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The Iowa State cheer squad introduced the original Cy during the 1954 Homecoming football game. Collegiate Manufacturing designed and built the new mascot with input from the Pep Council and the cheerleading squad. The cost was $200. The eight foot bird was introduced at Homecoming, October 16, 1954. Historic images courtesy of Special Collections and University Archives.

Cy, Iowa State’s historic mascot, celebrated 70 years of existence Oct. 16.

The year of 1989 marked Kendall Griffith’s year as Cy and in 1990, former Cy John Davidson experienced the suit.

Sharing the suit, the two of them shared memories that touched their lives. Griffith said he played football in high school and wasn’t going to play football at a big school, so he tried rugby and boxing before seeing the job posting for Cy.

“So I thought, ‘Well, those are interesting,’ but those aren’t my gigs, so then I thought I saw the Cy posting and figured I’d try out for Cy,” Griffith said.

According to Griffith, the tryout consisted of a written interview followed by an invite-only in-person interview.

“So my written interview, I sewed a felt Cy,” Griffith said. “It was kind of terrible. I stuffed it in cotton, and I just kind of like, I’m not a sewer, but I just kind of hand sewed this really ugly little stuffed bird. And then, I bought a wicker basket, and I colored six eggs because there were six questions on the application. I colored six eggs… and then I blew out the insides, put a little hole in them, and drained them, dried them out, and then I typed up the answers to the six questions and rolled them into a little piece of paper and stuck them in each egg and numbered the eggs.”

Following that, Griffith explained his in-person interview.

“I had written, I want to be Cy on my body [with] a Sharpie marker 58 times, because Iowa State, was founded in 1858, and so I had holes in my jeans, and I had it on the bottom of my shoe, and, you know, I’d scratch my chest and pull my shirt down and say, ‘I want to be Cy,’ and so I was just this odd guy,” Griffith said. “Then at the end, I got up and I did a little song and dance, and it was a song called, ‘I want to be Cy.’”

Griffith said that at the time of his audition, the suit had a big aluminum frame and there were six of them that would rotate in and out of the costume throughout game days. They also had a Clone suit, which didn’t have a structure.

“The suits would get really hot on the fall football games in particular,” Griffith said. “And so you can only do like a quarter in Clone because you’re running around. You can do anything in that suit. You’re getting beat up by the other team’s cheerleaders. You’re going to these tailgate parties.”

He said that by the fourth quarter the suit was wet because three other people had worn the suit by then.

“It was just kind of a simpler fun,” Griffith said. “We just got a real kick out of it, and the game days were awesome for football.”

Davidson similarly explained how hot the games were and how wet the suit would be. He mentioned that the suit was “foul” because they didn’t wash it until the end of the football season.

Despite Davidson explaining the foul-smelling suit when basketball season approached, he traveled to Oklahoma for a game. He decided to wear it to the bars in Oklahoma after Iowa State beat the team.

“Just had the best time,” Davidson said. “Oklahoma students were totally down for it. I think they threw beer and stuff, too, but they were totally into it. It wasn’t like this fight that broke out. It was really fun.”

Davidson said being Cy was the best experience he had in college.

“People, they just don’t act themselves when they’re around somebody in mascot uniform,” Davidson said. “And it was always for good – like you make people so happy just to be around a stupid, fur-covered idiot.”

Davidson said being a mascot is something that will endure forever.

“It’s the shell where you could be somebody that you otherwise couldn’t and so I really think that mascots are essential to the athletic program in that regard,” Davidson said.

Davidson encourages people to be a mascot. 

“There’s a lot more to it than running around, playing with the other mascot, doing stunts and wearing costumes and all that stuff,” Davidson said. “There’s so much more to it that adds to extra university life, or extra athletic life. You’re just involved in a lot. Mascots are really in many ways, great ambassadors for the university.”

Griffith said being a mascot created a connection with kids, and he remembers a time when he was in the Cy suit at a park in Ames when a boy told him that his dad had passed away.

“And it just shocked me that this kid wanted to, I mean, he bonded with me and wanted to tell me that,” Griffith said. “I didn’t know anything about the details, and I never explored it but that was a very kind of moving sort of experience.”

Griffith said something about that suit makes people feel comfortable.

“It’s just a really warm way to kind of engage with people,” Griffith said.

Kendra Simpson, Spirit Squad coordinator and head coach for cheer said she worked with Cy while she was a cheerleader at Iowa State.

“It’s just that popular person that always comes into the classroom,” Simpson said. “It always just brought light, especially, when there were games that we weren’t doing so well, or what have you, it was just always fun to see like, ‘Oh, that’s our mascot,’ and it’s always nice to see Cy.”

Simpson said Cy is one of Iowa State’s most dominant traditions and this birthday represents the spirit of Iowa State.

“70 years of just fun, excitement, all the accomplishments that have happened at Iowa State University,” Simpson said. “It definitely celebrates all of those things wrapped into one little present. So, I mean, it’s a great honor.”