round of testing too, just to get the general idea of fitness, um, with all of our individuals. So we've put them through a full VO two max. So an exercise test to just establish fitness levels. So they got on the treadmill and basically ran until they couldn't run anymore. So, um, we just wanted to get an idea of baseline fitness. We've also done some DEXA scanning, um, to see what body composition looks like. Okay.
Speaker: just some basic things to kind of get a profile and characterize who these individuals are that are serving as Sparty. So what are some of the findings that you found that surprised you the most? Like what kind of things just were like, just like, wow, this is shocking.
Speaker: Yeah, so I guess I came into this just not knowing what to expect. And we were really surprised. So I mean, when they're in suit, they're hitting their maximum heart rate. So most of our students are right around 20 years old. So you would estimate that max heart rate would be around 200. So 220 minus their age. Right. And many of them exceed that while they're in suit. So they're spending the majority of their time above 80 % of their heart rate max. So they really are out there.
Speaker: like saying at pretty sustained high heart rates. In terms of body temperature, this is something we were really curious about just to see how hot they're getting. So with these core temperature pills, we're seeing anywhere from
Speaker: you know, getting up to 101 to over 103 degrees. So that's kind of where we're really concerned to be like, okay, we need to monitor this and make sure that they're not, you know, getting into a heat stress situation where they're in danger. Um, so that's something we were interested in. And then we're also measuring body weight pre and post being in suit just to get an idea of sweat loss. Um, so we're seeing, you know, anywhere from two to six pounds sometimes in, you know, about an hour.
Speaker: when they're exercising. So it's pretty strenuous. I would say it's very similar to what you'd see working with a collegiate athlete. So similar heart rate responses to when I was working with soccer and hockey. So yeah, there are basically athletes out there. So most of the fluid measurements are done through the pre and post weights. There's no wearable technology for hydration.
Speaker: No, I mean, you can do like urine specific gravity and those kinds of things to look at like hydration status at this point. Logistically, the easiest thing for us to do is really get that pre and post body weight because sometimes we could be anywhere when we're measuring body weights. So last weekend we were on a bus driving around Chicago and having, you know, students when we were stopped hop on the scale to try and get a post measurement.
Speaker: So, we're traveling, we're here and there, so we figured logistics wise, this was probably our best and most accurate way to get an estimate of what's going on. Obviously, they're allowed to drink too, so those measurements, it depends. We're not going to keep them from drinking water, so they're not the most accurate. So, I would say this is more of a conservative estimate with some of our sweat loss that we're collecting, but yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker: And who's educating those, I'm going to say mascot athletes on hydration or what to be eating during the games or the events? Is anyone educating them? Are they working with SportsMed on that too?
Speaker: Yeah, so that's something we'd really like to start implementing moving forward. So we do work with a registered dietitian who when she was doing her PhD at Michigan State was involved in the program. So moving forward, we're going to start working with her to kind of do some nutrition hydration education with them, because now we know we have more information to really tell us what's going on with these individuals. So providing that education so that they can fuel their bodies appropriately and make sure they're hydrated going into and coming out of events is going to be really crucial.
Speaker: So we do have an RD who's going to be helping us moving forward. And she was, she was doing that when she was there and then a few still stay connected with her. So a few of them are still doing, you know, food logs and, and maintaining that connection along the way. And she actually gave us like, okay, these are the types of products you should make available to them. Right. So we want to make sure that in their locker room that we have, you know, high protein, you know, the good foods that they, that they need to, um, to fuel with during the game.
Speaker: or during their access to electrolytes, those kinds of things. Now you mentioned you're doing some baseline testing like VO to max, you're doing like that kind of fitness testing. So when you get that information, um, how are you training the mascots to be able to, cause you're doing this at the beginning of the season, right?
Speaker: Yeah, so we've got some just preseason data. And then we've also got like later throughout the football season that we took. So this is something that we're at this point, we have not implemented an official training program, also something we'd like to start working on because we know now that I mean, most of the students that are coming in are pretty fit. Majority of them were high school athletes. So it's not like you're bringing a student in who can't handle the environment and the demands.
