Burnie busted? Billy headless? Sebastian shot? Some crazy Miami mascot stories to tell
Miami’s sports mascots sure know how to make a name for themselves.
Longtime Dolphins fans may remember the sideline antics of Dolfan Denny. Really longtime Dolphins fans may even remember Flipper, the real Dolphin, doing dips in an end-zone tank at the Orange Bowl. And Heat fans may remember that Burnie had a huge basketball nose when the team was new in the late 1980s before he got a nose job, like so many other Miamians. He also got in trouble for his treatment of a fan.
Billy the Marlin once lost his head while trying to parachute into the stadium. UM’s mascot once got shot in the head by a stray bullet.
As you can see sports-team mascots in Miami keep busy. And with Dolphins and Hurricanes football season right around the corner, you’ll be seeing more of Sebastian and T.D.
Let’s go through the Miami Herald archives to see some of the stories and pictures of Miami mascots through the years.
Billy the Marlin loses his head
By Greg Cote
Published April 2, 1997
Please do not be alarmed if, upon retrieving the morning paper today, you happen to notice the disembodied head of Billy the Marlin in your front yard.
There is an explanation.
It lost its parachute while floating down to the ballpark.
See, a team of U.S. Navy SEALS parachuting into Pro Player Stadium before Tuesday’s opener was to include one SEAL dressed as Billy, the Marlins’ popular mascot.
All went as planned as the parachutist exited the plane in costume, but minus the pointy-billed head, which was attached by a harness and was to have been donned in midflight.
Then: calamity.
A wind gust detached the long-billed head, which spiraled crazily to earth - landing somewhere in Northwest Dade. Meanwhile the unnamed and presumably horrified SEAL, knowing he could not terrify Marlins fans by floating into the stadium as a beheaded Billy, steered his flight away from the park.
There is a happy ending, relatively speaking.
Turns out Billy the Marlin, a k a John Routh, has two costumes, including, of course, a spare head.
So Billy (the real Billy) was able to sprint out with a ball for Charlie Hough for the ceremonial first pitch as if nothing had gone awry. As if a Billy-clad SEAL weren’t floating off somewhere, red-faced, while a bodyless Billy head was crashing someplace else, its speary beak perhaps impaling the tire of someone’s Sport Utility Vehicle.
The normally mute Billy the Marlin offered the following exclusive interview to The Herald: “!” the mascot said, adding: “!!”
Cops to Burnie: Freeze, hairball!
Published Oct. 26, 1994
Burnie, the Miami Heat mascot, picked the wrong person to dance with in Puerto Rico.
What began as a light-hearted attempt at humor by the Heat mascot during a weekend NBA exhibition game in San Juan ended with a misdemeanor charge of battery leveled against the man inside the seven-foot, six-inch fuzzy orange costume.
Burnie - aka Wes Lockard of Davie - went too far after a woman in the audience refused to dance with him at last Friday’s Heat-Atlanta game at Roberto Clemente Coliseum, police said. “He pulled her by the right arm and broke her purse,” said Baltasar Vazquez, a spokesman for the San Juan Police Department. “She fell down. He then pulled her along the floor.”
The woman, Yvonne Gil de Rebollo, is the wife of Francisco Rebollo Lopez - one of the island’s supreme court justices.
Her encounter with Burnie drew laughter from the crowd of 5,215 fans, but Rebollo stormed back to her seat and quickly left the game with her husband and son. She claims Burnie left bruises on her right arm.
“I went through a terrible time,” Rebollo said Tuesday. She refused to elaborate. “I am trying to keep this quiet.”
Burnie and other Heat officials refused to comment. Burnie’s behavior wasn’t much different from what he does at most Heat games. Burnie wandered around Roberto Clemente Coliseum after the incident, sitting on fans and squirting some with a water gun.
Mrs. Rebollo called police Saturday evening. On Sunday, police went to the Coliseum and took Burnie to a court hearing to determine if there was sufficient cause to charge him with battery. The hearing began 20 minutes before the Heat’s game.
At the hearing, Burnie apologized to Mrs. Rebollo, who was present, Vazquez said.
But Judge Awilda Mejias ruled there was sufficient cause to charge Lockard with battery and ordered him to appear Nov. 16 at a preliminary hearing. Lockard was released on his own recognizance.
He did not perform during the Heat’s Sunday afternoon game.
