Behind every successful Bucky Badger is the woman who’s been managing UW-Madison’s biggest celebrity behind the scenes for 25 years.
Josette Jaucian has been “Bucky’s mom” — or on the occasion he misbehaves, “Bucky’s unofficial parole officer” — since 2000. She took over leading the Spirit Squad in that year, which consists of not only wrangling the multiple performers who bring the Bucky costume to life, but also overseeing the university’s dance team and cheerleaders, more than 60 students total.
As the protector of the 84-year-old Badger’s persona, Jaucian sets high standards and keeps the team of UW-Madison students behind Bucky in line.
Josette Jaucian talks to Bucky before the women’s basketball game between Southern California and Wisconsin on Feb. 5 at the Kohl Center. She attends most home games where Bucky and the Spirit Squad make an appearance.
But Jaucian is also the enabler behind Bucky’s fun and spontaneity: When her team of eight Bucky performers want him to go sledding on Bascom Hill after a fresh snowfall or sit in Gordon Commons to “work” on his computer, it’s Jaucian who gives the green light, said CC, a current UW-Madison student and Bucky performer who’s being referred to by his nickname. (The students who play Bucky are anonymous to campus to protect the character.)
“In my time on the team, (Bucky’s) sat on iPads. He’s jumped off of stages and landed squarely on teleprompters. He’s fallen off a jet ski in the middle of Lake Mendota,” CC said. “Naturally, Bucky’s always boisterous, fun-loving and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. At the end of the day, there needs to be someone who tells Bucky that he can’t have nothing but candy for dinner.”
A Middleton native, Jaucian has been a Badger for more than three decades. She spent five years as a UW-Madison undergrad and as a cheerleader in the 1990s, and she was an assistant for the Spirit Squad, with one of her responsibilities being scheduling Bucky’s appearances. After graduating in 1997, Jaucian coached the cheerleading squad for a year before eventually returning to lead the entire Spirit Squad.
From August to April, it’s hectic, with Jaucian juggling the more mundane, administrative duties of ordering team uniforms and scheduling nearly 650 annual Bucky appearances. But Jaucian’s work is more than just Bucky. She also leads practices on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons with the dancers and cheerleaders. She attends most home games where Bucky and the Spirit Squad make an appearance.
Jaucian embodies what it means to be a Badger, her colleagues at the athletic department say. She strives to make the role of Bucky a mix of seriousness and fun, Senior Associate Athletic Director Justin Doherty said.
“It helps that she was the cheerleader herself,” Doherty said. “That love of the department and love of the campus and the school informs the way she works with the Buckys.”
For Jaucian, the best parts of the job, though, are when she can take a step back and see the impact she — and Bucky — have on people. Once, she was able to help a child with a fear of mascots by bringing the empty costume to a therapy appointment; she’s coordinated Bucky visits for people with special needs who love the character but don’t always have the ability to get out to see him.
“(It’s about) just being able to touch people’s lives and seeing how excited Badger fans are to be near Bucky,” Jaucian said. “That’s one thing I forget sometimes, is how exciting he can be, and just to see others’ excitement to find him at a game. It’s pretty fun to see.”
Jaucian has high standards for the people who play Bucky and are tasked with maintaining the continuity of his lovable but laughable character.
It starts with a gantlet of tests Jaucian gives every UW-Madison student who wants to become Bucky during tryouts each April.
The first round starts with four test stations: Applicants begin with the chance to transform into Bucky at the role-playing station, where they put on the 35-pound carbon-fiber Bucky head and act out a scenario being read to them, so Jaucian can see how well they use motion to convey Bucky’s emotions.
Props laid out on the floor test prospective Buckys on their improv skills. A minute-and-a-half dancing test puts Bucky’s dance moves to the test. Then it’s maxing out on push-ups to see if they can keep up with the sheer number Bucky has to do during football games. Every time the Badgers score, Bucky does one pushup for every point they’ve scored so far in the game.
Bringing Bucky Badger to life is sometimes the easy part. To win a spot of one of eight rotating Buckys, applicants also show they’re reliable, because of Bucky’s hundreds of celebrity appearances each year.
They’ve also got to be able to read the room, Jaucian said.
Performing Bucky for the larger crowd at the football game or at weddings, his most frequent non-university request, is straightforward. It gets trickier the smaller the crowd gets, she said: One person may revel in having Bucky’s four-fingered brown mitt ruffling their hair in the stands, while another may not. He also has to interact with opposing team fans, walking a fine line between annoying and silly.
At more serious events, where UW-Madison leaders and other academics are mingling, Bucky should know to tone down his antics. And at funerals — yes, Bucky has made appearances for those who are still his biggest fans posthumously — he has to find ways to bring joy to a grieving family.
And then there’s the off-limits areas Jaucian has instituted for Bucky over the years. Bucky’s not allowed to touch food as a common-sense rule. If Bucky’s going to interact with little kids, he should sit on the floor — it’s shocking how many parents are eager for Bucky cradle their newborn babies, Jaucian said. And Bucky should try not to touch people’s personal belongings — once, Bucky was having fun playing someone’s drum set and it ended up being dented.
And Bucky’s definitely not allowed to bodysurf in the crowd — UW police arrested him for that at a home football game in 2004 and gave him a $181 fine.
Instilling life skills
There’s a certain skill to playing Bucky that she teaches — he’s got a cadence, after all, with a bit of swagger in his step and the telltale swing of his arms. Students who don the mascot head quickly have to learn how high his facial features are, compared to their own at mouth-level. Jaucian and tenured Buckys pass these traits on through practices.
But maybe more important are the life skills Jaucian passes to the people who play Bucky. She instills in her students a sense of professionalism, one that former Bucky and current realtor Stacy Bruner carries with him to this day.
Bruner had joined the Bucky team as a slightly older student — he’d transferred from Beloit College after two years there, a move his parents approved of as long as he fulfilled a long-running family joke and tried out to be Bucky. Joining as a 21-year-old, Bruner said his extra years of maturity allowed him to better meet Jaucian’s high standards.
Out of the suit, Jaucian expects her performers to be ambassadors. Dressing well is a must; when Bucky needs to be at a scheduled, non-athletic event, she expects the performer to make the first contact and plan through logistics ahead of time.
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“And because of that, she instilled some of that professionalism, that timeliness, making sure that you get stuff done and get it right,” Bruner said. “So from that standpoint, she was a phenomenal leader for me in shaping kind of who I am as a professional.”
For CC, still a member of the Bucky team, Jaucian’s mentorship has meant him getting a handle on his organizational and communication skills. Suiting up two to three times a week forced CC to start planning his calendar weeks and months ahead of time.
“She’s gotten me accountable on emails and on contacting people and reaching out to events ahead of time — and she’s done it more often than I’d like to admit,” he said. “But that has really helped me raise my personal standards of what professional communication looks like.”
. Looks pretty beneficial to campus to me.
