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multimedia
I am Duck
I am Duck
story Katie Cornell | photo Conner Jay
Decapitated Donald Duck-inspired heads line wood shelves, and a rosy pink fat suit rests on a table. A bottle of fabric freshener sits next to a pair of large, plastic webbed feet with built-in athletic shoes. Before any game, tryout, or event on University of Oregon grounds, a small, musky storage room is the official dressing area of the Duck mascot. After about fifteen minutes of assembling the suit, one of four students will emerge from the dusty hideaway as something other than himself.
To fans, there is only the Duck. Dressed in a green and yellow sailor suit, the feisty fowl entertains hundreds of thousands of spectators each season, riding around Autzen Stadium on a Harley-Davidson, flirting shamelessly with cheerleaders on the basketball court, and joking with fans. During the off-season, he attends countless charity fundraisers and community events statewide. While the Duck is the most recognizable figure at UO, very few people know the names of the men who occupy the suit. Not even Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny or UO President Dave Frohnmayer could pick these guys out of a line-up without the 5-pound head, and although the men behind the mask agreed to talk about the Duck mystique, they won’t reveal their names. We’ll call them Kyle Smith, Todd Johnson, Danny Bowman, and Evan Adams. “When I put that head on and somebody calls my name, I ignore it,” Smith explains. “Once I am in costume, I’m Duck.”
Since the seventies, the Duck has adopted a few personas. He’s been a flirt, a philanthropist, a risk-taker, and the embodiment of UO school spirit. In the past year, the adrenaline junkies inside the costume have turned him into something more: a rebel.
“My goal is to get kicked out. Then you know you’re pushing the limit — you know, steppin’ on some toes,” Smith said in June 2007. And that he did on September 1, 2007: the Duck became a notorious overnight celebrity in sports media after an impromptu fight against the University of Houston Cougar at the Oregon football season opener. The punches and kicks started after the Cougar mocked a Duck trademark move — push-ups after each Oregon touchdown — propelling Smith into a feathered frenzy. Bowman, who donned the suit during the second half, ended the dispute with a spectacle of total Duck domination: a pelvic thrust to the feline’s snout. The mascot melee resulted in a two-game suspension for Smith and Bowman. The scene was captured on video and replayed everywhere from YouTube to international sports satellite channels.
Following the infamous Cougar brawl, the Duck became a targeted figure on other college campuses. Entering the Stanford University stadium for a November football game, Smith was stopped by police officers before he stepped onto the field. “We know what you are up to, Duck,” said one of the uniformed men as another policeman pulled out a breathalyzer. (Stanford University had cracked down on mascot protocol after an inebriated Stanford Tree was escorted off the basketball court in 2006.) Concerned with protecting his secret identity, Smith was reluctant to take the test, but officials threatened that Smith wouldn’t be able to perform without it. As the police huddled around him, Smith crouched down, lifted the head, and blew into the apparatus. It turns out the Duck isn’t a drunk, just a wild waterfowl.
But the Duck hasn’t always been so naughty. More than a century ago, UO students started identifying themselves as “Webfoots.” While some accounts trace the name back to a band of patriotic Massachusetts fishermen, others believe the Webfoots came from a local tale that people became so adjusted to the Eugene rain that they literally developed webbing between their toes. A live duck named “Puddles” began traveling with the football team in the twenties. By 1932, students and faculty pushed to shift the school’s persona to a more menacing mascot — all of the suggestions failed. An agreement between the first UO athletic director, Leo Harris, and Walt Disney in 1947 resulted in the university’s use of an image resembling Donald Duck. UO officially kicked off a new Duck Era in the seventies with memorabilia and merchandise that has since made the Duck an iconic UO character.
Since his debut, Duck has made some costume changes including a stint early this decade as the futuristic RoboDuck, Mandrake. Garbed in a sinister black suit and sporting six-pack abs, the extraterrestrial bird was quickly usurped by a loveable, chubby prankster in kelly green and sunshine yellow attire.
Executing the motorcycle rides, push-ups, and charity appearances are men who believe being the Duck is an honor as well as a thrill. “Only four people out of an entire university get to do this and practically nobody knows my name. It’s heightened my college experience,” says Bowman. Other than a small scholarship awarded to the captain during the first six months of the school year, the students commit to the physically demanding gig with no financial compensation. But don’t expect to hear any complaints; the mascots love losing themselves in the smelly suit. “The whole world is your playground. I just have fun. The suit leads me,” says Adams.
Johnson explains how he can waddle by someone in the suit and get away with stealing a skateboard, but he would never do it as himself. Bowman enjoys knowing that there are people who want him to hold their firstborn child for a picture. “It can be kind of awkward,” he admits. “But it’s like ‘Wow, they want me to hold their kid.’” Though he gets nervous holding infants with the huge fleece hands, he’s pleased to say he’s never dropped one. Adams loves attention and being in the spotlight. Smith feels confident that he is doing the job if he gets a reaction. “It’s a success if you make people laugh or really piss them off,” he says.
The process of becoming the Duck is more rigorous than some may expect. While a lucky few are recruited to try out, others show up on a whim, hoping for the best. Smith auditioned twice before he made the team. Johnson was recruited by a veteran Duck who jokingly asked him to put on the suit and simply run around. The Duck relies on exaggerated mannerisms to evoke emotions — he never speaks — and after impressing the veteran with his natural ability to transform into character, Johnson was asked to try out.
The current mascots all judge the would-be Ducks’ interviews and seemingly random assignments, including the task of getting a girl’s phone number. “Nobody ever gets a number,” explains Smith. “The girls always say, ‘How are you going to call me, Duckie?’” Recently, though, one auditioner brought back a piece of paper decorated with hearts and a number, area code and all. He got the second audition.
After a student is accepted as a Duck, the transformation into the character begins. Smith watched endless hours of Donald Duck cartoons to study the character’s body language: stomping when Donald is mad, baby steps when he is being sneaky, and scratching his head when he is confused. Johnson took a different approach. He walked around with a paper bag over his head (with a hole cut out so he could breathe) to prepare for the limited eyesight in the costume head. For Adams, it is all about improvisation. “I act first and apologize later,” he explains. However, they all agree that synchronizing their interpretations of the character is important. “You know you are doing your job if the people see the character, not the person inside of it,” says Smith.
There is one way to find out who’s behind the beak, but it’s rather personal. Each Duck, except for Adams, who awaits a trip to the ink parlor, is branded with a pair of duck feet on his torso, celebrating the transition from being a sideline fan to a certified athlete.
Although their mascot resumes are impressive, none of the guys plan to enter the professional world as NBA mascots or Disneyland characters. They simply enjoy seeing the world through a screen in a large orange bill. Bowman smiles as he explains that he’s finishing his mascot career. “I’ll leave it for the glory days.”