Speaker: And we also do, when they go through the interview process, there is a fitness test that we take them through. They do like a 12 minute run. They do pushups and sit ups and just some basic markers to kind of give us an idea of what they look like and what they may be capable of. So with that information on top of doing some of this baseline testing,
Speaker: Um, I wouldn't say that anyone is unfit by any means, like everyone does really well and can handle this strenuous environment that they're being placed in. Um, but this is again, something that we want to have access to, you know, a personal trainer or gym space access so that they can actually go and participate and have a program to help them improve moving forward so that when they're participating and, you know, being smarty, um, that their job is easier.
Speaker: Now you mentioned the audition process. So how does that work? I'm very curious. How do you like, I mean, obviously don't take me to the details. You can't divulge, but like how, if I wanted to come up there or my daughter's still there as a senior, if she wanted to audition, what's the process like? What do you guys look for? Like, how does that go?
Speaker: So we actually have a, there actually is a webpage that says apply to be Sparty and it's updated that we just updated last week. So we accept applications until like the end of September. Um, they thought an application, but it, you know, we do background checks, driving checks. We do everything ahead of time because our feeling is if they don't pass something, then we're not going to put them through the whole process and then go, Oh, sorry. Right. So, um, they do a whole, a whole bad, they interview, they come in for a meeting where we, you know, talk about what we can talk about with the program.
Speaker: And, you know, answer some of their basic questions, you know, about expectations, stuff like that. And kind of, you know, we kind of say, okay, look, this is the program. You can't talk about this. You can't, you know, we literally just lay it out that way for them. And then they do an interview with myself and Jill, my colleague, the assistant director. And then we have what's called a ride along, where they ride along with interns from the alumni office and Sparty.
Speaker: Um, so that they, the interns that are there kind of get a feel for the students, right? So they can give us their feedback because just like you would build a soccer team or a baseball team, that's what we're trying to do is to put a team together. So they do that. Um, if they're successful at the same time that's going on, they do their physical fitness test. Um, we have used when Ashley was, um, local with us, she would, you know, uh,
Speaker: take him through that. Now we have a police officer on the, from the police force. It's kind of assigned to us. So he puts them through that, that test, which also gives another opinion, right? Another like, Hey, can this person do this? Can they not do this? Uh, and then if they pass that point and we make cuts at every level, so, you know, you don't get through the whole thing and then we cut you, we'd cut you. Um, we would cut people at that point. Then what we do is say, okay, um, you've done your ride along. Now we want you to come in.
Speaker: and try on the suit. So they come in because we measure them when they first get there, they have to be between five, nine and six, two. If they don't fit fit those, you know, measurements, they're, they're right. It's it. So then they come in to put the suit on.
Speaker: because we need to make sure it fits because it's like one site's suit fits all. If they fit in the suit or if they don't, we make that decision then, and then we take a picture of them next to a current Sparty. We do a lot of stuff because our goal is that if we're going to do a commercial, I don't want a Sparty that's 5 foot 8 and a 6 foot 2 in the same commercial. We're very careful about making sure that the presence and the best foot forward of Sparty is out there.
Speaker: And then we do that and then we talk about that. Then if they make it through that phase, they put together a skit for us. And during that time, we kind of teach him some of the basics about his walk and the way he moves his number one and that type of stuff. And then they do that and then they come in and put a skit on for us and then we make our decision. So it takes us from the end of September through typically it's the first week of December when we let them know.
Speaker: Okay, and that's a year like a year contract year and a half or so there. So then in January, they typically start in January on their training, training can be three to four months long, before they even put the suit on and go out and about. And there
Speaker: we evaluate them, we're constantly evaluating them, right? We're constantly doing that. So if they're not meeting the expectations or something's not there, we can release them at any time. Most of them will come on and knowing that, you know, unless they, you know, something's happened, they will be with us for a couple years.
