For the last four years at University of Idaho home games, Rob Gibson was called by a different name.
During football, basketball and volleyball games, Gibson could have been easily mistaken for a different character every Vandal is familiar with. He is seven feet tall, energetic and always wears a smile.
Seeing the Joe Vandal mascot in person means a lot to fans, Gibson said. He said people are always excited to see and interact with Joe. Despite all the changes over the years, he said Joe is a constant.
Lindsey Heflin | Argonaut
Vandal Joe riles the crowd at last weeks Vandal Friday.
“Joe is there to be a friendly, ‘Welcome home’ face,” Gibson said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, I am a Vandal, and t hat’s w hy.’”
Joe is there for the fans and the team, and Gibson said Joe’s goal is to initiate and encourage fan support. He said he spends most of his time engaging with fans personally, and a lot of improvisation is involved in his interactions.
“You have no form of verbal communication,” Gibson said. “You have no idea what these people are doing, what they’re thinking, how their day’s been, but you have to figure that out.”
But Joe isn’t the only mascot on the Palouse, as 30,000 cheering fans at Washington State University will attest to.
Shane Thompson graduated from WSU and portrayed Butch T. Cougar last year. He said certain moves he would do as Butch capture what the mascot means to the university.
“Think about what happens when Butch does ‘Go Cougs,’ and the whole stadium is following his every movement,” Thompson said. “He points to one side, and 15,000 fans cheer, and he points to the other side and another 15,000 fans cheer.”
Butch is everybody’s best friend, Thompson said.
“You can go up to anybody and they’ll love interacting with you,” Thompson said. “And they just wanna be with Butch, because they know Butch means WSU and they want to, like, feel the school spirit.”
Thompson said Butch’s goal is to energize people and bring out school spirit, especially during rough patches. Even if a play on the field goes badly and the crowd gets upset, Butch stays positive, he said.
The same is true for Joe Vandal. Gibson said everyone has energy highs and lows, and Joe has to help keep up the enthusiasm. He said he often stole cheerleader’s pompoms or took selfies with people who didn’t own the phone he was holding.
At a volleyball game, Gibson said Joe grabbed a napkin dispenser from concessions and handed napkins to half the fans in the Memorial Gym.
“The mindset is, and you can’t really say this, but Joe’s a jackass,” Gibson said. “The best part is no one really takes it personally. Everyone’s there to have fun. By going out and having fun myself, everyone around me has fun.”
Joe is also a big flirt, Gibson said. He said he proposes to one to three women a game, and is often accepted.
Thompson said Butch acts in a similar fashion.
“The way it was told to me, Butch is about 50 percent flirt and 50 percent prankster,” Thompson said. “He’ll steal people’s hats, switch people’s hats, stuff like that. If he sees a cute couple he’ll kinda wiggle his way into the middle of them and make sure that the guy knows that his girl has a new guy.”
A third-generation Cougar, Thompson said he understood that whether things were going well or going rough, Cougars stay true. He said when games are going poorly, fans will watch Butch more, requiring him to keep up the positive energy.
“It was cool to really see that from the personality of Butch and to be the personality that kept people at the games,” Thompson said. “Butch kind of just embodies the friendly school spirited, Coug-loving personality that a lot of the students on the campus embody.”
Thompson said he auditioned to be Butch the spring before his senior year. He said the idea hadn’t crossed his mind until he went to cheer tryouts, where he learned of the opportunity to be Butch.
“And I was like, ‘That sounds pretty sweet,’” Thompson said. “Who wouldn’t want to be Butch? Like, that’s the coolest person in the whole school.”
To help an acquaintance, Gibson became Joe for the second half of a volleyball game four years ago. Despite his experience as the Chick-Fil-A cow in high school, Gibson said he was terrified and wasn’t entirely sure what to do.
He said he began dancing to the music, and it was a big hit with the fans. He said the basketball coach approached Joe afterward and told him that because of that night, Joe was now a dancing mascot.
“Every person that brings Joe to life brings something new, and leaves something of themselves in Joe,” Gibson said. “Always provide him with more character, more love and appreciation and confidence and all of these positive things that have now built to become what we know today as Joe.”
Some fans have seen Joe develop over the years. Gibson said Joe began to visit all of the accessible seating areas in the Kibbie Dome during football season last year, where he said many older Vandals watch the game.
“This university made a large and positive impact on their lives and that has encouraged a loyalty over years and generations,” Gibson said. “When all is said and done, it’s those stories and those compliments that really feel honoring and privileged. It reminds me that we are privileged when we can be Joe Vandal and represent such great loyalty.”
Mascots often develop a loyal relationship with specific fans. Gibson said Joe proposed to a girl last year and afterward she took mock offense to Joe’s flirtations with other women the whole season. Thompson said it was cool to see the development with fans over a season.
“It puts a smile on my face,” Thompson said. “A little kid that was scared of Butch the first two games will come running up for a hug the third game when they wouldn’t even stand in eyesight of Butch a game or two earlier.”
The identity of the person in the mascot uniform must remain a secret. This way, Gibson said, fans relive the same mascot experience year after year. Once a mascot’s identity is revealed, Gibson said they are considered retired.
Thompson said spending his final year at WSU as Butch was probably the best senior year he could have had.
“It was just crazy to live that life senior year and really get to embody the school spirit as somebody who’s been a big fan my whole life,” Thompson said.
Gibson said being Joe helped him come out of his shell. He said it taught him to be confident, to trust himself and to enjoy life. He said it’s a part of who he is now.
“Fans, staff, faculty, students all mention to Joe how he touches their lives and the opposite is true as well,” Gibson said. “Every fan that he interacts with touches his life — he just can’t express that.”
Jack Olson
can be reached at