Hey, hey, we’re the mascots
By Michelle Kaufman
Published April 27, 1997
It’s not just a job - it’s an excuse to get away with anything
A 40-year-old man is strolling down a Coconut Grove sidewalk on a sunny afternoon, minding his business, when he sees a muscular Miami police officer eyeing him suspiciously. As the officer approaches, the man extends his hairy arms, puts the cop in a headlock, and frisks him.
He gets arrested, right?
Wrong.
He not only gets away with it, he has the officer and onlookers doubled over in laughter. The man, you see, is Wes Lockard, and he’s dressed in a 7-foot, orange, furry Burnie the Heat mascot costume, which means he can do things that would get the rest of us sued, thrown in jail or escorted to the loony bin.
He can walk up to a random bald man in front of Planet Hollywood and rub his shiny head. He can kiss women he doesn’t know on a street corner and walk off with their pocketbooks. (OK, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to steal a Supreme Court justice’s wife’s purse in Puerto Rico -- live and learn.)
When Burnie and his fuzzy friends, Billy the Marlin and Stanley C. Panther, got together in the Grove recently to talk about Mascot Issues, they jumped on the hood of a honking car at a busy intersection, gyrated their hips at the impatient driver, and did not get so much as a nasty hand gesture.
As if that weren’t enough fun, they strutted over to the Harley-Davidson shop and weren’t the teeniest bit nervous to plop their giant furry bottoms on three expensive motorcycles parked outside while tattooed bikers stared from inside the store.
Burnie, Billy and Stanley are men of no words, but after some prodding (and an offer of free lunch), they agreed to break their silence.
“We’re paid to dress in carpet and act like imbeciles,” said Billy (a k a John Routh). “My 104-year-old grandmother is still waiting for me to get a real job.”
If ever there were a time to be a mascot in South Florida, this is it.
The Heat is in the playoffs, the Panthers just wrapped up, and the Marlins are practically in the World Series if you believe the hype. The Dolphins, feeling left out (no offense, Dolfan Denny), jumped on the mascot bandwagon last week and unveiled a soon-to-be-named, friendly looking, helmet-wearing dolphin.
No word on whom will don the $10,000 suit (and you thought Pat Riley had expensive taste), but whoever it is should know up front that Burnie, Billy and Stanley take their jobs very seriously, and they’re not about to settle for a lame, humorless walking rug with a day job. Unlike most of their plastic-headed friends around the NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball, they are full-time employees of their teams. They have voice mail. They have benefits, and we’re not talking free cases of Silly String.
They even have bodyguards.
Why does a 7-foot fluff-ball with feet larger than Cadillacs need a bodyguard?
You try popping in on 50 13-year-old boys at a bar mitzvah.
You try walking past a bunch of drunk New York Knicks fans while you’re wearing a giant green nose.
You try being hogtied by Pete Incaviglia.
Burnie, Billy and Stanley do hundreds of appearances a year in addition to their game duties, most for charities and schools. It’s hazardous work, and it can be physically grueling. Billy estimates he sweats off nearly 10 pounds every Marlins game. Burnie and Stanley work indoors, so their weight loss is only about five pounds per game.
And with the sweat comes stink. Lots of stink.
Burnie can afford to wash only three times a year. The rest of the time, he attaches eight Stick Ups deodorizers to the inside of his head, pours in some powder and turns on a fan full-blast. Billy used to use Lysol to spray-clean his head, but then he met the Toronto Raptor at Burnie’s birthday party, and the wise old dinosaur gave him a hygiene tip.
“The Raptor said, ‘Would you actually drink Lysol?’ and I said, ‘No,’ and he said once you start sweating it’s possible for the chemicals to get back in your brain, which might explain a lot,” Billy said. “Quart of Listerine and water. That’s what I’ve been using ever since.”
Billy wants to prolong his life because this is as good a job as he’ll ever get. Where else can a stuffed flounder make $60,000 per year and $400 for one-hour birthday gigs?
Yes, the boys do birthdays. And bar mitzvahs. Cost is $300 to $600.
“I got a call once from a guy and he said, ‘My wife is having a C-section at 9 a.m. Saturday at such-and-such hospital, be there,’ “ said George Russo (a k a Stanley). “The poor mother saw me before she saw her baby.”
South Florida’s mascots have seen just about everything a mascot can see through a mesh-covered hole. These men are among the oldest in their business.
