Look who’s new at SMU, the Maniac

SMU athletics has a new number one fan. The unidentified masked man, looking suspiciously like the offspring of “The Tick” and “Mavs Man,” is known only as Mustang Maniac.

“He looks like Batman without the cape, with big ears, but red and blue,” said Alan Vojtech, junior international studies/business major. “We were like ‘what is it supposed to be?'”

Mustang Maniac can be found at football games in front of the student section or on the west side of the stadium mostly populated by SMU alumni. He roves around the stadium shooting t-shirts into the crowd and riling up the fans.

“I think it’s great that SMU has finally found someone to represent the fans,” said Ryan Mcnamara, a junior broadcast journalism major. “Too bad he is intimidating to most students and children.”

He wears a blue shirt emblazoned with a red “M” on the chest similar to the football player jersey, and is outfitted with a full set of shoulder pads. His blue face has white fly-like eyes nestled below two large red ears that stick straight up.

“He kinda scared me,” said sophomore Amy Messer, “but the whole T-shirt gun thing was cool.”

Mustang Maniac is not intended to take any attention away from Peruna or his costumed mascot counterpart. According to Shawn Heilbron, director of marketing for SMU athletics, he is more of a new character to the SMU spirit team than a new mascot.

“We really have a great tradition of spirit organizations here but we really wanted to do something that was a little more of an athletics entertainer,” Heilbron said. “We just wanted someone who could interact a little more with the fans and the Peruna costume is very prohibitive for the person in it to get up in the crowd and really move around a whole lot. “

The name Mustang Maniac is not affiliated with the student spirit organization Mustang Maniacs.