Legacy of A Legend

The night the eagle hatched, it almost brought the house down.

It was a chilly evening in January 1982, but the brothers of Georgia Southern University’s Delta Chi fraternity were sweating as they rushed across campus to the homecoming basketball game. Pulling up in front of Hanner Fieldhouse, they ignored the cheers reverberating through the walls and gave their cargo one last check.

“Ready?” Gilbert Wertz (’85) asked, rearranging a few pine needles piled onto a cart. Nestled in the straw, a large, egg-shaped mound of toilet paper and chicken wire gave a muffled response, and the brothers began moving it inside.

Inside, halftime was met with a buzz of excitement. Rumor spread around the room that something special was planned. Doors opened to the first notes of “Space Odyssey,” and the brothers abandoned the cart in the center of the gymnasium floor.

Students shuffled in the stands to get a better view of the egg, suspense mounting with the music’s crescendo. At its climax, the egg toppled, revealing a crouched eagle mascot. It jumped up, flinging its arms into the air, and the house roared.

“I get chills even now when I recall the moment,” Wertz said. “I’m pretty sure it’s never been as loud in there before or since. Eagle Nation fully embraced our new feathered fellow that night and has never looked back.”

That night was the origin of Georgia Southern’s beloved mascot, known in the 80s as “the eagle.” Purchased, introduced and maintained by the brothers of Delta Chi, they wore the costume to sports events for the next five years, including the newly minted football program led by Coach Erk Russell.

“[One of the brothers] noted that we didn’t have a mascot, just a bald-headed football coach and three games against club teams under our belt,” Wertz explained. When he discovered they could buy a costume for $470, the whole chapter pitched in, eager to boost the enthusiasm of Eagles fans.

How do a bunch of young college guys develop and embody the spirit of a school in mascot form? By taking turns. Tossing the costume into the back of an old green truck with holes in the floorboards, Delta Chi brothers Larry Stevens, the first to wear the costume, David Edwards (’86) and others drove to football games across the nation, sometimes paying for their own tickets, to represent Georgia Southern.

On the football field, Russell had two rules for the mascot: stay out of the football players’ way and don’t touch Russell’s head. As long as they followed his rules, the brothers were free to engage with fans through trial and error – and lots of laughs.

“It was all about getting the fans to interact with what was going on on the court or the field,” Edwards said. “I recall folks wanting to hug the eagle and bringing little kids up and things like that. I’d be very animated, trying to get the crowd involved in the game.”

As the mascot, the brothers got people’s attention by running, and sometimes crowd surfing, up and down bleachers and playing pranks. One of their favorites involved getting chased by a referee on the field. Carrying a bucket, the referee pelted after the mascot until it grabbed a bystander, who would find themselves covered in a bucket full of feathers. By 1987, two versions of the mascot had been created, the first retired purely because of the smell.

“Nowadays, GUS is more of a head with a tail and jersey and leggings on,” Stevens said. “We had the leggings, but we also had a full body suit made to look like feathers, and so heavy I’m not sure it wasn’t made out of wool. After a while, it stunk to high heaven.”

The second iteration of the mascot was introduced at a football game by the cheerleaders, who ran onto the field with balloons and fanfare. When Georgia Southern College became the University in 1990, the cheerleaders took over the eagle mascot and gave it a new name: GUS.

Since then, GUS has worn many guises, including one in 2016 that fans found so terrifying, the University promptly ousted it.

The mascot alumni and students know and love can regularly be seen around campus and at the University’s sporting events today. Delta Chi brothers are proud of the legacy they hatched on that January night in 1982, one that has unified Georgia Southern fans for more than 40 years.

Rumor has it the original costume was buried in a time capsule to commemorate Georgia Southern’s transition from college to university. If and when the time capsule is uncovered, Stevens imparts a warning.

“Whoever opens it should wear a mask, because it’s going to stink.” 

— Holly Caughran