Brutus Buckeye is everywhere lately – from commercials for Home Depot and Sportscenter to appearances on “ESPN First Take,” the Ohio State mascot has gone from entertaining Columbus to entertaining the world.
But for cheerleading coach Judy Bunting and her four “Bruti,” as she calls them, it’s just part of the job.
“It comes from a variety of sources,” Bunting said. “Most of the people requesting (a Brutus appearance) really forget sometimes that they are students.”
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Andrew Aten, Brian Bunting (the coach’s sun), Nick Donadio and Craig Vild are the four OSU students who spend their free time masquerading as everyone’s favorite giant nut. Their responsibilities include flying all over the country when the national media calls.
Coach Bunting says the choice of which Brutus goes where depends simply on a fair rotation of the four. For example, she took the second-year Brutus, Aten and Bunting, to New Orleans for the BCS National Championship. It also depends on class schedules, she said.
“We don’t want one person to miss a lot of class,” she said. “The business majors tend not to have class on Fridays, so they tend to pick up a lot more of the Friday events.”
It was summertime, however, when Home Depot called about including Brutus in a commercial about buying paint customized to the colors of one’s favorite sports team. In the commercial, customers are seen purchasing various life-size representations of their teams, including a scene where a car drives away with Brutus strapped to the top.
“They flew me down there for three days,” said Aten, a pre-med junior in biology. “They paid for everything. It was a long trip.”
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Aten was most surprised by the amount of time he spent on set for what amounted to minimal airtime.
“It was a long shoot for probably less than five seconds,” Aten said. “It was several hours on top of a car in Miami baking. (But) they took care of me. They had fans blowing on me. It was nice. You would never think there was all that effort behind it,” he said.
Brutus was also featured in a recent version of the popular “This is Sportscenter” TV spot. The spots, which have run since 1994, often farcically show the behind-the-scenes lives of the anchors. The spot features anchor Stuart Scott describing the long days the anchors endure and the need to hire an athletic trainer. A cut-away shows that ESPN has hired fitness expert Richard Simmons, who leads the anchors and Brutus through exercises to prepare them for the motions they will be making during the show. Eventually, Brutus faints from exhaustion.
“I had a nice little bruise on my hip from falling,” said Vild, a senior in marketing. “It was well worth it, though. It was a blast. Richard Simmons is even more energetic in person than he appears. It’s amazing.”
It was Brian Bunting who got the call last fall when Brutus was announced as a finalist for induction into the Mascot Hall of Fame. He went on a week-long tour of several sports outlets on the east coast, including a trip to ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn. for an appearance on the ESPN2 show “ESPN First Take.”
Brian Bunting’s appearance on the show included a sketch with host and University of Michigan alumna Dana Jacobson in which they appear together entering an elevator. Later, the camera catches Jacobson leaving the elevator and stepping over an apparently unconscious Brutus.
“I got my revenge,” said Bunting, a junior in industrial systems engineering. In a later, unplanned moment, Bunting says he “saw Dana’s Michigan shirt and used it as a rag. She was not happy.”
The coach says that the commercial appearances don’t come that often, but the integrity of Brutus is always the first priority when she gets a call.
“We never let our costume go out without a Brutus, a person,” Judy Bunting said. “We think it’s important that Brutus is the same and that he’s always representing the university. Some production companies want us to send them the costume and we won’t do that. So, sometimes we don’t get to do things,” she said.
Judy Bunting said so much work is put into Brutus that it wouldn’t really be fair to send the costume out anyway.
“They care about what Brutus does and somebody else putting on the costume wouldn’t really care about that,” the coach said.
Pat Devers can be reached at [email protected].