Russo, 39, is the oldest NHL mascot and proud to report that, yes, he does his own rappelling stunts from the arena rafters. The former baseball card shop owner and karaoke business operator showed up on the South Florida sports scene four years ago with a $700 mounted Marlin he got from a taxidermist. He had all the Marlins autograph it, and before long, he was a member of the team’s Bleacher Brigade, a group of fans paid $50 per game to entertain other fans. When the Panthers hired him and handed him the cuddly suit, Russo knew there was, indeed, a sports god.
Lockard, 40, has been wearing a furry suit since 1978, when he first dressed up as Old Dominion’s goofy-looking sea gull. He got so dizzy and hot the first few days that he threw up. The criminology major (“I always wanted to go undercover”) graduated to the Triple A Norfolk Mets and was called up to the NBA in 1982, where he was the New Jersey Nets’ Duncan until 1986, when the Heat called.
Of the three men behind the masks, Lockard is the zaniest out of costume. He carried a “Handy Gas” plastic toy in his right pocket on the way to lunch and made gas-passing sounds when a group of elderly tourists wearing name tags walked by. He even lifted his right leg a little for effect. In his left pocket were rubber roaches, handy in case he needs to drop them in his plate for free meals.
Routh, 37, has broken a wrist, an ankle, a kneecap and a couple of ribs and fingers and has been grazed by a bullet since his days as Cocky, the University of South Carolina Gamecock, but there is no job in the world the former journalism major would rather have. He is still blessing that day in 1983 when then-University of Miami baseball coach Ron Fraser approached him at the College World Series, told him he liked his shtick and asked if he had plans after graduation. Fraser, a marketing wizard, offered $100 a week plus room and board if he would become the Miami Maniac.
Routh accepted, figuring he’d work on his tan and look for a real job. Within a year, he was delighting Hurricanes fans as the Maniac and the Ibis.
Though Burnie, Billy and Stanley have never had any training in theater (“Only training I’ve ever had was toilet training,” Burnie said), they have become masters of mime. Their gloved hands and body language are their most valuable props.
“You see a lot of new mascots, college kids or high school mascots, just kind of stand there and wave, the chicken on the corner thing. I mean, you really gotta get into character all the way if you wanna do it right,” Routh said. “If you ever see me standing on a street corner in a chicken suit, shoot me. Those are like the nightmare things, when we’re retired from real mascot jobs, if you wanna call ‘em that.”
Deep into lunch now, they begin sharing their favorite stories.
Burnie reminisces about the days Alvin Gentry and Kevin Loughery were on the Heat bench. Gentry was always up for anything, even a giant orange fluff ball rubbing against him during the national anthem. And Loughery’s ears. Oh, how Burnie loved those ears. Loved playing with them while Heat players tried to keep straight faces and three sections of fans burst into laughter.
Things are a little different under Riley.
OK, they’re very different.
Burnie keeps his distance from the benches these days, unless Charles Barkley is in the house.
“Barkley is funny,” Burnie said. “I know a lot of guys in the league, and a lot of refs, too, so I know who I can mess around with. One guy’s sitting on his butt stretching out, and you grab his shoe and start doing circles, and the other 11 guys are laughing. A lot of people think we don’t know the refs, but we do. We ask them before the game what we can and can’t do.”
Billy has two favorite stories: the one about being hogtied by Incaviglia and Milt Thompson before a game against the Phillies in 1993, and the one about being doused with four buckets of who-knows-what by Jose Rijo and the Reds in 1994. Incaviglia, an Oklahoma State alum, knew Routh from his days as the Maniac at the College World Series, so he played along when Billy threw him kisses on the opening night of the series.
On the second night, Inky got his revenge. Billy was in front of the dugout when Incaviglia sneaked up from behind, grabbed the giant puffy fish, picked him up and held him while Thompson came over with tape. They hogtied him and left him floundering on the field - pun intended.
“All of a sudden, I hear Jay Rokeach announce: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the playing of our national anthem,’ and I’m sitting there on the ground,” Billy recalled. “The Bleacher Brigade held me up for the anthem. The next night they tried to do it again, but the Bleacher Brigade hosed them down good. When Incaviglia went into left field, he had water all over the left side of his uniform.”
The Rijo prank was even worse.
Rijo, a known clown, acted like he wanted to chit-chat with Billy, and the next thing Billy knew, he was being carried to the bullpen. Rijo’s teammates had four buckets of “the most gross stuff you’ve ever seen in your life,” and they dumped it on Billy, and sprayed shaving cream all over him.
