Who’s Inside the HokieBird

Tech had a live turkey on the sidelines for decades, and a costumed Gobbler showed up for at least one game in 1936. The costume as a real tradition starts in fall 1962, with a civil engineering senior named Mercer MacPherson, Class of 1963.

MacPherson had seen the Pitt Panther and the Nittany Lion and wanted Tech to have its own. He got a $200 quote from a Pittsburgh suit maker. He raised $180 from civilian students, and the Student Body Senate paid the rest.

The suit had a cardinal-like head and real turkey tail feathers dyed in school colors. MacPherson called it “a thing of beauty.”

It arrived days before the 1962 Thanksgiving game against VMI, the “Military Classic of the South.” Nobody else would put it on, so MacPherson did, and he mingled with the Highty-Tighties at halftime. Not everyone was charmed. A letter to the student paper complained that the Gobbler had become “a very large pest.”

Thornton Goode, Class of 1967, wore the suit for three years. Fans kept plucking the tail feathers as keepsakes, so he sometimes swapped in crepe paper.

In 1968 the student chosen for the suit flunked out. Pam Gunsten, health and physical education Class of 1970, took the job and became Tech’s first female mascot.

At the 1969 Thanksgiving VMI game, VMI cadets planned to grab the Gobbler. Tech’s players closed ranks around her instead.

In fall 1971 a new long-necked costume debuted. It stood about 7 1/2 feet tall, and the name became the “Fighting Gobbler.”

Karen Dillon, urban affairs Class of 1975, wore that suit for three years. At the 1973 NIT, national announcers Pat Summerall and Don Criqui kept calling the Gobbler “he.” Her father sent Summerall a telegram to correct them. Cheerleaders fed her drinks through aquarium tubing.

The first “Hokie” bird costume came in the early 1980s, and Tech’s own sources split on whether it was 1981 or 1982. Art student George Wills drew the designs, and a Cleveland company built the suit. The traditions booklet says it arrived by helicopter, and people called it the “diving bell costume.”

In 1986, after the Peach Bowl, athletic director Dutch Baughman wanted a new HokieBird logo. Wills drew the big-chested bird for a $75 fee, and Peg Morse of athletics reworked the costume to match.

That bird made its debut on September 12, 1987, at the season opener against Clemson. At halftime a white limousine drove into the end zone, escorted by the HighTechs and two interns dressed as Secret Service agents. Some fans thought the governor was arriving. Out stepped the HokieBird.

VT News marked the bird’s 38th birthday in September 2025.

Virginia Tech Magazine took the 2002 suit apart piece by piece. Orange feet go over the performer’s own sneakers. Then orange leggings, a padded vest with two hula-hoop-style rings to shape the chest, a body suit from knees to neck, and Velcro hands. The head sits on a bike-style helmet with a chinstrap.

Seeing out of the head is like looking through two paper-towel tubes, according to former bird Barry Ellenberger, Class of 1991.

It is also hot, and every bird has a number for how hot. Peg Morse said in 2002 that performers lose 7 to 8 pounds of water weight every time they suit up. A bird from 1995 to 1997 said seven pounds per half. Amy Wells, who wore the suit from 1995 to 1999, put it at about five pounds a football game. Virginia Tech Magazine lists 10 pounds as the most lost in a single day.

Bill Berry, Class of 1984, has the worst story. He said he lost about 15 pounds at his first game, a 100-plus-degree day against Richmond.

The job pays the program back. Appearance fees fund the spirit squads, and in 2011-12 the HokieBird made 88 home athletic appearances and 181 private ones.

Former birds describe a short list of rules. No talking in costume. No taking the head off or showing skin in public. Keep your identity secret. Stay in character. And never let two HokieBirds be seen near each other.

That last rule matters, because there is more than one person in there. Virginia Tech Magazine counted four students sharing the duty in 2002 and five students with four costumes in 2011-12. Officially, the HokieBird is gender neutral.

Some of the fun is scripted. After Tech joined the ACC, fights with rival mascots had to be planned out ahead of time. The visiting mascot usually lost.

Some of it is not. Former birds recall that when Tech was winning, students would pass the bird up through the student section.

Here is the payoff for all that secrecy. Students who served as the HokieBird stay anonymous until commencement. Then they walk into Lane Stadium in the procession wearing the HokieBird feet.

Virginia Tech Magazine says 1987, the year the modern bird debuted, is “most likely” when the feet tradition began. Years of sweat and silence, and the thank-you is a pair of giant orange feet in front of everyone.

The bird has collected honors too. It was named to the 2013 Capital One All-America Mascot Challenge team, one of 16 mascots. A bird from 1995 to 1997 cited winning the 1997 NCAA Mascot Championship. Wikipedia credits Curtis Dvorak with a National Cheerleading Association title in 1996 and Todd Maroldo in 1997.

Both went pro. Dvorak became Jaxson de Ville for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Maroldo became Sir Purr for the Carolina Panthers, then Slamson for the Sacramento Kings. Not bad for a job that started because nobody else would wear the suit.