In the last decade, Howard Kirschner calculates, he has seen almost 90 percent of the home games played by the Chicago Bulls, which, as attendance
–and endurance–records go, is not chopped liver.
This is not to say that Howard Kirschner would ever, Heaven forbid, put down chopped liver. True, he is the Bulls` official mascot–the reason he has seen all those games–but he is also the owner of Sam & Hy`s Delicatessen in Skokie. Which means that his world is a mixed metaphoric bag of slamdunks and salami, swishes and knishes, ”chocolate thunder” and chocolate phosphates, backdoor plays and backdoor garbage.
In his 10-year tenure as Benny the Bull, he has seen seven coaches (Ed Badger, Larry Costello, Scotty Robertson, Jerry Sloan, Rod Thorn, Paul Westhead and Kevin Loughery) and average Chicago Stadium crowds of 13,386
(1977-78) and 6,365 (1983-84). He has seen players such as Norm Van Lier, Reggie Theus, Artis Gilmore, David Greenwood and Michael Jordan, and players such as Sam Smith, Roger Burkman, Keith Starr, Eric Fernsten and Tom Kropp.
All right, so what is a grown businessman–we`re not necessarily talking maturity here–doing getting dressed up 36 or 37 times a year in a silly, sweaty red costume and prancing around a public arena giving low-fives to 4-year-olds?
So don`t ask.
All right, so do.
”I really just love it,” Kirschner says. ”I`m a high-energy person. I can talk to anybody, anywhere. I`m a kibitzer at heart. It`s also an opportunity to go from running an intense, seven-days-a-week business to getting into a situation where I can totally let off steam and ham it up. It`s my hobby. Some people build model trains, some play poker. My hobby is trying to get a chuckle out of people.
”I`m 40 years old now, although people say I don`t look it. I certainly don`t act it. That undoubtedly makes me the oldest mascot in the league, and probably the longest in seniority. I`m the dean. I`ve worked with the Chicken for years, and God knows how many other different creatures.”
On a recent Tuesday night, Chicago versus New Jersey, Kirschner arrived at the Stadium about 7:15, head in hand.
”Hey, man, you the bull?” a young boy inquired, and was told, ”No, I`m just bringing it back from the cleaners.” (Later, asked how often he actually does have it cleaned, he answered, ”When it starts standing up by itself.”) He bolted down some dinner in the Bulls` hospitality room and headed for his small dressing room, next to where the Luvabulls (the Bulls` cheerleading squad) change. He used to share his quarters with Super Fan, he of the large spirit and larger girth, who would run around to the blasts of the William Tell Overture as some of the sicker fans would lean forward in their seats in anticipation of signs of coronary distress.
”People were always getting Super Fan and Benny the Bull mixed up. He actually was Jeff Platt, who worked for Morrie Mages. A nice guy. I became his advocate; I told him he could change down here. Up to then, he`d been using a Stadium washroom. But he isn`t running anymore. I don`t think Bulls`
management wants him to.
”The question people ask me the most is, `Is it hot in that costume?` My answer is, `What would it be like sitting inside of an overcoat in a heated building?` Of course it`s hot. I take off three, four pounds a game . . . and then I have a couple of beers and gain it all back. I think the head is made out of molded fiber glass. The original one I wore was of a mean-looking bull. This one is more cow-ish. I guess it`s less intimidating to little kids.”
Fully costumed, down to red athletic shoes, Kirschner emerged from the depths just as the National Anthem ended, in time for the introduction of the players and the booing of the coach.
Working the crowd like an Arkansas politician at a catfish fry, Kirschner quickly began his own special brand of, well, bullshtick: shaking hands with adults, escorting young children around by the hand, signing autographs, posing for photos, bumming popcorn, pulling a pigtail, accepting a kiss on the nose, applauding a Michael Jordan double-pump, waving his hands as New Jersey`s Darryl Dawkins attempted a pair of free throws (he missed both) and keeping a discreet distance from a member of the halftime-entertainment team, a police-canine-unit German shepherd (no harm, no growl).
After the game, a turgid affair–Bulls 108, Nets 94–he took a shower and changed back into mufti.
”I was told tonight that the visiting teams don`t like it when I wave as they`re shooting free throws. They said it`s not good sportsmanship. I told them, `That`s funny. Here you have grown men cursing each other out, throwing elbows, and they`re talking to me about sportsmanship.` ”
He was never a big fan when he was offered the Benny job, he admits one late afternoon while seated at a table at Sam & Hy`s, as customers drop by to shmooze about a variety of topics, most notably, their health.
”I mean, I like the game, but what I do out there is an expression of me and doesn`t reflect a great affection for basketball. While I respect the players, I don`t idolize them. To some degree, I even steer clear of them. But I want them to win. This whole year, mainly because of Michael Jordan, has been a lot of fun. Believe me, when you have 500 people in the house, it isn`t fun.”
He had taken over as the mascot in 1976-77, replacing, one of his friends recalls, ”a volcanic Benny the Bull who was always getting technical fouls called on him. The management decided they would rather have someone to baby- sit for the kids, someone who internalized it all. They wanted, in effect, a Talmudic bull.”
