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The key to becoming Alexander Hamilton

By Rachel Zuckerman ’19

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Among the 72 emails you received on August 29, was one asking if you have what it takes to be Alex, the official mascot of Hamilton College? One email from Coach Gillian McDonald read: “Do you have a lot of school spirit? Do you love taking selfies? Are you able to keep a secret and not reveal your identity? Are you in good shape and not claustrophobic?”
Despite this heavy set of qualifications, a number of brave souls have ventured into Alex’s head in order to bring us entertainment, encouragement and energy. Here are their stories (insert dramatic S.V.U. music).
“Before I even step into the suit, I have to be well-hydrated,” Anonymous Alex One explained. “This is because the suit gets so hot! Whenever I’m going to be Alex, I am well-hydrated and wearing clothes that will wick away my sweat.”
All of the Alexes agree: preparation is key and a lack of such can be deadly (being hung-over in the suit is just about the worst thing you can do).
Of course, a wet, hot, sweaty, smelly, claustrophobic space is the first thing most of us imagine when we think of being a mascot, but did you know: “the sweat from [Anon. Alex Two’s] face pools at the bottom of Alex’s chin”? Yep, that oversized mandible dually serves as a sweat pond.
When A. Ham isn’t suffering from heat exhaustion or tripping over rocks due to his lack of peripheral vision, he’s colliding with Clinton Comets players on the ice, attending protests, accepting marriage proposals, slipping in mud, taking selfies or running laps around the fans. Clearly it’s a good gig.
Throughout a given year there are two or three students who take on the challenge of becoming Alex, giving each of these brave souls the opportunity to attend campus events without a massive box on their head.
Despite how awful being the mascot sounds to an outsider, Anon Alex Two has enjoyed her experience. “When people see Alex they really only think of the person inside in an abstract sense, so I become both invisible and super visible in a way that lets me behave the same way I do when I’m, like, dancing alone to Beyoncé in my dorm room. It’s kind of liberating.”
“I felt like a celebrity [in the suit] and everyone wanted to come up to me,” Anon Alex Three states in agreement. “I got to interact with people I don’t know or normally talk to. I also was able to dance freely and do crazy things.”
While maintaining anonymity is within the Alex contract, Anon Alex One, who graduated last May, isn’t so sure she played by the rules. “Let’s be real, everyone knows I’m Alex. I once walked up to one of my friends and hugged her and she freaked out. So I told her it was me so she’d stop freaking out. Not gonna lie, I have a very specific group of friends, we sometimes walk in groups of ten and people could put together that I was in the suit.”
Anon Alex Two, however, has maintained her anonymity and gets a good laugh when people try to figure out who’s in the suit. “A lot of times people think they know who is Alex and they’re usually wrong. So many people who I do not know will come up to me in the costume and say something like, ‘Hey man (wink wink) I know who that is’ like we’re both in on this secret, but I do not know this person.” Better luck next time.
When it comes down to it, all three of our mascot embodiments agreed that students should interact more with Alex. “It’s so much more fun when other people have fun with the mascot. I know we all like to think we’re too cool or too serious to engage with a creepy caricature version of Alexander Hamilton, but that’s so lame,” Anon Two reports. “Next time you see Alex you should give him a high five or take a picture because it makes my job so much more enjoyable than when people just walk by pointedly avoiding eye contact.”

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