Question: You've been the Jazz mascot for 16 years. How long do you plan on doing this?
Answer: Technically, I think I could go for a long time, as long as I stay healthy. But I really believe it's just a matter of time when that next injury is — not a matter of if, but a matter of when and how severe. That's probably going to be my determination of when I'm done. (He laughs and continues) Now that you're going to write this, it'll print and I'll break my neck ... where's the wood? Give me some wood!
Question:How long do mascots' careers usually last?
Answer: I don't think there's really a career length. (He mentioned that the original famous Phoenix Suns Gorilla and the first San Antonio Spurs mascot lasted 20 years before calling it quits.) I'm at 16 — if I can do another four. Right now, I'm kind of the veteran guy in the league. But, knock on wood for me, I'm feeling really healthy. I feel that if I can continue to be healthy, I can go for quite a while.
Question: Are there things that you are not allowed to do?
Answer: The NBA put a ban on rappelling. A WWF wrestler (Owen Hart) fell from the rope and harness and died, so after that, they haven't let us rappel. We can't make fun of players. We can't get on the rim. We can't be on the court while play is going on. We can't mess with the referees unless they know about it. After this many years, I believe and I feel that I have a good rapport with referees. I respect them. I respect what they do, and I try to make them know that if there's ever a situation where I approach you and you're not comfortable with it or it's a bad time, just wave me off, and I'll go somewhere else. ... I go over and try to shake opposing teams' hands, coaches and some of the players. Some of the mascots go over and antagonize them, and it causes a lot more problems than it does benefit the character. I'd rather be seen, when the other team comes in, as somebody that they can trust and not walk over and have a hand buzzer in their hand.
Question: How hard is it to keep your real identity secret after all of these years?
Answer: For 16 years of being out in the community, I think the anonymity is somewhat still there. (For this interview, by the way, Bear talked but did not remove his mask.) When I first started out, there was hardly anybody in the office (who knew). We kept it very, very quiet. But lately, it's been getting out a little bit more and more. People think it's a little cool to be able to point at me and say who I am. It's kind of hard. It's starting to get out, but I do still, believe it or not, still have friends, really good friends, that don't know what I do. (I tell them) I just work game-ops.
Question: Was there a mascot that you admired most and looked up to?
Answer: The Chicken and the Philly Phanatic were two of first ones, then the Gorilla came and he was actually the first one that put mascots on the map as being athletic. He was the first mascot to dunk. He was an Arizona State University gymnast. (The Gorilla was) one of the guys I looked up to that I wanted to be. I think what's funny is when I was in Sioux Falls (as the Sky Force's mascot, a wolf named Thunder), he showed up to a game to entertain, and he wrote a message on the card, and it said, "See you in the NBA." We both kind of laughed at it like, "Yeah, yeah, whatever." The next thing you know, I'm calling him (after the Jazz hired him to be Bear in 1994), "Hey! I'm in the NBA!" So it was kind of cool.