Speaker: Okay. Wow. Yeah. What is like a four year contract, five year? So most of them come in as freshmen. Okay. Um, our goal is that we don't typically take anybody, um, we don't take anybody older than a sophomore because it takes us, you know, three, it could be three to five months to get someone trained, you know, so that because they go out and they, you know, they start, they have to build up their time of being in the suit. You just can't put it on and say, okay, go. So.
Speaker: and we're constantly giving that feedback. So most of them are with us for three years. And does Sparty travel with an entourage? Like does some party have like his own tour bus? It feels like that's what's happening here. So does he have a medical team that travels with him everywhere that does all his vitals and checks him before he gets out and starts entertaining? Like what is Sparty's name? So Sparty travels with the safety coordinators.
Speaker: Um, one or two, depending on where we're going. So like we might have two at a wedding or two at a football game depends on where he's going. Um, all of our staff, um, while not medical personnel, we're all trained in first aid and NCPR, um, and all that stuff. And typically majority of the events that we do, there's medical personnel around, but we also know that
Speaker: if you have to call 911 when you call 911, right? So, you know, sometimes Ashley will travel with us, especially if we go out of state over, you know, overnight, then one of the full time coaches is with them. So, and he does, he has his own on campus vehicle, he has vans,
Speaker: Of course, they're unmarked. We don't mark any of that because we need to go to that school down the road. You can't have a van there that says Sparty all over it, right? That's true. He does travel incognito in more ways than one.
Speaker: I mean, I'm just so fascinated by this whole topic, especially by Sparty. I'm like, do I need to be hiring Sparty for an event? And if I do, will he show up doing his own choreography? Is it something that Michigan State has planned for him?
Speaker: I mean, Sparty has a really big role on campus. He has a very big role. So we actually have a website that's called requestsparty .com that we literally had to develop because of the amount of requests we receive. You go in and put all your information in. We have requests right now. I have requests in 2026 and 27 for weddings.
Speaker: So people plan, now we can't guarantee that he'll be there until 30 days ahead because we don't know what the football schedule is gonna be or the basketball schedule. I read about that and he cannot be at an event if there's another sporting event occurring at the same time. That's correct. He has bigger plans.
Speaker: He has a bigger plan. So that's one of Jill's main responsibilities, to schedule him. So about 30 days ahead, we start looking at all the events that are on the calendar, and whether it's a 5K or a bar mitzvah or a celebration of life, a birthday party. We do a lot of graduation parties for high school seniors that have graduated that are coming to Michigan State.
Speaker: So Jill sits and she calls it Tetris. I mean, that's her thing. She sits down and figures out the schedule. So when you put a request in, you might say, Hey, my, you know, my daughter's graduation party is from five to eight. We'd like Sparty to be there at six, but it's flexible. So then she sits down and looks at all the requests and says, okay, well, we can get Sparty there at, you know, at five 30, because then we can do an event before or event after.
Speaker: And she spends, that's her hours, just scheduling him and making sure he's there and confirming and getting all the information that we need so that once Barty and his safety coordinator get on the road, they have all the information that they need.
Speaker: So folks will pay for Sparty to work, you know, if they request party, there's a certain rate, but like, let's say they're doing a, something on campus or all the things that they do on campus, like part of the program. I mean, it's like the school of the school of education has them has party at an event. Are they funding that or is this part of the operations of the alumni department? Um, they're funding the, it's like the college of education. They funded that.