“The fans went crazy,” Billy said. “Sometimes you take a little abuse, but it’s worth it.”
Stanley will never forget his first night on the job. His glasses were foggy after 10 minutes in an un-air-conditioned limo, and when the door opened onto the darkened ice, and Stanley stepped out on his new skates, he had no idea where he was going.
“I was supposed to skate over to some kids and I couldn’t even see where they were,” he said. “All I could see was a fuzzy spotlight.”
One advantage to being a mascot is that nobody knows you’re inside.
“Went to my high school reunion and ran into a girl who says she’s a Heat season-ticket holder and has been watching me for years, never realizing it was me inside,” Lockard said.
Any confessions?
Burnie: “I spilled a beer on a Knicks fan the other night. Hadn’t done that in seven years. It felt so good.”
Stanley: “That shoe that hit the guy in the head that time . . . I did it.”
BILLY THE MARLIN
Height: As tall as Alonzo Mourning.
Weight: 235 pounds (150 beheaded).
Shoe size: 22 (also the size of his bill, in inches).
Birthplace: Billings, Mont.
Favorite song: Billy, Don’t Be A Hero .
Favorite movie: A Fish Called Wanda .
Favorite food: Mrs. Paul’s Fish Sticks.
Last book read: Moby Dick.
Girlfriend: None. Playing the field.
BURNIE
Height: Taller than Alonzo Mourning.
Weight: 680 basketballs.
Shoe size: 29-1/2 EEE.
Birthplace: East Orange, N.J.
Favorite song: Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Love .
Favorite movie: Weekend at Bernie’s.
Favorite food: Peppers with Tabasco sauce.
Last book read: The Winner Within by Pat Riley.
Girlfriend: Burnice.
STANLEY C. PANTHER
Height: Taller than Ray Sheppard’s stick.
Weight: Heavier than a Stanley Steamer.
Skate size: Borrows ‘em from Brian Skrudland.
Birthplace: Iceland.
Favorite song: Ice, Ice, Baby .
Favorite movie: The Pink Panther .
Favorite food: Ice cream.
Last book read: Soul on Ice.
Girlfriend: Dolly.
FIU’S mascot
Now: Roary (the Panthers)
Then: Son of a Blazer (the Sunblazers)
When Sebastian the Ibis got shot in the head
Published Jan 2, 1993
John Routh, the University of Miami mascot, was grazed in the face by a stray bullet while celebrating New Year’s Eve in the streets of New Orleans. He was not seriously injured and portrayed Sebastian The Ibis Friday night with two bandages covering the seven stitches on his face.
“It’s going to take a heck of a lot more than a bullet in the head to keep me out of this game,” said Routh, 33.
Police believe the bullet was shot into the air from as far as a mile away, and came down near Routh, skimming his cheekbone and leaving a powder burn on his chest. The bullet entered next to Routh’s right eyebrow, leaving a wound that required three stitches, and exited through his right cheek, requiring another four stitches.
Police do not know who fired the shot -- believed from an AK-47 rifle or a 9 mm -- but say it is not uncommon for people to get shot in New Orleans during celebrations.
“This type of thing happens throughout the country on New Year’s Eve,” said police spokesman Marlon Defillo. “People don’t realize that bullets shot into the air have to come down somewhere.”
Routh said two other Miami fans were at the same hospital, also being treated for gunshots. One fan had been hit in the leg and another was hit near the spleen, said Routh, who added he had been told those were also random shootings.
Earlier this week, a bullet narrowly missed an Alabama sports writer as he worked in his 16th-floor hotel room near the Superdome. The shot came from the outside and police said it, too, was a random shooting.
Routh said that when the bullet hit, he was swinging his head back and forth, playing the Miami fight song on a party favor after leaving the team party with several Miami cheerleaders and boosters. A couple of more inches, he said, and he could have been killed. He said he wasn’t in his Ibis outfit or even wearing team colors.
“As I turned my head singing the song, I felt something on the right side of my face,” Routh said.
Routh said he looked on the ground, believing he may have been hit by a bottle. But when a cheerleader said she had heard a “pop,” Routh checked his face.
“I saw a couple of drops of blood on the ground, and when I touched my face, it was all wet with blood,” he said.
Several nearby policemen came to Routh’s aid.
“The nurses and doctors kept telling me how lucky I was,” Routh said. “It was millimeters from hitting nerves. It could have paralyzed my face or killed me. If I was just walking straight ahead, it would have caught me in the forehead or in the eye.”
