Stories from the SuitInside the sweat-soaked, unforgettable experience of bringing Oregon State’s mascots to life.

It’s about 20 minutes until tipoff and Benny Beaver is getting his game face on.

Actually, he’s getting his entire head on. And his tail. And fur. And basketball shoes.

Benny’s attire has changed over the decades, but his role has been constant: entertaining and energizing Beaver Nation at athletic contests and representing Oregon State University at a wide variety of events. The current mascot outfit and its predecessors hold indelible recollections for hundreds of Oregon Staters who have worn one of them since Benny was born on Oct. 4, 1952.

“Being Benny the Beaver was a privilege,” said Evan Thomson, ’19, who was a Benny from 2016 to 2019. “I’m so thankful for my time. I always took it very serious and made sure to proudly represent my school the best I could. I can’t imagine my life without being Benny, and I have stories to tell for the rest of my life.”

2026. The mascot locker room in Gill Coliseum holds costumes, supplies and many historic heads.

During the 2025-26 school year, 10 OSU students are serving as Bennys and Bernices. Following tradition, during their time in the suit their identities are revealed only on a need-to-know basis: mom and dad, maybe some friends or Greek brothers and sisters who might notice you’re never at a game with them.

Now, prior to a men’s basketball game against University of the Pacific, one of those 10 is hydrating big-time. Today’s Benny says this is Step One in his pregame routine: “First I have to physically prepare — like make sure I have a lot of water in me because it gets very hot in there.”

Suiting up involves putting on a thick fur onesie that weighs about 10 pounds — more once the sweat begins to seep in — and strapping on the tail; putting on the basketball uniform and lacing up the shoes; donning the huge Benny head, in which a skullcap is suspended to fit on the wearer’s head (vision is limited to what can be seen out of Benny’s nose); and finally, putting on the paws.

At this point, the wearer is breathing deeply the strong, aromatic musk of all those who have previously worn the suit.

“It’s awful,” said Darin Paine, ’01, a Benny and Bernice from 1997 to 2000. “It smells like sweat.”

It’s all part of the tradition that began almost 75 years ago.

Benny was the brainchild of Bill Sundstrom, ’54. Sundstrom grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area watching California’s mascot Oski the Bear. So when his Delta Tau Delta brother Ken Austin, ’53, wasn’t selected for the Rally Squad, Sundstrom shared his plan for an alternative position — creating a beaver mascot for Oregon State College.

Austin (who with his wife, Joan, later founded dental equipment manufacturer A-dec) liked the idea. Sundstrom’s description of Oski made Austin think of the rodeo clowns he’d seen at the St. Paul Rodeo near his hometown of Newberg. “So that was my mode of operation — to have some funny things to say or do, and I kind of patterned what I was going to do like that,” Austin said in a 2012 interview. “So I really created my own theme, which was, in those days, a little bit rude.”

Stunts included climbing a goalpost while the game was in progress, weaving his way through an opponent’s marching band and brandishing a 38-caliber revolver on the sideline to target officials’ flags after Beaver penalties. Constantly in one of that original Benny’s hands? A toilet plunger.

“It was just fun stuff. The sky was the limit,” Austin said. “To think it started a tradition is something else.”

From shag carpet to injection-molded plastic, Benny has worn many different faces.

The Rebirth of Benny

Benny was a regular sight at games until sometime around the early 1970s, when the tradition briefly went dormant. Rick Coutin, ’76, was left off the Rally Squad in 1972-73, but wanted to stay involved. He’d seen photos of Benny in old copies of the  Daily Barometer and in the Beaver Yearbook. He asked Assistant Athletic Director Denny Hedges if there was a beaver outfit somewhere in Gill Coliseum. Hedges took him to the basement, dug out the old costume, and Benny was back for the 1972-73 men’s basketball season.

