My experience being a Racing President
Have you ever been to a Washington Nationals baseball game? Is your favorite part watching the bigheaded presidents race around the bases? Mine too. In fact, I decided to tryout to BE one of those racing presidents. Crazy. I know. But it was one of the most unique experiences I’ve ever done! I’ll take you through a day of being Abe.
After I had applied and sent in my cover letter and resume, I got invited back to audition. I thought “Why not? You don’t get many chances like this in your life time” I went to the Nationals stadium and met in the “visiting tem” clubhouse area. Tom Davis, the Nat’s entertainment manager, came over and explained what we would be doing for the tryouts, and then congratulated the 57 of us for being selected out of the hundreds that had applied. After that, we spent the majority of the time nervously waiting to be called, and interviewing with the media that was there. I was one of three girls who had made the callbacks, so naturally, the media was all over us. I lost count of how many interviews I did, but I think every media group there interviewed us at least once, if not more. They asked us questions like, “Are you nervous?”, Why did you sign up to do this?”, and “How did it feel running while in costume? Was it what you expected?”. All the media made the waiting period fly by, and next thing I knew, the three of us girls were called to be in the next heat.
Only three of the presidents are there at tryouts; Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln. (Teddy, everyone’s favorite, is always touring during President’s Day weekend.) I got to be Abe. In the application, they warn you about the weight of the costume…. I mean, you DO have a really big head on. However, once they lowered the head over me, I wasn’t worried. I was expecting it to be much heavier than it was. I guess giving all my cousins piggyback rides really helped haha! It’s hard to explain what it felt like to be inside of Abe. You are basically wearing a backpack that has two metal bars coming up over your head that support the mascots head. As far as the rest of the costume goes, you are wearing semi-normal baseball clothes and a peach “neck” that goes over your head to seal the gap between your costume, and the mascots head. This made it virtually impossible to see. You could see through the “neck” piece just fine. What I couldn’t see past was Abe abnormally long chin/beard. This left you with a view of the ground two feet in front of you. So your view kind of looks like this…
While you are in costume, you have to do four things; sprint 40 meters, run the length of center field twice, dance, and do a victory pose. The dancing and the victory pose were easy…. The running was a little more difficult. Like I said before, the weight wasn’t bad. It was the distribution of the weight that made it hard. Basically all of the weight is on your shoulders and above your head. Its like your wearing a huge globe on your head. As you run and get your momentum going, your huge head starts to rock back and forth. This is where I had trouble. At the start of my 40-meter dash, the harness that was holding the weight of the head in place slipped up, and most of the weight shifted forward. I dove into a face-plant. It didn’t hurt (probably because of the adrenaline) and I got right back up and finished. In the video I posted below, you can actually see me falling and hear the loud “OOOOHHH!” from the spectators. (Thanks for capturing that on footage, espnW)
(I fall at around 2:03 and interview at around 2:30)
More footage of me
(The first race they show in this video is my race... and the face-plant after that is also me. The reporters loved to get that on camera)
More footage of me
(The first race they show in this video is my race... and the face-plant after that is also me. The reporters loved to get that on camera)
Sadly, that was not the only time a fell. After the 40-meter dash, we went over to run the length of center field twice. According to the other mascots and spectators, I was winning by a lot. By now, I had gotten used to the oddly distributed weight and figured out how to control it. The problem was, we had to make basically a 100-degree turn in order to get to the finish line. I was going pretty fast, and couldn’t really see much, so when the green wall came up in front of me, I had to make a very abrupt turn. I had also tilted my head backwards to see if I could see where exactly the finish line was. All this combined caused me to lose my balance at the very last part of the race. Only feet from the finish line, I face-planted again. As I got up to step over the finish line, the other two mascots had caught up and finished with me. Lame. I should’ve had that race. In the second race, we all finished together. Once I had gotten out of costume, I re-interviewed with a lot of the reporters. Apparently they like the action of a winning president falling at the last second. They asked me about how it felt to fall and if I was disappointed that I didn’t win. To be honest, I was there for the experience, so I answered most of their questions by saying, “I’m glad I got to experience every aspect of being a Racing President. Running, dancing…. eating dirt. Its all part of the experience!”
Needless to say, I didn’t get the job (not a surprise, since there was about 54 other “football type” guys there that made the running look like they weren’t even wearing a costume.) To be honest, I’m glad. I have NEVER been this sore in my life. Ever. I think I used muscles I didn’t even know I had. No, I KNOW I used muscles I didn’t even know I had. My muscles hurt, my bones hurt, my cells hurt, I have two bruises on my back, my palms are scratched from falling, and I think I pulled a leg muscle. I was only in that costume for like 15 minutes or so. As fun as it would be, I can’t imagine wearing it for a full day, 4 days a week. I think my body would just shatter. They would put the mascot head on me and I would just turn into dust and blown into someone’s eyes.
After all the waiting, the interviewing, the running, the falling, and the soreness the morning after, I look back and I’m glad I did it. I may even do it next year just for the fun of it. It was 114.7% worth it and now I can say, I was a ‘Washington Nationals Racing President’ for a day!
I may be posting more videos, or articles as they are created. Here’s the only one that’s up now.
