Former mascot tells tale of triumph

By Brittany Andrews
Staff Writer

When most people picture who would be an average school mascot, they picture a guy who is at least six feet tall with anywhere from a skinny to muscular build. Who would believe that a five-foot girl with a small build could be a mascot?

“I was always told by people that I was too short, but I didn’t care, I still wanted to try and see if I could do it for UNCP,” Lisa Stewart, a UNCP senior, said.

Stewart became the second woman to represent UNCP as the Tommyhawk in the spring of 2005.

The president of her sorority, Katherine Greer, had been the first. Stewart credits the Tri-Sigma president for encouraging her to tryout for the school mascot, but she also explains that she always had wanted to dress up in mascot costumes.

“My family and I find this really funny because when I was about 8 years old I was at Disney World with my family and we got to eat breakfast with the stars and the minute the characters came to my table I started screaming and ate breakfast under the table,” Stewart said.

She thought it would be fun to dress up in costumes and do silly things one day. Instead of doing this at amusement parks, she decided on sporting events.

As the Tommyhawk, she got to wear two very distinctly different Tommyhawk costumes.

One costume zipped up in the back and her hands and feet would stick out. She had gloves to put on over her hands and little straps on the feet to put on over her shoes and then the head would go on.

Stewart wore this costume the most because it was easiest to maneuver and she could see better through the mask.

“With this costume, because it was loose-fitting, I was able to wear basketball shorts for basketball games and a wrestling suit for wrestling matches,” she said.

The second costume, according to Stewart, was worn mostly for pictures at events like the Pembroke Parade because it was a lot newer and nicer, but she said it was very hard to move around in and hard to see out of.

It was like having blinders on and there was no need for her to wear gloves because her hands did not make it out of the armholes, she said.

For Stewart, some of the good things about being the Tommyhawk were that she got to show off school spirit and do something she always had wanted to do. Some of the bad things were that people would hit her in the head, try to trip her, give her dirty looks or just flat out ignore her.

Her most memorable moments were dancing with children who did not run away from her, mocking the band director with his back turned and losing her mascot foot at the Pembroke Parade. This happened because the cheerleaders were walking too fast and could not hear her calls for help.

Her advice to future Tommyhawks is to just have fun, put heart into being the mascot and have school spirit.