Hooter
At a small college in Maryland, a timid loner digs deep to find the courage to stand up for what he believes in. Only like with many big decisions, he learns it will come with a terrible cost.
Published Christmas Day, December 25, 2024
Transcript: Hooter
[ 1970’s music ]
HOST: Today on campus, it’s 1979. Rod Stewart has been asking everyone relentlessly if we think he’s sexy and if we’d want his body. Eric Clapton just married Patti Boyd, the ex-wife of Clapton’s friend and Beatle George Harrison. But they’re not the only ones acting so brazen during this time.
At a small college in Maryland, a timid loner digs deep to find the courage to stand up for what he believes in. Only like with many big decisions, he learns it will come with a terrible cost.
Stay tuned for this inspirational tale, a lesson in life not found in textbooks or online lectures – The bravest person is often the one that stands up first.
[ Marching band music ]
This is Once, In College. I’m Pete Griffith. Today’s episode was sent in and written by an anonymous author. The reason is not as cryptic as it sounds, trust us. But we will get to that later. Class is about to begin.
[ Bells from campus tower ]
[ Owl hooting in distance ]
NARRATOR: Tyler was a bit odd. A strange one of sorts. It’s hard for me to explain, really. He wasn’t mentally challenged or anything. In fact, just the opposite. He excelled in the engineering program at our college taking trig and physics. That sort of smart. So besides having some rather thinner than usual arms, he really didn’t look odd or much different than most kids before they are twenty.
His hair hung over his eyes. Probably more than was needed. But on the right kid with bulging biceps, that some hair would look fashionably hot. There was no question, Tyler errored on the side of geek. But not the nerd type, if that makes sense. In fact, there really wasn’t much about Tyler that stood out. I guess that was the thing. Tyler was just the type of person that was never really gonna stand out.
[ College kids on campus ]
I say all this but I didn’t know much about Tyler. I can’t remember ever talking to him. I was a journalism major and conjured up most of my opinions about him based on nothing more than literally crossing paths with him walking from to and from our classes. That, and we both loved basketball. Neither of us had a snowballs chance in hell to be on the team, or any team for that matter, really. But we were both there in the stands at every single one of our fighting owls game. Even when we were practically the only two fans in the entire cheering section.
[ Basketball practice ]
We weren’t a terribly big college. Below D1, D2. Even below D3. You could count our fans by the dozens, not thousands. There were no smoke machines, no trampoline jumping entertainers dunking on the court during halftime. We didn’t even have a mascot. Seriously. Not for basketball or football or any sport.
[ Owl hooting in distance ]
I’m not sure what idiot named us the hooting owls. Probably someone back before telephone lines scraped the large oak trees on campus where they once must lived. But a hooting owl now days really doesn’t evoke fear in an opponent or inspire greatness to our athletes.
Besides the cheerleaders and the parents that were either close enough to come and watch their kids play, we basically were the catalyst for school spirit. Tyler and I didn’t sit together at the games and neither of us cheered much. Nobody did and it would have been awkward. But we were both at every single home basketball game and even some of the away games that were close by.
[ Basketball game ]
So it was a surprise one night in December, midway through the season, when the score was close at the end of the third quarter and Tyler wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
[ Buzzer and whistles ]
When the buzzer went off, the players trotted to their respective benches leaving the court empty. Then the most amazing thing happened. An owl ran out onto half court. Not a real one, mind you, but one crafted out of felt and fake feathers and a helmet complete with beak and two large eyes. The owl hit center court, faced all 30 of us, raised his skinnier than usual arms now cloaked in cloth wings and flapped them up and down for all of us to cheer. Which nobody did.
We were stunned. But this strange new hooter kept egging everyone on. At that point, the coaches and players felt the anomaly of what was behind them and couldn’t help but look over at the refs to see if they should be worried. The refs saw what we did – some kid hiding behind a helmet with larger than normal eyes pouring his heart out to get everyone to cheer. He wasn’t going anywhere until he heard cheering.
The refs quickly sized up that even if he went ballistic, there was little doubt his scrawny arms wouldn’t inflict pain on anyone. So the odd little felt owl kept waving and waving and wouldn’t you know it, pretty soon some of the parents who didn’t know better started to clap. One possibly and probably inebriated dad even let out a long playful hoot.
