Horsing around fulfills lifelong dream

Before she entered the football field wearing the hot and heavy horse costume, before she stood cheering in front of 90,000 screaming college football fans, Longboat resident Sue Wolverton got some advice from University of Oklahoma mascot coaches. They told her that they had never had a female mascot and warned her that, occasionally, a rowdy fan will tackle the mascot. But the advice that stood out to Wolverton was this:

“Remember,” they told her, “no one knows who you are.”

With that in mind, she took to the field and led the crowd in cheers. She did the Chicken Dance and a hip-hop routine. There were high-fives everywhere and at least 50 pictures were taken with Sooner the mascot.

Wolverton admits she felt a bit of claustrophobia with the costume covering her eyes. But she said to herself, “I’m a pilot. I can do this!”

The crowd at the Sept. 11 University of Oklahoma versus Florida State University game in Norman, Okla., didn’t know the woman underneath the costume. Wolverton serves as regional senior vice president for the Southwest Florida division of Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate and is active on the Committee for Economic Development in Sarasota. Twenty-one years ago, when she was a Coldwell manager in Atlanta, she told her agents during a training exercise to make a list of 10 personal goals they wanted to achieve in their lifetimes. The agents turned the question on her by asking Wolverton to list her 10 goals. She isn’t sure why, but dressing up as a mascot was on her list. The idea hadn’t occurred to Wolverton when she attended college at Southeastern University, in Hammond, La. (Her alma mater’s mascot is a lion.) But Wolverton decided that someday she would be a mascot, even if only for a Little League or high-school team.

Over the past two decades, Wolverton has re-written her bucket list and has achieved approximately 35 of her goals. Earning her pilot’s license was one goal, as were white-water rafting and scuba diving. But the mascot dream remained on the list. Then, in late August, Wolverton and her husband, Woody, were attending a birthday party in his hometown of Lawton, Okla. Woody Wolverton mentioned his wife’s goal to his granddaughter’s boyfriend, who performs as OU’s mascot. He arranged to make her dream a reality.

Wolverton said that her time as a mascot lasted approximately 45 minutes. When the game began, the regular mascots took over, and Wolverton joined her family to watch OU beat FSU 47-17.

Wolverton enjoyed her time horsing around on the field.

“It’s the positive re-enforcement possibly,” she said. “People are cheering and giving you high-fives everywhere.”

Woody Wolverton, a former OU football player, gave his wife’s performance rave reviews.

“She was really cute,” he said.

Wolverton plans to add to her list, but she still has at least one goal left to achieve: She plans to catch a marlin. Someday, she might sign up for a trip offered each July by Marlin magazine, in which participants are guaranteed to catch one.

But her time on the field was so much fun that Wolverton might have to add one thing to her list: a repeat performance.

Contact Robin Hartill at [email protected]