“I remember going out there — this was my inaugural — and I had to hold the head together with the body,” Coutin said. “So I started running around. I could hardly see through it, and that was my debut as Benny Beaver … I think a lot of people were laughing because it looked horrible.”

I think a lot of people were laughing because it looked horrible.

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After a season running around in the suit and firing up fans, Coutin got a spot on the Rally Squad for 1973-74. And if his name sounds familiar, yes, he’s the cheerleader who was tripped by Oregon head coach Dick Harter while carrying the Chancellor’s Trophy past the Duck bench in the closing seconds of the season finale at Gill. But that’s a whole ’nother story.

Orange Express Days

One of the worst seasons in OSU sports history overlapped one of its greatest, and Ben Hermon, ’83, had a front-row seat for it all. He was Benny during 1980-81, when the football team went winless, and then the men’s basketball season was ranked No. 1 in the country for eight weeks, playing to sold-out crowds in a deafeningly loud Gill Coliseum.

“The energy that was coming off the people was just tremendous,” Hermon said. “I really fed off that energy, and we were always trying to come up with ‘What can we do during breaks, halftime, that would just keep that energy rolling and increase it?’”

He took to swing dancing with a cheerleader at midcourt. Occasionally he’d take an opposing cheerleader out there — and then abandon her halfway through the dance. One of his Phi Gamma Delta brothers on the Rally Squad sometimes boosted Hermon onto his shoulders and carried Benny as he dribbled from one end of the court to the other and dunked the ball.

Hermon also got into it with a few opposing mascots, including a memorable tussle with Oski. They were wrestling on the court when Hermon inadvertently discovered the wearer of the Oski suit’s gender: “I hit one of her breasts, and I went, ‘Oh, [bleep]. This isn’t good.’ So, I got up and I think to kind of end that I stole one of her shoes and she chased me around.”

Ouch. And Ouch Again.

Every so often a mascot will make national headlines. For Benny, it happened twice in a three-week span during the fall of 1995 when Marri (Hollen) Ashley, ’97, was in the suit.

Cal visited then-Parker Stadium on Oct. 21. It was Homecoming, and Benny wore a tuxedo for the occasion. Benny was at the top of the ramp leading down to the field. The assistant for the day handed Ashley a blow-up toy hammer with the suggestion that she tap one of the visiting players who was heading for the field. “Like, ‘Let’s go!’” Ashley remembered the handler saying. “Not trying to provoke anything.”

But it did. The 6-foot-5 offensive lineman Tarik Glenn felt the tap, turned, reared back and punched Benny — and thus Ashley — right in the furry snout. “He hit so hard the mask ricocheted off my face,” said Ashley, who went tumbling down the ramp. She was brought to the OSU locker room for treatment, where the Beavers saw her and vowed to take their revenge. Cal won 13-12.

Two weeks later Arizona was in town. Benny was standing in the middle of the OSU cheerleaders along the visitors’ sideline when the Wildcats scored and headed for their bench. Lineman Frank Middleton Jr. detoured into the Rally Squad and punched Benny/Ashley in the face. She left the field and didn’t return.

Later, Glenn wrote Ashley a letter of apology, and no charges were filed. Middleton was charged with assault, and Ashley recalls he was fined $500. When football season ended, she stepped out of the Benny suit for good, weary of the national publicity the incidents brought on.

With her, Ashley took good memories along with the bumps and bruises: “Just being something special for your school. Going out and representing that you cheer on your team regardless of whether you win or lose.”

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Being the Beaver

Bernice makes it look easy.  Trust us — it’s not. From nose blindness to limited sightlines, this is your insider’s guide to life inside the suit.

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As OSU and Pacific go up and down the court on this Saturday afternoon, Benny works the crowd. The Beaver Dam student section leaders have distributed newspapers to the students with game information and reminders about cheers. Benny takes his copy, does some doodling on it and then plays tic-tac-toe with some students. There’s frequent posing for photos with fans.

