A Big Live Bird, A Little Dead Bird and Various Goings-On At The A-10
by Bill Kintner
CINCINNATI – Tiny Saint Joseph’s University of Philadelphia is known for several things. Most of them are basketball-related: going undefeated last year in the regular season, their zany coach, Phil Martelli, and that crazy Hawk mascot. That crazy Hawk has been flapping his wings for a half century as it celebrates its golden anniversary.
The Hawk is probably one of the better-known and certainly most memorable mascots in college sports. He is best known for staying in constant motion by flapping his “wings” from tip-off to the final buzzer of every game, as well as “flying” in figure eights around the court during timeouts. According to the Saint Joseph’s media guide, the constant flapping, along with the scrappy play of their athletic teams, helped spawn the school’s slogan, “The Hawk Will Never Die!”
Sports fans around the country have begun to take notice of this feathery mascot gone crazy. A few years ago ESPN used a “flap-o-meter” on a national telecast of a Saint Joseph’s game to estimate that the Hawk flaps its wings 3,500 times during a regulation game.
The Saint Joseph’s Hawk may be the most decorated mascot in the country, having garnered numerous accolades in its 50-year history. It has been selected as the nations’ top mascot by The Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Sports Illustrated for Kids, Street and Smith’s Basketball Yearbook and ESPN College Basketball magazine.
What, no Sports Illustrated for Women recognition? Those ladies wouldn’t know a good mascot if it bit them in the elbow! They are too busy watching soccer to notice the important things in sports. Stay tuned – there may be a much more valuable CigarBoy mascot award in the near future.
“It is the most prestigious position on the campus – more highly thought of than the coach, the President of the school and the Deans. All of the students who serve as Hawks have a responsibility to uphold the tradition. ‘The Hawk will never die’ is not really a slogan but a way of life and they have to epitomize that way of life,” said a tired coach Martelli after having just given probably eight interviews in a row.
What? More important than Phil Martelli, who is swamped by the media for interviews after every game? He is amazing, he just thinks he is another coach just doing his job. The truth is, almost any Saint Joseph’s fan will tell you, he may be the greatest coach to ever coach the Hawks.
Back the big live bird!
The Hawk has been around since the 1955-56 season, when student government raised the 120 dollars needed to buy the first costume. Yes, that’s right children – the Hawk is a person wearing a costume. It is not a real bird. But keep reading because later in this article there is a real bird that invades the Atlantic 10 Championship and he doesn’t live to tell about it.
The first hawk was an ex-Marine named Jim Brennan who donned the hawk costume for three years. Since then, 27 other SJU students served as the Hawk. In 2000-2001 season, Sara Brennan became the first woman to don the hawk costume. The Hawk has never missed a basketball game at Saint Joseph’s. Make that never missed a men’s game. That sports lovers, is an amazing streak.
Mike Tecce is the current Hawk and it is a good time to be the Hawk since this is the 50th year of Hawk participation. Tecce, who is certainly no geek, is a senior accounting major from Chalifont, PA.. He is pretty athletic, having played soccer for Saint Joseph’s his freshman year. To become the Hawk, he had to beat out 14 other students, who were chosen from a much larger number who submitted a letter to the Athletic Director stating why they should be the Hawk and what their unique qualifications were.
A panel that consisted of the Athletic Director, the current Hawk, and several members of the alumni interviewed those 14 students. From that group, four were selected to interview with Coach Martelli.
When asked what he said to Coach Martelli, Tecce described it as a “nerve wracking experience.” He said, “I explained how much it meant to me on a very personal basis. As much as it is considered one of the chief representatives of the university, it is also a very moving position. There is a lot of passion in it. That is something I picked my college on. The passion of me wanting to be there enables me to represent everyone. It also had to do with my service to Saint Joe’s and the fact that I wanted to be the Hawk since day one. The pulse of the schools beats through his feathers.”
When Tecce, who grew up not far away in Bucks County, PA was looking for a college, he applied to Temple, Villanova, LaSalle, and of course SJU. He visited all four schools, but as soon as he stepped foot on Saint Joseph’s campus, he knew instantly that it was the place he needed to be.
“It certainly was the atmosphere at Saint Joe’s,” reminisced Tecce. “But even more, it was the difference between Saint Joe’s and all the other schools. I went to visit the other schools and they seemed to talk at you and Saint Joe’s talked with you. The other schools told you about the university and at St. Joe’s they talked with you.” “They wanted you to interact. It was very welcoming.”
He also liked the sense of family at Saint Joseph’s. “The alumni seem to live through the students. There is definitely a bridge between the students and the alumni. They seem to take a real interest in the students,” continued Tecce.
The way the flapping wings work is that the Hawk will always flap both wings unless he is in the huddle with the team and then he can flap just one wing. Before the game Tecce will do some stretching exercises. During the game he will run figure eights on the court during time outs. Atlantic 10 Player of the Year Pat Carroll pointed out that Tecce broke the long-standing record of eight figure eights this year when he managed to squeeze out nine during a time out.
After this game, a freshly showered Tecce said he was “pretty tired and will probably feel more so tomorrow. This is going to be a pretty big surprise for me. I have never had to do two or three games in a row like this.” Adding to his fatigue are his duties as manager. He may be the busiest non-player in the group that travels with the team.
Besides being an ambassador for the university, Tecce believes that the best part of being the Hawk is getting to know the players. He says there is more to these guys than how many times they put the ball through the hoop. He thinks they are a great group of guys.
When Tecce grows up and becomes a real live accountant, pouring over some businessman’s books, trying to find some legal tax deductions, he will fondly remember his days as a part of the very exclusive feathered fraternity of Saint Joseph’s alums who have proudly worn the Hawk suit.
Atlantic 10 Tournament Notes
- Prior to the UD/Temple game, when the teams were in their huddles getting some last minute instructions and the cheerleaders were on the court, there was a loud racket up in the rafters coming from a ventilation shaft. After a few seconds feathers began falling on the court. Then a cut-up bird fell from the shaft after passing through the fan. The unlucky and dead bird landed with a thump as the cheerleaders scattered. Then more feathers fell as press row quickly evacuated. It took five minutes to slowly sweep up the feathers that fell all over the Dayton end of the court.
- There always seems to be something going wrong at the US Bank Arena. The day before the score board went out during the last game. A few years back when hosting the NCAA Frozen Four, the ice melted and the semi-finals were delayed for several hours. Of course, going way back to 1979, this is the building where 11 people died before a performance of the rock group “The Who.”
- In the first game of the day the Hawks faired much better than the bird prior to the Dayton/Temple game, posting a 63-51 win over Richmond (14-15). It was a game that never seemed to be in doubt, except to Metro Sports reporter Jason Ehrhardt who kept predicting that SJU (18-10) would roll over for the Spiders. He must not have heard that the “Hawk Will Never Die!”
- In the second game, Xavier (17-11) sent the La Salle Explorers (10-19) elsewhere to find a win, defeating them 83-70 before a respectable day crowd of 7,817.
- George Washington dispatched Fordham in the 6:30 game, 79-63, ending this chapter of a much improved Rams (13-16) basketball program. GWU dominated them in shooting and rebounding to improve to 20-7.
- Unfortunately for Dayton, the unlucky bird was sign of things to come as Flyers came out and laid an egg, losing to Temple 61-51. It was a game where the Flyers simply could not make a sustained run to overtake the Owls. A crowd of 7,221, mostly Flyer fans, watched the last match of a long day of basketball.