Speaker: because they know that we're part of, you know, that program is self -funded. Now there, there are some events that we do depending on what the significance of the event is that it's been, especially if it runs through our office. Cause basically I'd be transferring money from one account to another account within my own department. Sure. Right. So, you know, we, we just, we comp them even though, you know, we're, we're there. So it just depends on the event. But we, you know, because the program is self -supporting,
Speaker: Um, we do charge for commercials and we charge for, you know, his appearances. And, um, you know, even if someone comes in and says, Hey, you know, I just wanted my picture with Sparty, uh, you know, we're like, well, you need to reserve him because oftentimes people will just stop by our offices. Uh, my office is in the stadium and they'll be like, Oh, we just want to have a picture of Sparty. And I'm like, well, he's not sitting in his office. Right. And then we get that a lot. Well, I just want my picture. I'm like, well, he's not here. Um,
Speaker: And there are many people that don't realize he's a, we often get, well, they think he's a full -time employee. And we're like, no, he's a student. And that's, yeah, that's the whole thing behind the program. It's a full -time student, right? And we only take undergrads. We don't use graduate students just because of their schedules. And then the students, but they, on average, will do,
Speaker: You know, 100 events, they can do 100 events in a year. Some of them will after three years will do 300 events by the time they're done. Wow, that's incredible. What does Sparty's training schedule look like? Are there? I don't have to know the details of like, signed up. He's, he's assigned a mentor. Okay. He's assigned a senior member of the team. And then they spend their time. They have a whole list of what, you know, what they've trained him on.
Speaker: Um, and then he'll, he'll start that practice. And part of it is, um, Sparty can't get dressed by himself. So his safety coordinator will need to address him. Right. I mean, he can't, you can't snap everything up yourself. Um, so they'll, you know, they'll teach him how to do that. They'll teach him, um, you know, you know, how to, how to get dressed, how to make sure there's 13 parts to his suit.
Speaker: how to make sure that it's all there and he's all dressed together. Because once they put the head on, they don't talk. So we teach them all the sign language that we know by being with him, we can tell when it's time for a break or that type of stuff. So we work with that. And then he goes through and he'll go out in time. Most of it is done internally in a locker room. And then when they're ready, they'll start taking them out a little bit at a time.
Speaker: but they videotape them, they take pictures of them, so they'll be like, hey, you know, this is, we saw this, you might want to try this, or we want to do this, because the goal is that there is one Sparty, so he looks the same. So they're very conscious about how he walks, you know, how he moves his arms, how he moves his legs. So it's pretty a detailed program for the training.
Speaker: That makes sense. So the work that you've done, Ashley, you've talked about all the data you've collected. Have you presented this as research yet anywhere? Yeah. So actually earlier this year we had a poster presentation at the annual meeting for the American College of Sports Medicine. So that was pretty exciting to be able to actually put our research on paper and, you know, show it to
Speaker: a lot of people and just kind of raise some awareness. So we've done that. We also are looking to publish some of the data later this year. So hopefully a manuscript will be coming out here once we collect a little bit more so that we can actually share it a little bit more.
Speaker: widespread. But yeah, that's kind of where we're at. We've done a couple abstracts. We have some data from several years ago before we had the technology that we have now we did some just basic heart rate monitoring and compared it to some soccer data. So that was I want to say in 2019 2020 and then we kind of hit COVID had some time that we weren't able to collect data and then we're able to get back into it. But yeah, at this point, we've
Speaker: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, so we also have an on -campus research forum. So it's called URATH University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum. So it allows students to go and present research that they've been assisting with. So we have some research assistants within the alumni office who took some of the data and were able to do a poster presentation on campus to their peers. So we've been able to share some of that data as well, just internally for the MSU community.
Speaker: had our abstract or poster presentation and we're looking to now publish some of that data.
Speaker: And where is this going to go in the future? What are your plans for the future for research?
Speaker: Great question. We would like to expand and get some other mascots involved. So we've already started talking to some of the other programs in the Big 10. So we went to the Big 10K a couple weeks ago with all the mascots. They were all there. So we've been able to chat with some of the other programs and just see who's interested. So I think it would be interesting to do just a comparison across different mascot programs and different suits because they are vastly different what they're wearing and
Speaker: Even the demands and the activities that they do. So some mascots are just much more emotive and the activities that they do are very different and the personalities. So I think it would be interesting to see what kind of responses we're getting from these different.
Speaker: mascots essentially. So doing that and then just raising awareness for just mascot health and safety in general and just making even just medical professionals, event staff, people aware that there's someone in this suit and that you know they may need some help at some point because
Speaker: We've talked to so many physicians and people at these different events that we've been to, and they just are like, oh, I never really thought about it. But yeah, it probably gets pretty hot in there. So just making people aware that, hey, this is another population that you may be caring for, even though you're here caring for a football team, right? But this is someone else that could have an emergency, hopefully not, but they could have some kind of health situation that we need to be aware of.
