Being Buzz

Find out what it’s like to step into the high tops of the world’s most famous Yellow Jacket.

Spring 2017 | by Jon Ross and Roger Slavens | Lead Photo by Josh Meister

Bobby Cookson vividly remembers New Year’s Eve 2014, a night he spent in Miami, Fla., cheering on the Georgia Tech football team as it outlasted Mississippi State to win the Orange Bowl. Thousands of the Tech faithful screamed their support from the stands, but Cookson was one of the most fanatical, and visible, spectators of them all.

He ran up and down the sidelines, egging on supporters. He shook the hands of countless fans. He performed front-and-center with the cheerleaders. He clowned around with players on the bench. In the end, though, he remained completely anonymous.
Cookson, ME 16, sees that Orange Bowl game as the highlight of the three years he spent playing Buzz, Georgia Tech’s beloved Yellow Jacket mascot. During his career as Buzz, he attended countless games, pep rallies and private events as the anthropomorphic character, but the Orange Bowl still sticks out in his mind for the sheer excitement of the game—as well as the sweltering, South Florida weather.    

Being Buzz was fun, but it wasn’t always easy.

“I was in the Miami heat for nine hours in a suit that automatically makes you hotter,” Cookson says. “And you can’t look or act tired because Buzz doesn’t get tired.” The thick, stuffy costume made the temperature, which was a balmy 81 degrees that day, soar to more than 100 degrees.  

“I drank countless bottles of water than day,” he says.

While Buzz has grown into an institution in itself—one overseen by both the cheerleading squad and the Georgia Tech Athletic Association’s marketing department—the mascot started out as a completely homegrown effort by Tech students. Over the years, a number of people have donned bee suits and antennae, but it wasn’t until the fall of 1980 that Buzz truly was born.

Then-senior Richie Bland made a short trip out from Tech on I-20 to Six Flags over Georgia to seek advice from the only people he thought could help him design a professional-looking Yellow Jacket costume. After all, the amusement park was full of plush, oversized animals that roamed among the attractions and entertained tourists.

Bland, Phys 81, had been planning an elaborate joke with his Kappa Alpha fraternity brothers that he hoped would serve as a nice memory of his days in college. He had already been accepted into medical school, so his stay at Georgia Tech was coming to an end. The time was right to go big before he “got out.”

The mascot performers at Six Flags directed him to their preferred seamstress, and so Bland, armed with bar-napkin sketches of a massive Yellow Jacket and the requisite $1,400 costume fee—funded in part by the Student Government Association and supported by the Ramblin’ Reck Club—set in motion the creation of a mascot that would change the face of Georgia Tech athletics.

“I kind of did it as a prank,” says Bland, who now practices medicine at the Tanner Cancer Center in Carrollton, Ga. “I didn’t realize it was going to take off from there.”

The early costume—which consisted of a bright yellow foam head, a chest piece and thick, two-inch-rubber tail, all of which weighed around 25 pounds—no longer exists. Sometime in the early 1980s, when the Institute needed to replace the threadbare costume with two new outfits, the original plush was dissected to create a blueprint for the next-generation Buzzes. And when the new uniforms were completed, the old bits of Buzz were thrown away.

Bland still regrets not trying harder to save that original Buzz costume. He also wishes someone had captured video of his performances. Black Converse shoes and a stack of old photos remain the only tangible evidence of his year-long stint entertaining crowds all over campus. But he has plenty of memories.

Bland fondly recalls introducing Buzz to the public during halftime of Georgia Tech’s game against the Florida Gators in September 1980.

“I hid the costume in the janitor’s closet and went down at halftime to put it on, and then I ran out on the field,” he says. “I actually got escorted off.”

After that initial, unsanctioned jog around the field, Tech officials asked Bland to lay low for a while. They liked the idea of the mascot, but explained that proper procedures needed to be followed. Bland soon re-emerged with the Institute’s blessing, cementing Buzz as an iconic counterpart to the Ramblin’ Wreck, the 1930 Ford Model A that has led the football team onto the field since the 1960s.

For the rest of the year, Bland inhabited Buzz for nearly every game, pep rally and event, dressing in secret so that nobody knew who was inside the suit.

However, again, being Buzz was fun, but it wasn’t always easy.

Bland had to sit out a football game against Auburn due to a death threat against Buzz. As Bland was getting on the bus for the jaunt across state lines, a few police officers pulled him aside. Because of security concerns, officials weren’t about to let Bland set foot in that stadium.

“I think some of the Tech students had pulled the tail off the tiger or something the year before, so the Auburn students were going to kill Buzz,” Bland says. “I’m sure it was a harmless prank, but Institute officials were not going to let me attend that game.”

In the nascent days of Buzz, the mascot’s guidelines were mainly up to its creator. Without much structure, the university let Bland create his own way of doing things. Though he said he went to NCAA cheerleading camp that year, most of the time when he went out on the field or the court, he just tried to act as zany as possible. There was one rule, however.

“They never wanted anybody to see that there was a real person getting into the costume,” he remembers. “They wanted it to be an insect—a character—and not an individual.”

Typically during the course of a school year, several Georgia Tech students share the duties of Buzz. And they are male and female and come from a variety of backgrounds and skills.

Erin (Kerr) Lovelace, ME 06, was the second woman ever to play Buzz. “I’m a third-generation Yellow Jacket and I grew up going to almost every Tech football game with my dad,” she says. “I spent games following Buzz around with my binoculars. From the time I was old enough to realize [there was a person inside the mascot costume], I wanted to be one of them.”