And kids. Where there’s Benny Beaver, there are likely to be kids.

After a promotion that introduces several children attending their first Beaver game, Benny high-fives them as they come off the court. Another promotion involves a young boy in a miniature car trying to parallel park as Benny motions him toward the spot.

Most former Bennys and Bernices carry fond memories of interactions like this. And sometimes, they resurface years later in unexpected ways. Will Later, ’12, MAIS ’14, a Benny from 2008 to 2012 and now an instructor in the OSU School of Communication, has daughters aged 2 and 5 who love seeing Benny and Bernice when they attend Beaver events. They know Dad was Benny, but they sometimes forget; they’ll see a picture of their mom, Sarah Lowe, ’14, standing with Later in the suit and ask, “Mommy, you knew Benny?!”

On the walls of Benny and Bernice’s locker room hang a number of cards and letters sent by their youngest fans. Hermon recalled times at basketball games or gymnastics meets when it was announced Benny was in Gill and he would be swarmed by children: “I mean, I was just buried in them. And lots of hugs … their love for Benny was just amazing. That’s special.”

On this January day, a youngster asks Benny to autograph his basketball.

Where there’s Benny Beaver, there are likely to be kids.

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“That was pretty awesome,” Benny says. He’s gotten used to delivering his signature with bulky gloves on: “You just get used to it. At least I still have a thumb [in the glove], which is nice, so I can hold stuff properly. But it is a little difficult. It doesn’t always come out looking perfect.”

The 1998 football rivalry game is best known for its double-overtime finish as OSU beat Oregon 44-41. Josh Huffman, ’01, remembers the evening well for another reason.

Before the game, Huffman was tossing breadcrumbs at Oregon’s marching band in the southwest corner of the stadium — aka “feeding the Ducks.” “The band members were interacting with me, and it was all fun and games,” Huffman said. At least until the University of Oregon Duck mascot gave him a shove from behind, starting a back-and-forth pushfest.

Huffman wanted that action to be more visible to the home crowd. He gave one more shove — “I took a bit of a cheap shot” — and sprinted to midfield. The Duck followed. In the ensuing skirmish, Huffman ended up on top, with both mascot heads dislodged.

Both Huffman and the Duck’s inhabitant ended up in the basement of the Valley Football Center, where they shook hands and shared a laugh. They also got a stern talking-to from OSU Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart and his Oregon counterpart.

There is video of the tussle, which Huffman’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon brothers send him every year around rivalry game time. That footage is one reason Benny was ranked No. 13 on a 2010 list of the Worst-Behaved Sports Mascots of All Time. (In fairness, Benny was also named to the 2011 Capital One All-America Mascot Team after winning the Capital One Mascot of the Year Write-In Campaign.)

Dunk City

The life of Benny and Bernice isn’t lived solely at OSU athletic contests — there are other appearances as well. One annual event is the Portland Trail Blazers’ Mascot Night, which has included a dunk competition that has Benny and his counterparts bouncing off a mini-trampoline toward the hoop.

For Later and Erik Roberts, ’15, those nights provided a moment of triumph. They not only survived the Benny bounce, but also somehow managed to dunk wearing that giant head and a pair of gloves, both topping the Duck in the competition.

“I had to do the jump and I saw the rim,” said Later. “I was able to get my arms tall enough, or high enough up, to get the ball over the rim and land on the crash pad. The only way I knew it went in was because everybody cheered — that was definitely a highlight for me.”

Roberts and his brothers grew up with a backyard trampoline so he had a little experience in that aspect. “But just trying to find yourself in the air and make it work was something that was super tricky,” Roberts said, pointing out that the field of vision through Benny’s nose is about 20% of what you’d normally see. When it went through, one reaction was relief: “Because you’re going up against the Duck, and both my parents were Beavs and I’ve been a Beav my entire life, so the hatred runs deep.”

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Benny Beaver Live!

