Broadneck Grad Reveals His Identity As School Mascot

Near the end of his sophomore year at Broadneck High School, Sammy Hargrave was perched in the school’s media center, watching the onscreen announcements. One popped up for an interest form in becoming Broadneck’s costumed mascot for the following season.

Already entrenched in the unified sports community and eager to express his school spirit even further, he applied.

He wasn’t selected initially, but at a football game in the fall of 2024, he noticed the mascot missing, so he asked about it again.

Persistence paid off: the original selection hadn’t panned out as hoped, so the role was open. Hargrave leapt into the opportunity with both feet.

From then on, the Bruin appeared at football, basketball and lacrosse games, as well as anything else Hargrave thought it would be good to participate in to foster school spirit and fan enthusiasm.

“If it was something other than a football and basketball game, that I knew the cheerleaders would be at, it would be at my discretion whether I wanted to go. I mostly looked at what I thought would be sort of the most fun and what would make sense to go to,” Hargrave said. “Especially anytime we played Severna Park in the main sports, I’d try to go to that. When we played them at home in basketball this year, it was a nail-biter, and then we beat them in overtime. Stuff like that melds together into a great experience for everyone.”

Hargrave would truck around in full costume, being energetic and high-fiving students, fans, sometimes media reporters, and occasionally posing for photos with young children at their parents’ behest.

The cardinal rule of mascotry is simple: don’t ruin the magic. That means that even if someone suspects the mascot’s identity, it should never be confirmed. And above all else, never lose your head as the mascot, which happened to the Oregon Duck when he tripped running out for a football game last summer and the head went rolling. The student within the costume immediately sprinted for the tunnel so as not to be identified.

Hargrave, fortunately, had no such close calls. The closest he came was overheating at the Bruins’ football game at St. Mary’s last fall, but according to Hargrave, it was nothing a quick trip to an enclosed area didn’t fix, although he did have to trudge exhausted through the opposing students’ section.

“You just sneak into the bathroom and go into a closed stall, just to pop the head off and cool down for a few minutes,” he said. “As long as I kept the head on outside, it was fine. With the newer suit you have a mesh screen, so when it’s dark out people can’t really peer in and see me anyway.”

The one exception to this rule is on basketball senior day, when the mascot’s obligations are typically complete. Some of his friends knew, but when the “highly guarded” secret was revealed, he was able to take in the appreciation of two years of relative anonymity.

“One of the main payoffs is being right there when all the action is happening and having such a close role in supporting all the different teams we have at Broadneck, and seeing the fans,” Hargrave said. “Being able to finally take the head off and see everyone’s reactions and appreciation was really cool.”

A mascot has a known entourage — at Broadneck the mascot is part of the cheer and spirit squad — but there’s also the unseen support.

There was getting to road games out of county, where the cheer squad doesn’t always go, so he had to rely on family and friends to get him to Paint Branch and Quince Orchard for football this year, and Charles H. Flowers for the state basketball quarterfinals.

Then there’s his right-hand man, Sam Harvey, a friend and teammate in all three unified sports in which Hargrave participated at Broadneck, on hand to help navigate walkways and to keep the Bruin hydrated.

Though his time as the Bruin is done — the next mascot’s identity remains a mystery — Hargrave relished the fact that he had undertaken such an interesting journey. And if there were ever a time that the University of Mississippi, Hargrave’s college choice, resurrected its sideline mascot, he would be first in line to volunteer.

“I like to keep myself busy, so whether it was unified sports or clubs in Bruin block, it was filling out my schedule and having as much fun in the limited four years as possible,” he said. “I like showing school spirit and having fun, so that was a great thing. I have to thank coach (DakotaRichardson-Lau) and the rest of the cheer staff and squad for that.”