There’s a man who has been part of my life for 34 years. I don’t know his name. (This sounds like the start of a Dear Abby letter.)
From the day I started this job, and for most of the time in between, Kankakee Community College’s mascot was two dimensional. The Cavalier lived almost exclusively in sports booklets, yearbooks and occasional marketing pieces. That’s it. Until recently, he was rarely seen in person.
Let’s address your two burning questions immediately: You’ve been at KCC since when?? Yes, I’ve worked here since 1992. What’s a Cavalier? He’s a swashbuckling character based on a 17th-century soldier. The word cavalier shares a common Latin ancestor with the French word chevalier (meaning horseman or knight). Our area has a deep French-Canadian history.
Our Cavalier mascot doesn’t have a name. Some have tried, with attempts including “The Cavalier Dude,” “Cavvie” and “Kasey.” None have stuck. We’re not sure when exactly the Cavalier was chosen as KCC’s mascot. It was in place in 1973 for sure.
The guy in boots and a feathered cap
Every indication is that the Cavalier didn’t debut as a live person until the late 1980s: A male student approached the cheer coach, Pam Ash, to join the squad. Pam saw an opportunity to use his talents interacting with crowds at games. So, around 1988, Pam ordered the outfit, and things went well. Pam gave this succinct, but meaningful review: “He was awesome.”
After finding pictures from the ’80s with a man in the mascot outfit, our research librarian, Rory Parilac, noted the “impressive mascot-stache.”
My first recollection of a human suiting up as the Cavalier is from 1995. My brother, Matt, pictured above, was the Cavalier who handed out roses to our women’s basketball players at their national championship reception.
Afterward, the outfit went back onto the hook. Without students embracing the mascot life, the costume was worn only a few times over the following 25 years. There were fewer sightings of the Cavalier than of Sasquatches at the local state park.
Time to modernize
About eight years ago, momentum rose up, and KCC modernized the Cavalier with a new suit. After getting the drawings, we handed out Cavaliers on a stick, printed a life-size cut-out and did what we could to embrace our big-booted, feathered cap fella.
However, the challenge of finding someone to be the Cavalier never left. We managed to create a “welcome video” and took some still photos. The mascot still appears a few times a year, which is more often than before.
This summer, we wrapped up a new Cavalier video that advertises that we are hiring a new student to portray the Cavalier. Tell your friends—because my brother is probably too tall for this suit, and I can’t walk in those boots.
Ellen Schmidt is the director of marketing and public relations at Kankakee Community College in Illinois.
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