Transformation into Chelsea a true character builder

Mic Smith
The Post and Courier

Charleston RiverDogs director of mascot development Jamie Ballentine (right) helps Post and Courier reporter Bill Henley turn into Chelsea before a recent game at Riley Park.

Mic Smith
The Post and Courier

Jamie Ballentine (right) monitors Bill Henley as The Post and Courier writer practices walking in the Chelsea mascot costume.

Video

The Post and Courier sports reporter, Bill Henley, tries his hand as the RiverDogs mascot Chelsea. Watch »

"You walk like a pimp."

Jamie Ballentine looked mildly concerned. The Charleston RiverDogs' director of mascot development was trying to make sure the uncoordinated sports writer sampling life inside his organization's Chelsea suit could stay in character for 20 yards at a time. Ballentine didn't sound frustrated and he consistently maintained a positive demeanor, but his assessment was not a compliment and I had to wonder if he was more nervous than I was about letting me do this in a real game.

If walking was going to be this difficult to master, how was the rest of it going to get any easier?

The trainer

Ballentine estimates that he's been in over a dozen different goofy costumes since high school. Most notably, he spent four years at South Carolina as Cocky, and was named national mascot of the year as a freshman in 2003.

His introduction to the profession came when he was 8 and he had the opportunity to throw out the first pitch at a Capital City Bombers game in Columbia. While getting ready, he met the person who was going to be Homer the Dragon and watched the transformation from normal person to walking plush toy.

"He came out on a four-wheeler and everyone went nuts and wanted an autograph. It made an impression," he said.

A few years later, Ballentine became the stallion mascot for Ridge View High School.

"It was fun, and when I got accepted to Carolina, I had to try out (for Cocky)," he said.

At the tryout, his biggest competition was the previous year's understudy, who seemed to have a good rapport with the judges. It wasn't a positive sign but he was undeterred.

"I decided I was just going to have fun doing Cocky one time. Apparently, that was enough," he said. "My first appearance as Cocky was at the State Museum. I took a nap and came back that night for my high school graduation."

He earned a degree in advertising, but his experience as Cocky was what sold him on his vocation.

"It happened pretty quick. I had mascot camp and Big Al from Alabama was our instructor and he described the opportunities that were out there," Ballentine said. "I loved it so much, I said I've got to do this — be a professional stuffed animal."

Chelsea training: Walk like a man

A week before I was scheduled to become Chelsea, Ballentine sent me a to-do list that indicated this wouldn't be as easy as just slipping on a big suit and walking around.

In addition to suggesting I wear lightweight clothing and think about donning knee and elbow pads, he instructed me to abstain from coffee and other caffeinated drinks to ensure that I kept hydrated. That was fine — difficult at times — but fine.

It was also important to get in some practice time. The RiverDogs organization takes a thoughtful approach to providing fans a good time, and that extends to their mascots' performance.

Ballentine has a notebook full of ideas and notes on both mascots. He insists that whoever gets into either suit must maintain a consistent personality.

"Charlie's still got puppy in him so he's very curious about a lot of stuff and excited. He has a short attention span, but he knows he's still the leader of the cheering for the RiverDogs. And he loves Looney Tunes, so he tries to mimic his heroes," Ballentine said.

"Chelsea's a little bit of a Minnie Mouse with an attitude almost. She's got some soul sister in her when the occasion calls for it.

"She also keeps Charlie in check."

Even during practice with nobody else around, Ballentine only called me Chelsea while I was wearing her head. I also had to get used to the ultimate rule — no talking.

The first day of training was spent getting used to the Chelsea suit. He ran a practice drill for me to touch Chelsea's eyes, ears, nose and mouth. With my own face located in Chelsea's neck, I had to keep aware of reaching a foot above my head to touch Chelsea's.

And then came the walking. Ballentine said even the walk was important to building a character.

"We need to bring out your inner Chelsea," he said. "It has to be about levels. You have to get some up and down in your walk. All of your motions need to be animated with quick stops."

After a couple of attempts, Ballentine said I still walked too much like a man and I needed to try to hold my shoulders back and sway. I made my next attempt imagining I was a runway model. It didn't go well.

"Now you're walking like a pimp," he said.

Then, there was the other problem — the hands. Whenever I'd wave or motion to someone, it must have looked less like the happy, warm gesture I thought it was and more like a playground predator saying "Come here, child."

"OK, that's just creepy," Ballentine said.

So after the first day, my biggest problems were my feet and my hands.

Charlie's future

Few people realize that Charlie is much busier than performing at the team's 70 home games.

"Charlie doesn't have many weekends off. During the season, he'll make anywhere from three to seven appearances per week. I want Charlie to be as active in the community as Cocky was," Ballentine said.

When he was at USC, Ballentine said Cocky worked many non-sports functions, too. This is the direction the RiverDogs organization has decided to take with its mascot.

The director of mascot development position was created this year as a full-time post after the team dabbled with the idea of expanding Charlie's role last year.

"We're trying to rebrand Charlie into the community as opposed to just the RiverDogs," general manager Dave Echols said.

The club tried to use a part-time employee, but opted this year to hire someone who understood the business.

"We wanted to get someone with experience and was passionate about mascots as opposed to just putting someone in charge of the mascots."

Chelsea training II: Improv improvement

The second day of training was designed to put me through the wringer.

One acting exercise Ballentine endorses is thinking of an emotion and trying to convey that feeling from levels 1-5.This sounded relatively easy until he gave me "excited" and I realized that after I had gotten to level 3, I had nothing more for 4 and 5.

