(WKYT) – For today’s Good Question, James asks: I remember as a kid in the 70s watching UK basketball games and seeing a mascot called Big Blue. He walked on stilts and wore blue and white striped pants. Do you know the name of that person and what ever happened to the character? How many seasons was he around, and why is he not around anymore?

When i first got this email I wasn’t sure Big Blue had ever existed. If you search for him online, you get a few other mascots, including a bull from Utah State. However, Tony Neely from UK Athletics told me he did exist, and even better, he put me in touch with one of the original performers of Big Blue.

In 1976, David Hardison was a first-year dental student living with his uncle, Dr. Tom Cooper.

His uncle was friends with UK Coach Joe B. Hall, and they wanted something to commemorate the men’s basketball team moving from Memorial Coliseum to Rupp Arena.

“They came up with the idea of a basketball-focused mascot that looked like a tall basketball player,” Hardison said.

The mascot, Big Blue, would tower over the opposing team. He and his cousin, Dr. Cooper’s son, Tom, took turns wearing the costume, drywall stilts and all.

“I had never ever been on stilts before. But my uncle came home one day and said you need to learn how to fall on these,” Hardison said. “And so he handed me, so I went out in the backyard and started walking around.”

He told me he still remembers stepping out in front of 24,000 cheering fans.

There were more people than my entire hometown,” Hardison said.

In this video from 1980, you can see Big Blue joining UKs cheer team. Hardison told me his uncle, the cheerleaders, or even the other mascots, would help him, not only for his safety.

“The biggest problem was with it projecting out from your face, you couldn’t see down, and so, a lot of times, little kids would come up and want to shake hands, and that was great. But I had to be real careful not to step on somebody,” Hardison said.

Hardison wore the stilts for five years through dental school and his residency.

“They only ever did it in Rupp Arena,” Hardison said. “That’s the home of Big Blue.

Others would pick up the uniform. However, sometime in the late 80s, Big Blue stepped off the court for the last time. No one could tell me exactly why.

There’s a part of me that wishes they’d bring him back. Because I always like the idea of a UK mascot that towered over not just the opposing mascot, but the opposing team. It just seemed representative somehow of UK basketball,” Hardison said.

Hardison told me in all of his time as Big Blue he only fell once. It was the last time out of the last game and a bolt in the stilts broke. His wife ran down to check on him, but it looked worse than it actually was.

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