Q&A with viral Colgate mascot

Erik Buchinger January 24, 2020 8:01 am

In case you’re living under a rock (or if you don’t spend your whole day on the internet like me), a video is going viral of a Colgate University mascot getting the Raider faithful FIRED UP during a women’s basketball game against Loyola.

The edited Snapchat video, with now 8 million views on Twitter, was actually from February 2018 when now-graduated Shoshi Stern-Robbins was a junior at Colgate in her first and last performance as the Raider mascot.

As we continue to be the most trusted news source in college athletics, we have an exclusive interview with Shoshi, the viral mascot.

So how did this happen? Well, the goal of Deceptive Speed to be the funniest, most entertaining college sports website on the internet. This is a funny video, and this is about college sports. Makes sense. I was getting ready to write a little somethin’ about this mascot situation when I decided to do something I’ve never done before:

Go above and beyond.

I noticed the person who posted the video had open DMs, so I hopped in and asked if she’d be interested in a quick interview. An hour later, I’m chattin’ mascots with a person on the other side of the world. Shoshi is from Boston but currently living in Sydney, Australia for work.

Anyways, here’s the discussion I had with the girl inside viral Colgate mascot suit.

Deceptive Speed: How did you get into the mascot game?

Shoshi: The school had a jobs page, and this was a Saturday so I thought hey, I’ll do this for a couple hours. I need money and I’ll make 20 bucks so I thought why not? I had a few friends come along to watch because I think they knew it would be pretty bad. I was way out of my comfort zone.

Are you a sports fan?

By default, I support the Boston sports teams where I’m from, but this was the only full game I actually watched while I was in college.

What have the past few days been like for you?

It’s crazy. I had gone to bed the day I posted it and woke up to seeing Sarah Silverman had retweeted it, and I’m like oh shit, this is getting big. I went from 187 followers to now over 1,500 followers.

What are some of the best responses you’ve seen from your video?

Some of the top replies were really funny. For the most part it’s been positive. Unfortunately, there were a few people who said things like, ‘In her defense, it was a women’s game.’ They can shut up and keep that to themselves. It’s sad to see in 2020 people are still thinking women’s sports aren’t important. It’s a D-1 team. They’re good.

There were three clips in that video. The first one is you standing there, the second is you clapping off to the side but the third one that is the reason for all the reaction because you were taking a seat by yourself in the bleachers. Were you just checked out at that point? How long were you in the bleachers?

Haha I don’t know, this was my first time ever mascotting. It was a two-hour game and we clipped like 13 seconds of footage. Maybe there were times I wasn’t doing as shitty of a job. I remember I high-fived some kids. Once, some woman asked me how I was doing and I started to reply, and she told me mascots aren’t allowed to speak. Haha nobody said I couldn’t talk. That clip was toward the end of that game and at that point, I was so embarrassed.

Were you given any training beforehand?

I wish I had better memory of this. Yeah I’m sure there was some sort of interview or training, but they gave me the suit and I went out there.

Colgate won this game 71-60 over Loyola. How much credit do you deserve leading the Raiders to victory?

I deserve no credit. The team was and is full of really talented women. I’m glad they won the day I did the absolute worst job as a mascot to make it feel a little more redeeming.

Were you asked to come back?

Nobody specifically said I did a great job, but they asked me to feel free to sign up for future games. I briefly considered signing up for some money, but everything was for weekends or during the week for road games. I was so uncomfortable and cannot believe I did that. I’m way too introverted to be a mascot.

Safe to say this will be your last game ever as a mascot?

Oh my God yes, for sure.