The cheerleaders were baffled. They were as surprised as the rest of us. Whispers among them inferred this owl was certainly not with them. Some of them sensed a possible threat of being upstaging. God forbid they would let that happen so they folded their arms and scrunched out their practiced sneers. The other, more opportunistic cheerleaders however, felt a new kind of rush from the crowd that they could capitalize on. They began to shake their pom poms for the owl. Truthfully, making fun of him at first, but then with some sincerity. When that transition happened, it was as if permission was granted to everyone else in the stands. It was ok to cheer. Which many did. And the odd little hooter owl started to flap even more.
A lot of the students in the stands either started to laugh or heckle or squirm. Nobody knew what to do with the awkward situation. I did nothing but sit there and take in the spectacle.
When the buzzer rang out again for the fourth and final quarter, and the players took back the court and the odd little owl with skinny arms ran to the stands. It caused two coeds he was heading straight for to scream. The felt owl stopped a few feet in front of them and gently bowed in the most charming way, then quickly held both his hands up for them to give him a high five. He bobbed his beak to egg them on. They left him hanging. Both of them. But he kept his hands up. And his head bobbing. For an excruciatingly long time. As if he was waiting for something. Listening for something. Which happened, as if he were waiting for it all along.
[ Shoes squeeking ]
At that moment, the sneakers of players on the court stopped screeching. The ball was high up in the air and the crowd, as they do, stopped breathing for a second. The entire gym, for just a moment, went silent.
There was no way that felt owl could have seen our player take the shot, or the ball hanging in the air. His back was turned towards it all. But at the exact moment the ball ripped through the net,
[ Net ripping ]
the felt owl dropped his hands downward in unison. Shoosh! Two points for the hooting owls.
[ crowd chanting ]
Something mythical took over at that moment. The owl started to climb the stairs of the stands and here and there, a few arms flung out to slap the wing of this strange new mascot. Most of the crowd embraced the oddity of it all and the weirdly winged owl was given the unspoken permission to be as nutty and crazy and enthusiastic throughout the game as possible. And everyone joined in. Well almost everyone.
A few Delta Delta something or other boys were not having it. The more the owl goofed around, the more they mocked him. First with lewd shouts. Then by getting up and mimicking his every move in not so subtle ways of making fun of him. These boys simply weren’t having it.
At one point, when the newly minted mascot came over to them to make friends, one of the boys in the group faked a friendship to do a belly bump with the owl. When the owl obliged, the kid knocked him hard enough back that he fall into the stands with a crack. The owl sat there a second, obviously hurt, and as the boys continued to laugh and taunt him. But the owl stomped his foot down on the wooden bleacher as if to stomp out the pain. Once. Twice. Then again. Then he clapped. A stomp, a stomp, and another clap.
[ Crowd stomping ]
Pretty soon the entire section was joining in.
I don’t remember who won the game that night. It was close and for some reason it feels like we won. Two minutes before the game was over, crunch time for any game, the owl scooted out. I can’t remember how or where exactly. I was focused on the game. But he wasn’t there for the last two minutes.
However, I do remember everyone hung out on the court after the game. That was easy to remember because something like that was rare. The players that night didn’t go straight back to the locker room as usual. They came over and flirted with the cheerleaders and even gave their parents some obligatory hugs. A lot of the students hung around as well, just to take in the vibe. I felt the mood myself and maybe the journalist wanna be in me hung around until the end just to see how it would all play out.
[ Nightime crickets ]
At some point I went outside and hung in the shadows. Probably had a smoke. I was too pumped to go back to the dorm but too poor to head somewhere for a late-night nibble. I watched he opposing team come out and get on their bus. A few of the boys that had been jeering were still hanging around when the owl rounded the corner near them, still in costume. I watched as the boys formed a wall in front of his path like a pack of wolves.
He was trapped but didn’t say a word, no matter how much the boys provoked him or called him or his mother filthy names. They couldn’t get any reaction from owl. No funny flap or reaction what-so-ever. He just stood there. Frozen. His giant fake owl eyes staring back deadpan. This angered the boys even more and one of them had had enough.