It was the week of the 2021 Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl, and Anders Rosenquist, ’22, and another Benny were driving to Los Angeles with the Benny suit. On the way, they found that the next night the Beavers would attend the Jimmy Kimmel Live! television show.

The idea hit: “We said, ‘What if we put on the suit and just waltzed into the Jimmy Kimmel set — do you think anyone would stop us? Or would they think, “Oh, you’re part of the team, you should just get in,”?’” Rosenquist recalled.

The answer? The first three or four layers of security figured they belonged. At the last checkpoint, though, Benny’s name wasn’t on the list. They gave it the “Oh, I think we should be on there” try, but security started calling OSU officials to check whether Benny was part of the OSU contingent. “We kind of realized we bit off way more than we could chew,” Rosenquist said.

They tried to leave but someone on the show’s staff said the writers had heard Benny was there and wanted to write him into the show. The premise, Rosenquist said, was that Kimmel would mention Benny was in the audience, but that Bernice had gone missing several years earlier during a spate of unsolved missing persons cases in Oregon. Then the camera would zoom in on Benny and ask him if he had anything to do with Bernice’s disappearance.

OSU officials nixed that plan.

“So maybe Scott Barnes got a good call on that one,” Rosenquist said.

Later, Rosenquist parlayed his Benny background into a gig as Slyly, the mascot of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp of the Japanese baseball major leagues.

Bernice Is Back

Benny may be the original OSU mascot, but he isn’t the university’s only mascot. Bernice joined Benny in representing Beaver Nation during Homecoming 1981, riding that era’s rising tide of visibility and support for women’s athletics. Eventually she donned women’s volleyball and basketball uniforms to wear when performing at those events. But then, in 1998, Bernice “went into hiatus or went out for a jug of milk and never came back, whatever it was,” as Later put it.

She remained unceremoniously off campus until one fateful Saturday afternoon in 2023, when the top-secret Project B brought her back.

Making Bernice’s surprise reappearance at that fall’s Homecoming game as dazzling as possible required two people: Audrey Brandis, ’24, and Hailey Francisco, ’25. Brandis, a member of the cheer team, was chosen for her experience doing stunts.

It was no more than two weeks before the reveal that the participants found out, Brandis said. “And immediately we were so excited … . It was one of the highlights of my career, easily.” While Brandis was in the Bernice suit, Francisco was in the Benny suit to welcome Bernice home. The cheer team practiced their routine but didn’t find out until just before the game that it involved bringing back Bernice. Francisco told only the two Bennys working with her that day about it on the morning of the game.

For the 5-foot-2 Brandis, one of the Benny costumes had to be altered to fit, and an old Bernice head was dug out of storage, limited field of vision and all. “So I’m totally trusting my teammates and my body awareness,” she said. “I could barely see . … [The pyramid] felt way harder than normal.”

After the reveal, Benny and Bernice left Reser Stadium. Brandis changed into her cheer uniform, Francisco became Bernice for the rest of the day and one of the other Bennys donned the Benny costume. This gave Brandis and Francisco a chance to initially define Bernice and her relationship to Benny: Platonic? Romantic? Somewhere in between?

“I did a fun little dance routine, and at the end he dipped me, so it added those possibilities for either way,” Brandis said. As for Francisco, she decided, “She’s going to be sassy, she’s going to be messing with Benny. It was fun to create the personality.”

Francisco said she’s enjoyed following Bernice’s evolution and makeover from that first improvised suit: “It’s pretty awesome to see that it’s become a thing that’s a little more invested in the Oregon State community.”

As the final horn sounds in Gill Coliseum, the scoreboard shows Oregon State has fallen to Pacific. Back in the mascot locker room, Benny peels off the suit and takes in a big breath of air not filtered through the shell of an oversized head. 

The men’s basketball team may have had a rough go, but win or loss aside, did Benny have a good game?

“Oh, yeah,” Benny says. “It was a lot of fun. It was a great game.”