Mascots in Training
The Associated Press

FORT MILL — With summer about to arrive, people are heading to baseball camp, soccer camp and football camp.

At Knights Castle on Friday, they held mascot camp.

There were 11 hopefuls learning from Joby Giacalone, the original Homer the Dragon at Charlotte Knights games.

Giacalone, Homer from 1989 to 1993, taught his pupils how to walk funny and scowl at umpires. He taught them to stare wistfully at a desired object, like a piece of pizza. Mostly, he taught them to have fun at the ballpark.

"That's what it's all about, really," Giacalone said. "That's why mascots exist."

Giacalone wanted the class to know that the good mascots carve out their own personalities.

"People don't realize the talent and quirkiness it takes to be a good mascot," he said.

The class cost $100 for the mascots, who ranged from beginners trying to break into the business, like 16-year-old West Virginian Andrew Hill, to Myrtle Beach native Kimberly Miller, the group's lone female and a working mascot.

Most of the mascots at Giacalone's class work for minor-league baseball or soccer teams.

Giacalone, director of programming and systems development at the University of Virginia and founder of Mascot Consulting, was joined by Charlotte resident Brett Rhinehart, a former pro mascot who gained fame with a much-publicized accident as the Seattle Mariners Moose.

Mascot Consulting assistant Humphrey Liu also helped teach the class.

Giacalone's biggest tip for success: "Try every gimmick you can think of, once. Don't hold anything back. It might make the difference between making $20 a night at a minor-league park or making big bucks in the majors."

Rhinehart said most professional mascots make less than $30,000 a year, while the best in the business can earn a six-figure salary.

"Whether we admit it or not, everyone who wants to be a mascot wants to be the center of attention," Rhinehart said.

That surely happened to Rhinehart.

In 1995, working as Mariner Moose, Rhinehart crashed into the center field wall while being towed on in-line skates behind a four-wheel-drive truck. He dislocated an ankle, had a compound fracture in the other and dislocated a knee in the accident, which occurred in the 1995 American League playoffs.

The scene was replayed over and over on national television. It earned The Play of the Year honors from ESPN.

"There are a lot of injuries involving mascots," Rhinehart said with a laugh.

Among the 11 mascots at Knights Stadium - who all joined Homer for his 13th year anniversary celebration at the Knights game with Richmond on Friday night - three were nursing injuries of their own.

They say it's all part of the job.

"When you put on the mask, you become someone else," Rhinehart said. "You can be Tigger or John Wayne."