Two years earlier, Kirschner and his wife were taken to a game by Irwin Mandel, then the club`s comptroller.
”Benny the Bull walked by and was goofing around, and I said, `Gee, Irwin, it would be a lot of fun to do that.` We never discussed it again until the day my phone rang and Irwin told me the position was open. I called my wife and said, `You won`t believe this.` She said, `Well, it`s a big commitment. You really want to do it?` I said, `Yep.` And that was it.
”I went out there and didn`t know what I should do and what I shouldn`t; so I just decided to be extemporaneous. I`m not sure the guy before me, Harvey Johnson, left voluntarily or was asked to leave, but I do know he had become persona non grata with the referees in the league.
”When I started, I went up to one ref and said something, and he turned and said, `Benny, get the hell away from here, or I`m going to call a technical on you.`
”It took me about three or four years to change the image. Of course, the referees didn`t know there was a different person in the costume. All they knew was that Benny the Bull was a guy who had baited them and tried to make them look like goats. He`d even been kicked out of the Milwaukee Arena.
”Anyway, my philosophy is to emphasize the positive. Benny basically appeals to everyone, but especially the younger children. I try to make them feel important, help them have a good time. I also try and go with the flow of the game. I know that if Boston or Philadelphia is in town, the best thing I can do is just watch the game like the fans, and do a few antics during timeouts. Because when there`s a fever pitch, I`m in the way.
”It`s when the game is dull, draggy, low-scoring, that I go out and dance around, steal people`s shoes, even drink some of their beer through my straw. Whatever. There isn`t anything I wouldn`t consider doing, as long as it`s not in bad taste. One thing I used to do was throw candy up into the crowd–little peppermints–until some attorney wrote a letter saying he`d gotten hit on the head and was thinking of suing.
”I`ve had things thrown at me, and sometimes drunks will slobber over me and kids will pull my tail. But I can remember only one time in 10 years where I`ve had to call an Andy Frain usher–where I actually had to defend myself and take a swing at a guy. I`ve also been run over by players. One time I literally had my head knocked off. I was sitting on the sidelines, and one of them dove for the ball and crashed into me, and the head just flew off. I felt like I was naked in front of the whole world.
”I`ve had a minimal amount of trouble with the referees, even though I`ve done things like hold up a pair of eyeglasses. But I`ve also tried to maintain a nonhostile type of relationship. And I try to avoid sitations that will get the coaches mad at me. Now, I will sneak into the other`s team huddle and pinch someone on the rear end. No, they don`t get angry. Because I do it in a way that`s not demeaning. I mean, I won`t do anything that will make someone come after me with their fists.”
Like Benny, Kirschner has Chicago blood lines. He grew up in West Rogers Park, was graduated from Mather High and the University of Illinois and then taught at the Cooley Upper Grade Center.
He also took real estate courses at the YMCA, and from the late `60s to the late `70s went back and forth between real estate and teaching. In other moments, he worked at the restaurant his father owned on West Madison Street
(on what is now the site of Claes Oldenburg`s ”Batcolumn” sculpture) and was even the Chicago representative for a company owned by Montana`s Blackfeet Indians that made pens and pencils for corporations.
In 1980 he and a partner, who since has left, bought the delicatessen, which had gone into default.
”It was a horrible situation,” Kirschner recalls. ”In just six months, the new owner who had bought it from Sam and Hy had turned it into a shambles. He changed the menu, changed the decor and raised the prices. It`s taken me five years to finally get it straightened out.”
Kirschner lives in Glenview with Paulette, his wife of 17 years, and their 10-year-old and 6-year-old daughters.
”If I ever decided to retire as Benny the Bull, my girls would probably disown me and throw me out. I mean, it`s a status thing. I`ve gone to their schools and everything, and they and my wife, who`s been very supportive, usually will go to the weekend games.”
For his efforts, he gets a parking space and two tickets a game, as well as a salary.
”I`m obviously not doing it for the money. I don`t want to say what I`m making, but I got a raise this year and am still underpaid, compared to other mascots in town. And next to the Chicken–who, I`ve heard, gets $5,000 a game –I`m at the poverty level.”
Despite the sacking last month of longtime general manager Rod Thorn
(”one of the nicest people I`ve known”) by new owner Jerry Reinsdorf, Kirschner says he is not afraid for his own job. (”That`s one advantage of being low man on the totem pole.”)
And, despite being the Pete Rose of cavorting-creaturedom, he has no plans to retire.
”Over the years, I do things a little differently. I don`t run around as much as I used to, which is a function of being 40, although I work out with weights and am in very good condition.
”The whole mascot thing is something I take real seriously. I feel on some nights I go out there and give a better effort than some of the players. I`m proud of what I`ve done, that I`ve made Benny available to charitable functions like the cerebral palsy telethon, the Christmas parties at Angel Guardian and the Channel 11 auction.
”A few years ago I thought I`d do it for 10 years. Now, I`d like to do it as long as I can, providing I continue to enjoy it and maintain good health. When it stops being fun, then it`s time to hang up my head. I`ll go out to pasture and just smell the flowers. Like Ferdinand.”
