How a mascot change once led to death threats at Fresno State. ‘I wish I had a do-over’

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During a time Fresno State basked in the glory of the Bulldogs baseball team winning a national championship, a prominent university figure was practically unrecognizable.

TimeOut, the school’s longtime mascot, did not look like its normal self in 2008.

The beloved cartoonish bulldog was nowhere to be found in Omaha, Neb., where Fresno State transformed from underdogs to Wonder Dogs to capture an improbable NCAA World Series title.

TimeOut did attend the championship parade when the team returned to Fresno.

But the mascot was hardly front and center of the celebration.

Why?

Back then, during a brief blunder in Fresno State history, TimeOut was brown.

It wasn’t its usual gray color.

It didn’t match the school’s logo.

Some Red Wave fans considered it an abomination.

“When he showed up at his makeover revealing (at) the first (2007) Fresno State football game, guess how fans reacted?” then-Fresno Bee sports columnist Matt James wrote. “The way they’d have reacted to a plague, or a lead pipe to the kneecap. ...

“He was greeted, no exaggeration, with awkward silence and it only got worse from there.”

Here’s a quick look back at why school athletic administration changed TimeOut’s colors and how the infamous decision led to furious backlash.

Costume overhaul

The old TimeOut costume needed to be replaced.

The costume that so many children and fans had enjoyed and hugged over the years was worn out and smelled.

It was created in 1980 by Valley commercial artist Gary Johns.

But by the mid-2000s, the big, red tongue that dangled from the gray bulldog mascot’s mouth was practically dismembered. The floppy ears drooped more and more. The vision from inside the costume also was limited.

In addition, more modernized mascot outfits had been made for others universities.

Ones that offered a cooling system inside and allowed the person in the costume to perform athletic stunts like a cartwheel or even a push-up — without concerns of the mascot’s head coming undone in the middle of a game.

“The reason we replaced the gray suit last year was because it was unsafe and falling apart,” then-associated athletic director Paul Ladwig told The Bee in 2008. “It was made of wool and had no cooling. That’s why quarters would go by when you wouldn’t see the mascot. You can only be in a hot suit so long before you need a break.”

But why not upgrade the mascot’s costume without changing its color to brown?

Claims of ignoring history, tradition

Among the biggest gripes Fresno State fans had with TimeOut’s color change was that they found it unnecessary.

“I understand the need to modernize the suit,” Fresno State alumnus Matt Helon said in a 2008 Fresno Bee story. “But they went way too far with the brown mascot. The head was ridiculous and didn’t look like a dog to me.”

It didn’t help that some longtime fans viewed Fresno State’s athletic administration as “outsiders” who didn’t necessarily respect or care for what had been previously accomplished or established.

Then-Fresno State athletic director Thomas Boeh was brought on board by then-university president John Welty to help organize and clean up an athletic department that had been riddled with scandal and violations.

But Boeh, who previously worked at Ohio University, was not for the central San Joaquin Valley.

And Ladwig, Boeh’s right-hand man when it came to marketing and branding, also was not from the Valley.

Ladwig, however, said he wasn’t trying to mess with tradition.

He said his primary goal of updating TimeOut was to incorporate a more modern, safer costume, and have its colors match that of Victor E. Bulldog, the live mascot that the university was introducing around the same time.

“A real bulldog was brown and white — not gray,” Ladwig said during an interview this month. “My thought process was: Let’s make the live mascot look like the cartoon mascot and they can mirror each other. We’re going to have this great combo in college athletics: TimeOut and Victor E.

“Well, little did I know that the passionate fan base here at Fresno State would think I was an idiot when that happened.”

Going back to gray

When the brown Timeout mascot was unveiled at the first football game of the 2007 season, some fans thought it looked more like a chipmunk.

Outcry occurred with many questioning what had the university done to its beloved bulldog.

“We have memories attached to the old mascot,” longtime Fresno State fan Heather Billings said then to The Bee. “By changing it so drastically, the administration has wiped out those memories. It’s like a little bit of my childhood has disappeared.”

Ladwig quickly realized he’d made a mistake.

“If I had a do-over, this is the one I wish I had a do-over,” Ladwig said. “Because I just didn’t realize how the fans would take it, seeing a brown mascot compared to a gray one.

“And I get it; I understand their passion.”

Ladwig, however, didn’t appreciate the threats and nasty e-mails and voice messages he’d received the weeks that followed the brown TimeOut’s debut.

“The thing I didn’t understand was their hatred,” Ladwig said. “The things said to me, the voicemails left on my message at work. I had a have a police escort out of the building one night.

“I didn’t quite understand some personal hatred brought my way because the mascot was brown.”

Fresno State soon after put in an order for a new TimeOut costume, quite similar to the brown but this one would be gray.

But it takes time to make a costume.

And when the Fresno State baseball team won the College World Series nine months later, TimeOut’s gray costume still wasn’t ready.

The new gray TimeOut costume did eventually get unveiled during Fresno State’s first home football game of the 2008 season.

The school held a vote prior to game, asking fans what color should TimeOut be for the upcoming football season to build up some excitement in anticipation of gray cartoonish bulldog’s return.

And peace and unity returned to Fresno State once tradition was restored.

Victor E. Bulldog, the live mascot that was introduced in 2006, also has remained a popular university figure and has almost 16,000 followers on Instagram alone.

Brown TimeOut nowhere to be found

What happened to the brown TimeOut costume?

Ladwig, who last worked at Fresno State in 2019, couldn’t fully recall but thought the costume was given to a high school that has a bulldog for a mascot.

Other school officials believed the brown TimeOut costume was eventually recycled and barred from ever returning again.

“You never want to upset your fanbase, and by God, I did the one thing that made the fanbase upset,” Ladwig said a laugh. “Luckily, we were all smart enough to go fix it. And you learn from your mistakes.

“What’s nice is, I think about how I helped bring along a live mascot. Victor E. has been a huge success. And I screwed up the costume mascot.

“So they equal out a bit.”