I’m not sure if it was from the beer or all the schoolyard harassment he had probably been through, but the leader of the pack suddenly and violently went off on the bird. He was smart enough to know not to hit the helmet as it seemed rock solid, but the gut was fair territory and wings were ripped and the body kicked badly a few times over and over and the owl finally hit the ground. I never heard a sound the entire time as he was taking the blows, as if he didn’t want to reveal his voice. He simply held on tight to his helmet so it wouldn’t be ripped off his head.
Two of our basketball players came out of the gym heading home and broke it up before it got too bloody. At well over six feet and in peak shape, they were not to be messed with, even from a pack of wolves. “Let him be,” bellowed the taller of the players, our center. The wolves growled back but the big men on campus pulled more weight than what was on their bodies. This became even more evident when a few of the cheerleaders ran over and pulled up beside the players and stared down the frat boys. The players put their arms around the cheerleaders and our star forward looked the pack in their eyes one by one. He reuttered the words slowly, “Leave him alone.”
I noticed the shoulders and beak of the owl in the ground raise up at bit. The frat brothers dispersed and muttered their last insults over their shoulders. When they were gone, the center held out his long arm and lifted the owl to his feet. Nothing was spoken but the gesture was big.
The players then turned to their girls and started to get chummy. One of the cheerleaders who was threatened by the owl earlier sensed the shift away from danger. She took the opportunity to whisper a snide comment loudly to the star as she wrapped her arm around him. He took the bait, acknowledged her humor and blurted out loud enough for everyone to hear, “Mascot? Pfft… Ass-Scot!” The shoulders of the owl fell.
I saw Tyler many times after that night, passing him on the way to and from our respective classes. I never spoke to him about that night. And I never saw him again at another basketball game.
I was angry with the frat boys for years. I was angry at the cheerleader and the player who calling Tyler an ass-scot and the hurt he made on him. A hurt more lasting than the kicks and bruises from the other boys. I continued to go to the games after that but no longer routed for certain players anymore. Pretty much all textbook passive-aggressive behavior. Kind of like the people who have a profile but never post anything on social media. They just sit back and watch what others say and do. Judging, but never adding anything to the story or pointing out when facts are false or people are mistreated or misrepresented.
Ironically that next semester I took a class, read a book and did a paper on the concept we’ve all heard, “Not taking action is also an action.” I used this exact story about Tyler for that paper and wrote about how I just stood there.
All that owl was asking for when he flapped his wings was participation. A plead to engage. None of which I did that night, or the many moments on campus after passing him between classes. I passed up at least a dozen or more opportunities to take even the smallest of actions. A simple flap of a wing in his direction.
You don’t always have to participate. But when it comes to what matters to you, or moves you, or motivates you, not taking action becomes your action. Not making a choice is also a choice. Not taking a side can be a clear sign of the side you’ve taken.
You don’t have to be the first to stand up. But when your time comes, you need to get up off your butt.
[ 1970s music ]
HOST: Today’s episode was produced by Marie Newman, Rob Wallace, and me, with a nod of thanks to Michael Henery, who contributed his sound design and engineering skills.
A follow-up to this story will be available to our subscribers and it’s crammed full of tidbits about mascots that left us shaking our non-paper-mached heads.
If this story of courage reminds you of someone you knew once in college, or even yourself, we’d love to hear about it. Leave us a comment or two, or visit us at onceincollege.com and connect with us there. We are looking for those unique or unusual bouts of bravery, big or small. Stories that you witnessed or lived through rather than read in books or heard in a lecture. Which reminds us…
We want to thank this anonymous author again for reminding us that at some point we need to man or woman up and take a stand. We tried hard to get him… well there’s a hint… to use his real name. But he told us that now that he has a direct connection with professional sports… another hint… we respected his wish to remain anonymous. But you know who you are and hopefully, you know how much we appreciate you and the bravery of sharing your story with us.
[ Marching band music ]
If you liked any of this, give us a like. Or share our podcast with someone who you may have done something courageous with back in the day. And if you want to hear our upcoming stories the moment they come out, as well as hear some bonus content that will pump you up, please subscribe to our podcast. It really helps us more than you’d ever think. More than our GPAs ever did.
Until then, I’m Pete Griffith, back next week with more stories like this, all from a time Once, In College.
[ Podcast theme music ]