Lovelace’s first tryout her second year at Tech, she says, did not turn out well. “It was clear that no one thought a 5-foot-1-inch silly little girl had a chance, and after the tryout, I thought the dream was over,” she says.

But then at a Georgia Tech banquet later that year, she had the honor of meeting Susan Davis, ABio 91, the first (and, at the time, only) female Buzz. “She was a legend to me, and so positive and encouraging that I went back to tryouts the next year,” Lovelace says.

The second time was the charm, and soon she went into training to become Tech’s feisty mascot. “My fellow Buzzes at the time quickly taught me that being athletic and energetic wasn’t enough,” she says. “I had to practice for hours to become a believable Buzz, and then to make sure all our walks and movements matched. I even contributed a ridiculous new move—the Buzz handstand pushup. And the guys learned it, too. I don’t know how long it lasted, but it was fun at the time.”

Playing Buzz and staying focused on her academics was never an issue for Lovelace, who says that’s simply what she always expected of being a Yellow Jacket. “Buzz never affected my grades.  Sports and extracurricular activities should never be an excuse for poor classroom performance,” she says. “But likewise, rigorous classes should never be an excuse for not being involved in campus activities. The Georgia Tech experience isn’t just about earning the degree, but also about all the traditions and life lessons that come with it.”

Lovelace says she’s carried that Buzz mentality into her life after “getting out” of Tech. “I live just like I ‘Buzzed’—I work hard and play big and leave nothing on the table,” she says. “I even went on to marry another college mascot, though not another Buzz. I married one of the original Knightros from the University of Central Florida. Life is never boring.”

Her most cherished memories of putting on the Yellow Jacket costume circle back to what she first experienced in the stands of Bobby Dodd Stadium as a child. “All I ever wanted to do was make those magical moments for other kids who came to Tech football games with their dads, but who really came just to see Buzz,” Lovelace says.

The qualifications for playing Buzz are laid out even before students sign on to become the character. In tryouts, the cheerleading coach judges candidates on a 90-second improvised skit, how they respond to hypothetical situations and, most important, how well they can keep a secret. Dressing in surreptitious locations—securing foam armor over a base-layer of compression shorts and a T-shirt—and hiding your identity from even close friends is all part of the job, Cookson says.   

The only people who know the men and women under the suit are the cheerleaders and the Athletics’ marketing department.
The public has to wait until each performer “gets out” of Tech for an official unveiling. At commencement, each graduating Buzz is carried across the stage by a costumed Buzz, an unmasking ritual that has become yet another impish Tech tradition.

In the midst of all this secrecy, there’s plenty of activity. Buzz performers routinely awake at 5 a.m. to get ready for morning cheer workouts, Cookson says, emphasizing that juggling classes with portraying Buzz can be a challenge. And every semester is crammed with games and campus events that demand Buzz’s presence. The Institute does offer students a scholarship for being the Yellow Jacket mascot, but this money is simply a nice perk and not the motivation for becoming Buzz.

For Cookson, just like Lovelace, the job was the pinnacle of a lifetime being around Georgia Tech.   

“I’ve been a Georgia Tech fan my entire life,” he says. “My dad went to Georgia Tech in the 1980s, my sister just graduated with her PhD—we’re a Tech family.”

Previous performers have used their Buzz experience as a conversation point on resumes, but for Cookson, his time in the costume has driven his post-college career. Cookson is a professional circus performer who teaches at Akrosphere, an aerial and circus arts training ground in Alpharetta.  

“I joined cheerleading because of Buzz, which in turn helped me with tumbling, which in turn helped out my circus career,” Cookson says. “And it made me work and develop a group of friends that I really didn’t have as much my freshman year at Tech. It was a huge opportunity that helped me experience a fulfilling college career.”

FROM YELLOW JACKET TO IMPISH INSECT:
Georgia Tech’s nickname didn’t originate with the buzzing bug, but rather the penchant for fans of Tech to wear yellow sports jackets to football games to show their support for the team. At the time, gold fabric was expensive and rather rare, so yellow was the next closest substitute and was also widely used on early Tech sports jerseys.

In 1905, Tech football coach John Heisman declared that he and his boys wanted to be officially known as the Yellow Jackets rather than the Techs or the Engineers or the Blacksmiths. The name stuck, and soon after, the Atlanta newspapers began publishing cartoon images of a yellow jacket—often stinging the opposition’s players—to represent Tech teams.

The first Buzz mascot created in 1980 closely resembles today’s Buzz, who has human arms and legs, as well as a huge head and big eyes.

MASCOT MAXIMS: To play Tech’s Yellow Jacket mascot to a “T,” you have to follow these five key rules:

1. Buzz always wears black Converse high tops and white gloves.
2. Buzz never stops moving—he is always full of energy. You should never see Buzz standing still (and even if he pauses for a moment, he’s tapping his foot or moving his hands).
3. Buzz is mischievous and always getting into trouble—messing with fans, stealing their hats or sunglasses, taking selfies with someone else’s phone.
4. Buzz keeps his or her identity secret for as long as each student plays the role. At commencement, graduating Buzzes are carried across the stage by a current Buzz (in costume), thus revealing their identities.
5. Buzz is never at two places at once, even though multiple students may play him on a given day.