Routh was hit at 11:40 p.m. and spent the next two hours at the Tulane Medical Center. At about midnight, when he should have been ushering in the new year, he was on a stretcher.
“Ended the old year on a bad note,” Routh said before the game. “Now I’m going to start the new year with a national title.”
Dolfan Denny
Published march 18, 2007
Those tight, white shorts remained in his closet Saturday, along with nearly 10 sets of those gaudy trademark outfits that made Dennis Sym so recognizable along the sidelines at Dolphins games for 34 years.
For the man known more commonly to fans as “Dolfan Denny,” Sym’s passion for his favorite football team never faded after his retirement as the team’s unofficial mascot in 2000. Only his health did.
On Friday, “Dolfan Denny” died at 72.
“He was a huge Dolphins fan -- we all know that,” his wife, Ingrid, said Saturday from the couple’s home in Sarasota. “He did everything he could to always be with his team. He loved football until his last day.”
For the past four years, Sym had been battling kidney failure and cancer. It was a weak heart, however, that eventually led to his death, according to his wife.
Sym was officially honored by the Dolphins in 2000 for 34 years of service.
In 1966, when the Dolphins played their first game, Sym, who studied electrical engineering at the University of Tennessee, led fans in chants while wearing rhinestone-covered outfits and a colorful trademark hat that still is in the couple’s closet at their home today.
“He just got more and more people involved over the years,” Ingrid said. “Finally, he got so many people involved, he ended up on the sideline rallying the whole stadium.”
A decade after his first game, former team owner Joe Robbie began paying “Dolfan Denny,” then a Broward County resident, $50 per game, moving him from the stands down to the sidelines as the team’s “unofficial” official mascot.
His most memorable season, however, came several before he took to the sidelines. Ingrid Sym didn’t meet her husband until 1998 (coincidentally during a delay at a Dolphins game), but she always could tell from his stories how much the 1972 undefeated season meant to him.
“I think that was the most exciting year he ever had,” his wife said. “The fans were all very active, and all of that changed after they moved into the new stadium. That was his very best year.”
Ingrid Sym said she is planning a memorial service in Davie for late next week. An exact day and location will not be determined until Monday.
Introducing T.D.
Published June 5, 1997
That 7-foot Dolphin with the water squirting from his football helmet has a name at last. Miami’s new mascot was christened T.D. on Wednesday night at the Dolphins’ annual awards banquet.
The name was the idea of Miami’s Sara Fernandez and her sons Nelson Jr. and Vincent. They were the first to submit the winning name from among 13,000 entries representing 50 states and 22 countries.
“My sons are members of the Dolphins kids club, and when I saw the newsletter I happened to glance over and here was this application for the nickname contest,” Fernandez said. “One of the boys said, ‘Oh, mom, no way we’re ever going to win that,’ and I took that as a challenge.
“I had never won anything in my life. It was a lark, and I sent it in thinking it was too obvious. Then I forgot about it until the girl called me to say we’d won. I’m thrilled.”
Fernandez, her sons and her husband, Nelson Sr., attended Wednesday’s banquet. Nelson Sr. even took a day off from work for the occasion.
The Dolphins also announced the 1996 award winners at the banquet. Zach Thomas was named MVP and newcomer of the year. Fred Barnett received the team’s leadership award, and Dan Marino received the community service award.
The Fernandez family received two tickets to the Jan. 26 Super Bowl in San Diego as the prize for their entry.
“I can’t really put my finger on the reason we picked T.D. other than the connection it had to football and kids was obvious,” Dolphins President Eddie Jones said.
The football connections weren’t so obvious with some of the other entries. Finley, Splash, Echo and Sonar played perfectly to the mascot’s obvious dolphin heritage but failed to tie into its football background.
Some suggestions incorporated the names of other Dolphins players, coaches and owners. Robbie Wayne combined the names of former owner Joe Robbie and current team owner Wayne Huizenga.
Zonkers was no doubt born of a tribute to fullback Larry Csonka and Shul-Onka remembers Csonka and upcoming Hall of Fame inductee Coach Don Shula. Perhaps the most intriguing entry came from Coral Gables: Macarino-Winzenga.
“We couldn’t figure out how to get all that on a back of a jersey,” Jones said.
There were several T.D. entries, but that was not the most popular name. Flipper easily out-numbered all other entries but didn’t win for several reasons, including the fact it would infringe on the naming rights of another well-known local dolphin.
