The Big Dawg: Brutus is the face of Ferris State and is involved in sport­ing events, vis­i­tor days and cul­tural events on cam­pus. Photo By: Brock Copus | Photographer

From sport­ing events to home­com­ing to recruit­ing, Brutus is often the first image peo­ple see when they get to Ferris. He is usu­ally the one cheer­ing the loud­est, caus­ing the most ruckus, and even the one­hav­ing time to make a kid smile at any event.

Brutus, our beloved Bulldog, is the face of Ferris State University and has become a piv­otal part of our Ferris career. From our first infor­ma­tional meet­ing back in high school to our grad­u­a­tion date, Brutus has been right at our side mak­ing sure we are top dog, behind him, of course.

Since the mas­cot has to be seen by many, not just any Bulldog can be stand­ing in front of a crowd. It takes a spe­cial kind of per­son, and that is why the Student Alumni Gold Club takes great pride in its secret.

As a Ferris State cheer­leader and a mem­ber of the Student Alumni Gold Club, Jim Connors, a senior in chem­istry, knows all too well what it is like work­ing with the dog.

“I’ve been work­ing with Brutus for five years now, and it’s encour­ag­ing to be able to work with a fig­ure such as Brutus. No mat­ter what is going on, he has an abil­ity to bring out a pos­i­tive vibe and so far all the indi­vid­u­als who have been in the suit have been a blast to work with,” said Connors.

Brutus is no young pup either; he stepped out on the ice over thirty years ago and the Bulldog has been going strong ever since.

Brandi Behrenwald, the assis­tant direc­tor of Alumni Relations at FSU and Student Alumni Gold Club advi­sor, tells us that Brutus wasn’t always around.

“Ferris used to be called the Spartans and then in 1931 a sports­writer wrote a col­umn ref­er­enc­ing us as the Bulldogs. It wasn’t until 1979 at a hockey game against the University of Michigan – Dearborn Brutus stepped out and made his first appear­ance,” said Behrenwald.

With such an honor sealed at its lips, the Student Alumni Gold Club has to keep the iden­tity of the Bulldog a secret. Brett Kage, the most recent Bulldog, stresses the impor­tance of mak­ing sure the secret is kept.

“There are over 40 mem­bers in the club, and those mem­bers have to sign a con­tract say­ing they will never tell any­one out­side of the Student Alumni Gold Club who Brutus is,” said Kage. “Seriously, you become a great liar. It sounds bad, but it is all in good fun. When peo­ple ask you to come to a sport­ing event with them or they see you car­ry­ing a bag that is larger than you around cam­pus, you just come up with a lit­tle fib.”

Kage loved his expe­ri­ence becom­ing the Bulldog so much that he decided to switch his major and even rethink his career plans.

“I grad­u­ate in May and I am def­i­nitely con­sid­er­ing try­ing out for a pro­fes­sional mas­cot posi­tion. One of the rea­sons I switched my major from pro­fes­sional golf man­age­ment to mar­ket­ing was because many peo­ple who play the part of a pro­fes­sional mas­cot also work in the mar­ket­ing depart­ment for their sports team’s orga­ni­za­tion,” said Kage.

Keeping up with Brutus proves to be quite a task though. As a cheer­leader, Connors tries to keep Brutus tame even though he is quite an athlete.

“Him and I do a stunt where he stands on my shoul­ders and the first time we did this the crowd gasped because he looked like he was going to top­ple over. I knew he was safe but it was funny because the crowd was freak­ing out,” said Connors.

Along with sport­ing events, the dog is at every Bulldog Day, job fair, Bulldog Bonanza, parades, and a lot of the alumni events. With a sched­ule like that, it is hard for this mas­cot to relax.

“A typ­i­cal week­end could con­sist of a hockey game Friday night and then Dawg Days the very next morn­ing fol­lowed by two bas­ket­ball games and another hockey game,” said Kage.

Proving to be quite a ham in front of the crowd, this dog is not afraid to try new things, even when put in heated situations.

“Several months ago when we were debut­ing the new mas­cot suit, Brutus and the cam­pus pho­tog­ra­pher were shoot­ing some pic­tures in the hos­pi­tal­ity depart­ment and Brutus decided he wanted to do some cook­ing,” said Behrenwald. “As you can imag­ine, Brutus got a lit­tle too close to the open flames and had to drop the lit pan. Luckily, Brutus was not injured, but he did whim­per and whine a little.”

Since Brutus received his new look in September of 2010, the Bulldog mas­cot pro­gram has taken off and many orga­ni­za­tions and com­mu­nity mem­bers are request­ing Brutus at their events. Brutus even has his own Facebook page and with over 1,600 friends, it is no won­der he is top dog. n

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