I was the Lambuth Eagle

During my freshman year of college, someone found out about my time as the Alamo Red Devil in high school.   It was natural for them to ask me to help with mascot duties in college. I wasn’t very interested in continuing to do this, but I always aim to please, so I agreed to step into the rotation to fill Lambuth Eagle costume occasionally during basketball games.  The eagle costume was more elaborate than the one for the red devil in high school.  The eagle costume was built on a chicken wire frame for the body. The head was papier-mâché with a relatively small wire screened area to look through.  In this costume, I had less ability for my personality to shine.  In high school, I was Arthur in a devil costume whereas in college, I was just the eagle.  Yelling loud was one thing I brought to being the devil, but I was not about to shout to have the sound echo around inside that eagle head.  Other people that took the role of the eagle seemed to have a better feel for how to work inside this costume and I was happy to let them take the role as much as they wanted.  I enjoyed other hijinks in the stands with my buddies more than being on the sidelines as the eagle.

Most of my time as the Lambuth Eagle was uneventful except for one game.  That year, Lambuth was a contender for the NAIA championship, expected to go far in the tournament.  One of our biggest rivalries was with the Magicians from LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis. Our first game against them that season was at their school.  LeMoyne-Owen is an historically black college in a low-income, high crime neighborhood of Memphis.  The people from the neighborhood would turn out for this game in the same way you would expect a small town would support a local high school team.  And all the people from the neighborhood would show, including the ruffians that gave this community its negative reputation.  Add this element to a tense, longstanding rivalry between two powerhouse teams and you end up with a nervous visiting crowd from a school full of primarily white, middle-classed kids.  And I would be the nervous kid wearing an eagle costume. 

As time for the game got closer, the gym started filling to capacity.  While some people appeared to be students and faculty, most of the people that crowded around us appeared to be neighborhood basketball fans just ready to see a game and any participate in any questionable activity that night.  I stood with the cheerleaders at the baseline underneath one of the goals.  This goal was at the end of the gym that didn’t have the stage.  The crowd was elbow to elbow.  There were people standing on all 4 sides of me and I didn’t know any of them.  The wire frame that provided the structure for the eagle costume stood out from my body to give me buffer from the knives I imagined being carried by the people that surrounded me.  I felt like I was almost standing in bounds of the court but there was someone in front of me so that couldn’t be the case.  There would be no dancing or cheering from this eagle.  I was hoping to stand still and watch an exciting ballgame without any incidents.

But there would be incidents.  One of the stars of the Lambuth team was a guy named Tony that had gone to my high school.  During one of the trips up the court, one of the largest guys on the LeMoyne-Owen team hit Tony, knocking him to the floor.  It appeared that the hit was powerful and intentional. Immediately both teams started pushing and shoving and it appeared that an all-out fight would break out. It was mostly posturing by members of both teams.  But no one was paying attention to Tony who got up off the floor, staggered over to the Lambuth bench where he started folding one of the chairs, lifting it over his head to use like a weapon.  I became concerned but  happy to be in my chicken wire cage. Both teams realized what was about to happen and turned their focus on calming Tony down.  Someone from our team took the chair from Tony. Soon order was restored.  The Magicians wanted Tony thrown out of the game. Our team wanted the guy that hit Tony thrown out. The officials also understood that there was more to the story than my chair-wielding friend. No one was sent to the dressing room, but Tony spent the rest of the game on the bench.  The guy that hit Tony continued to play.  There was continued tension on the court and at least one more scuffle broke out a little bit later.  Again, Tony came off the bench, grabbing a chair, getting it into position to try to use again.  He was determined not to be hit like he was before.  His teammates were easily able to restrain him.  And his readiness to grab the chair caused the players to keep their tempers in check on the floor.

Not all the action was on the floor.  One of my friends was sitting on one of the folding chairs set up on the stage across the gym from where I was standing.  He had to balance on the back of the chair with his feet in the seat to see over the crowd in front of him. His girlfriend sat in a similar fashion in a chair next to him with her purse between her feet.  At one point in the game, she saw a hand come between her feet to try and grab the purse.  She was able to kick the hand and secure her purse.  Others weren’t so lucky.  After the game, several women reported having their purses grabbed and thrown over walls to be retrieved later by the purse snatchers. The Lambuth crowd was happy to get out of there with our lives and a victory for our team. 

Later in the season, the Magicians would come to Lambuth for the second meeting of the season.  I would not be in the Eagle costume for that game.  I enjoyed the game from the stands and enjoyed the antics of my fraternity brother who brought his own folding chair to this game.  The chair was hand painted black with white lettering that said, “Tony D. Protection Plan”. My friend sat quietly in the chair for the whole game with no incidents.  This would be the last time these two teams would meet for several years.  That would also be the only season I would be the Eagle.  The following year, other people would don a newly improved Eagle costume that reportedly had no chicken wire.