Speaker: So that's something that we're really passionate about too, is just raising awareness and the need for resources for these programs so that the students and yeah, everyone is just staying safe and healthy. Where can people go for more information about those resources?
Speaker: Yeah, that's a great question as well. So right now, we're just working on internally developing kind of some protocols. So we, I'm happy to share like our abstract and everything with the information that we have. But there's I mean, I would recommend going through if you're a university program talking to university health and safety, environmental health and safety for protocols and those kind of things within
Speaker: your specific university or your specific program, because it seems like everyone kind of has their own set of regulations that they want to follow. So at this point, we don't have anything official for mascots. Like I said, we're kind of at the forefront here trying to collect information before we start giving out, you know, hard recommendations or protocols. But that is something that we're hoping internally that we can at least develop, you know, some kind of steps and guidance that eventually we could share with other programs.
Speaker: So we've worked with the university physician, like we've met with the university physician. I have reached out to the deans of the medical schools and said, hey, here's what's going on because they're seeing me, you know, they start to see me at these events and I'm like, okay, wait a minute. You know, they're starting to put two and two together with, okay, she's there, Sparty's here. And then when they see me outside, usually the question is, where's Sparty?
Speaker: But we've been meeting with the University, the Environmental Health and Safety Department, because there's some new rulings coming out for heat stress that we're looking at that. And then I received some information from one of the departments about the fact that, you know, what's the Department of Defense doing with, you know, firefighters and, you know, looking at these other people and
Speaker: So there's a lot of people now that are going, oh, yeah, how does this really fit? And where does it fit? Because when I first went to the Department of Kinesiology, Dr. Ferguson, who was there, Dr. Ferguson, right? Who was there? Yeah, Dr. Ferguson and Dr. Provarnik. Yep. Yep.
Speaker: He was focused on race car drivers, right? And that was our big thing was like, he did his research on race car drivers. And I'm like, well, I often hear, well, there's not enough data. And I'm like, he goes, well, how many race car drivers do you think we look at, right? We're like, that's when we started realizing that there is a need for this information. And when you talk to other mascots and coaches and hear about, they're like, oh, yeah, I didn't think about that. So our goal is really just to raise the awareness.
Speaker: Well, I can tell you as a Spartan alumni, I am very proud to hear that Michigan State is at the forefront of sports mascot medicine because it is definitely needed. I think I talked before about how performing a friend of mine was the mascot for the Detroit Tigers. He was paused while we were both at Second City and he would talk about how much weight he would lose and how wiped out he would be. And he would.
Speaker: have to schedule his performances with us around when he's performing with the Tigers, because he'd be wiped out for a day and a half. And when I started doing more and more of thinking about this, like, well, I can imagine it's got to be rough. And I heard about you guys and your work. So I'm very impressed with what you've done so far. We are very happy to have you on the show. This has been wonderful. I hope you guys get more recognition for your program. Again, if people want to learn more about Sparty and getting Sparty for their wedding, where can they go?
Speaker: So they can go to www .requestsparti .com, sparti, S -P -A -R -T -Y .com. Sparti has his own email address.
Speaker: So they can actually email Sparty, Sparty at MSU .edu. And then of course his webpage, which is off of the alumni website, alumni .msu .edu. He has his own set of pages on the history and the Sparty alumni and how to request him and all that information is available on the website. And you can always call the alumni officer called Michigan State and ask for Sparty and it'll eventually get to one of us and we'll get that information.
Speaker: Well, Sue, Ashley, good luck and everything in the future. And thank you very much for being on our show. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Go green. Go white. And that brings us to the end of another episode. Remember, if you like what you hear, please feel free to leave a review and tell your friends as well. For Yasi Ansari, I'm Stephen Karaginas, and this has been the Athletes and the Arts Podcast.
