Garrett Kelly

Before Garrett Kelly saw UMass Lowell through the eyes of a digital media major, he saw it through the eyes of a 6-foot-tall bird.

While still a senior at Chelmsford High School, Kelly volunteered to play the role of Rowdy the River Hawk at a Manning School of Business event after the scheduled student mascot had a last-minute conflict. The opportunity came through his mother, Mary Lou Kelly, the Manning School’s business manager.

“It was interesting to see the school from the mascot’s perspective. Everyone seemed like they loved being here,” says Kelly, who already knew by then that he would be attending UMass Lowell.

What he didn’t know is how much Rowdy would become part of his college experience. As a student employee with the Athletics Department, Kelly spends up to 10 hours a week playing Rowdy at basketball games, campus functions and community events.

“It’s a fun way to represent the school while getting paid to do what I love,” says Kelly, who enjoys the freedom of stepping into the mascot character and performing for crowds of all ages. “It’s a chance to take on an alternate persona — almost like an escape from reality.”

Kelly’s passion for performing as a mascot extends beyond campus. During the summers, he works at Canobie Lake Park in Salem, New Hampshire, as part of the entertainment team, rotating among multiple mascot characters and helping with live shows.

“If I can make at least one person happy, then I feel like that is an accomplishment,” Kelly says. “It doesn’t have to be a kid — it could be a college student, a parent or someone having the worst day of their life.”

The summer after his freshman year, Kelly was invited to wear the Rowdy costume at a “Mascot Night” hosted by the New England Revolution at Gillette Stadium. He met more than a dozen professional and college mascot performers from across the region and networked with marketing staff from the Revolution. The following year, he was hired to play Slyde the Fox for the Major League Soccer club.

“Just being out there, seeing like 10,000 people in the stands, it is such a surreal feeling,” says Kelly, who works about a half dozen Revolution home games each season. “Everyone is cheering for you just walking out there. That’s probably the closest thing I’ll ever feel to being a professional athlete.”

As a digital media major, Kelly’s coursework includes semester-long film projects, professional photography assignments and camera-based storytelling, building skills he hopes to apply in sports media and entertainment.

Kelly also wants to see how far mascot work can take him.

“I would love to continue doing this as a full-time position for a team in the NFL or the NBA. That would be my dream job,” he says.

For now, Kelly wants to learn how to ice skate so he can add one more item to his mascot résumé: playing Rowdy at a UMass Lowell men’s hockey game.

“If I keep practicing,” Kelly says, “hopefully I can tell my boss by my senior year, ‘Yeah, I’m ready.’”