"Once, I was doing 'sad' at level 4 for a tryout with the Cleveland Indians and I'm making a big fit, sobbing and throwing a huge tantrum," Ballentine said. "Then someone said go to 5, and I thought how could I be more sad. I pretended to pull out a gun and shot myself. I had nowhere else to go."

He also pulled out some random props and told me to use each one in a non- obvious way. So barbells became a track and field hurdle, flexible dryer pipe became a fishing worm, inflatable bongos became a telephone and an inflatable hand was transformed into pet droppings that needed to be scooped.

At some point with the morning sun beating down, he also had me doing army crawls and tumbling, which was exhausting.

The good news was my walk was improving. It seemed focusing on being an old woman with a handbag worked better than ultra-feminine supermodel.

Ballentine called for a break so I could get some water and he could set up some random music and sound effects for me to react to.

I played air guitar to AC/DC's "Back in Black" and danced to reggae and swing music. By the time the "Chariots of Fire" theme had come on, I was exhausted. I did some slow-motion running, crossed an imaginary finish line and collapsed, still pumping my legs while on my back. At this point, I was trying to steal rest any way I could.

Finally, I had to motion to call it quits before even getting to the sound effects. I could barely move and the suit felt like it was suffocating me.

While I was disappointed that I couldn't get through Ballentine's training regimen, he was much more encouraging with his final evaluation.

"The walk you had at the end was very animated and brought the character to life nicely. Just keep in mind that you are a real-life cartoon character. You're also a girl," he said.

"Being put out in front of a crowd is much different than training. Take this weekend to observe a lot females and their body language. I will be open to being yelled out by your wife for this assignment."

Game day

After all the practice, game day arrived with a mix of nervousness and relief. Performing for a crowd wasn't going to be a big deal — I've done that before and this time I was a walking puppet so I couldn't really embarrass myself.

My nerves stemmed from whether I could last three hours in the suit, be believable and not accidentally step on a child. The relief was that one way or another, it would be done.

I brought a scale with me to see how much I would weigh by the end of the night. It read 167 before I put on the costume, which weighed another 27 pounds.

Ballentine also assigned a handler to me, Susan Daunter.

"She's great. She'll take good care of you — help keep people from pulling your tail and give you a head's up if someone's trying to get your attention," he said.

We also went through a series of hand signals in case I needed a break.

The first activity was go to the field to wave to the crowd and play around with a youth team that was about to run out onto the field with the RiverDogs players. Really, the toughest part of the job is finding something to do when the mascot has no specific job. At the same time, I was concentrating really hard on whether Chelsea was walking like a female and whether I was looking at fans with Chelsea's eyes or with her neck. At least once, I had to check myself before I had Chelsea blow a kiss from under her chin.

After the national anthem, Charlie and Chelsea went underneath the stands to rest and await Charlie's opening dance routine before the top of the second inning. It wasn't until we ran out behind home plate that I realized that while I had seen this performed a few dozen times, we never got around to practicing this bit and there was more to the first part of the intro than I remembered.

Feeling a little dumbfounded, that's when I heard PA announcer Ken Carrington blurt out, "Gee, Chelsea looks a little lost."

Ballentine, feeling confident, decided before the game that Charlie and Chelsea would add a couple of gags into the night's routines. At this point, Charlie broke into some hip-hop, break-dancing that Chelsea wanted to try but not mimic so well. It was obvious that Ballentine wanted to play to my strength — bad dancing. My wife later said my attempt at a sit-spin reminded her of a dog we used to own who liked to scratch its butt on the carpet.

The game resumed and it was time for Charlie and Chelsea to split up and work the stands.

One thing I learned out in the stands is that fans absolutely love Chelsea — unless Charlie's around, and then she's practically invisible.

Nevertheless, I posed for several photos and gave out numerous hugs.

Daunter said we needed to get upstairs to meet Charlie for our next activity. While we were headed to the third level, rain began to fall and the wind started whipping around.

On the picnic level, I leaned forward against a railing and spread my arms to mimic the "I'm king of the world" scene in "Titanic." Whether it entertained the soaked masses or not, it was a great opportunity to cool off.

We met Ballentine in the press box to get some water and take a short break. That's when he said, "I have maybe the worst idea ever. Charlie and Chelsea are going to go streaking through the rain."

After getting the mascots' clothes off, Charlie took off first to push his way through the crowded top level to get down the stairs and to the mascot room. Chelsea followed about 15 seconds behind.

The crowd was certainly amused by the two "naked" dogs. Somebody slapped my posterior and I stopped long enough for Chelsea to take offense, But, while Daunter was helping me push my way through the crowd, the humidity was building up inside the suit and my glasses were fogging over. I was reduced to seeing blobbish shapes of color. At some point I reached the stairs, but I had lost Daunter. When I got to the tunnel, I overshot the door because I had no idea where I was, but as far as anyone else could tell, Chelsea was out for a run enjoying the rainfall. Someone on staff realized I needed help and guided me to where I needed to go — a blind dog with her seeing eye human.

Back at headquarters, we hung the costumes so a giant fan could dry them off. The rain delay became a postponement. Back on the scale, I discovered I had sweated off four pounds in a little more than an hour's work.

Ballentine said one time he lost 15 pounds, "but I was sick that day, too."

I wasn't sure how well I did. There were no major incidents, and Daunter said my walk was fine. But, what I needed was the seal of approval from Ballentine.

"So when can I have you out here again?" he asked.

Oh, good, more walking practice.

Reach Bill Henley at 937-5595 or bhenley@postandcourier.com.