Underneath the mascot's mask

Nix Coppock and Brynna Bockhorst were in grade school when it occurred to them that they might be good mascots.

"I was [the mascot] at St. Vincent's, and I just decided I wanted to be the Bobcat," he said. "I'm very energetic. I'd dance around and just be goofy -- be myself. I'd energize the crowds, I guess you would say."

The gig was the perfect outlet for the puckish charm and high-energy highjinks that came so naturally to him. Coppock's antics were so impressive that Notre Dame Principal Brother David Migliorino approached him and asked him to be the Bulldog once he got to high school.

Bockhorst, however, who animates the Cape Central Tiger, is a mascot of a different stripe.

Unlike Coppock, she's not the incurable extrovert one might expect to be a mascot.

Nix Coppock, Notre Dame High School mascot wears the Pawz the Bulldog suit in downtown Cape Girardeau Thursday, Nov. 13, 2014. (Glenn Landberg)

"It depends on who I'm around," she says. "When I'm with family, I can be goofy, but I'm not super out there usually."

She doesn't crave the spotlight, but once it's on her, she knows how to deliver.

"It does feel good to let all that energy loose," she says.

She even enjoys the degree of anonymity afforded to her by that giant tiger head.

"Sometimes I see people that I see in school and they'll say, "Hey! It's the mascot!" and they'll come and take pictures that I'll see later and they won't realize that it's me," she says. "I think it's funny when that happens. There are some people who know that I'm the mascot, but not a whole lot."

Brynna Bockhorst, Cape Central mascot, wears the tiger suit Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2014 in downtown Cape Girardeau. Bockhorst is a junior at Cape Central High School and has been the mascot for 5 years. (Glenn Landberg)

Coppock, on the other hand, can't help himself.

"I'm the kind of guy that's always peppy about everything. Energetic all the time, and always in a good mood," he says. "Everything that a mascot is supposed to be and do and act like, I just am."

Although both perform in conjunction with their schools' cheer squads at events such as basketball games and football games, neither practices in the traditional sense.

"Mascotting isn't really something that can be practiced," Coppock says. "In cheerleading, you have certain moves or plays, but as a mascot you just go out there and you're wild and crazy and you just be yourself."

He likens it to stand-up comedy, where true spontaneity is unfakable and timing is everything.

"The more you practice, the more it's not real," he says.

Brockhorst's philosophy is the same.

"You can't practice being quirky. You just have to do what comes natural," she explains. "It's one of those things you just have to jump in and do."

That's not to say there isn't a learning curve to performing as a mascot, though.

"You have to learn that you can't really get fed up with people. There's always someone who's going to push you or pull on you," she says. "And the tiger has very little visibility so you have to pay really close attention to the people around you. I've stepped on a few kids before."

Both juniors, Brockhorst and Coppock are both nursing postsecondary mascot aspirations.

"I'd like to go do it in college," Brockhorst says. "Maybe go to SEMO [Southeast Missouri State University] and be Rowdy [the RedHawk]."

tgraef@semissourian.com

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