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Michigan State University
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East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: 517-355-4720
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Sparty
This article first appeared in Grand Haven Tribune, By: Matt DeYoung
On the ring finger of his left hand, Mark DeKleine, former graduate student at the Department of Biosystems & Agricultural Engineering, wears a silver wedding band, commemorating his recent marriage to Shelly Jo Steger.
That ring is dwarfed by the piece of hardware residing on DeKleine's right hand. It features a green block 'S' surrounded by sparkling diamonds. It's a national championship ring, and he's got another ring of similar design on the way.
DeKleine didn't earn the ring as a member of a national championship athletic team during his four years at Michigan State University.
DeKleine was Sparty.
Actually, the 1999 Grand Haven High School graduate who recently moved to Phoenix was one of several Michigan State students who wore the famed Spartan mascot costume to various sporting and other events over the past two years.
"There are about five of us every year," DeKleine said. "The identities of the individuals are kept secret. The big thing is, they want to keep Sparty as Sparty, not as Sparty being somebody in the costume."
DeKleine wasn't allowed to tell anyone, outside of his family and a close circle of friends, that he was the man behind the oversized head and sculpted green chest plate. His last gig as Sparty came a few weeks ago, when the Spartans' men's basketball team pounded Purdue on Jan. 18 in East Lansing.
"My final event as Sparty was the Purdue basketball game, and it was sad, because of all the places I've gone and things I've seen, people I've met that I'll never forget," DeKleine said. "I'll never forget it. I'm glad I've got those memories. Now it's time to move on."
NATIONAL CHAMPS
The matching diamond-studded rings are a result of Sparty winning back-to-back national championships in the mascot cheer competition.
"They have a national championship every year, and last year, in 2004, Sparty became the first Big Ten mascot to win a national championship," DeKleine said. "Then just a few weeks ago, this January, we ended up winning again."
The national championship, put on by the Universal Cheer Association, includes a video competition the cast of Sparty worked on throughout the past year. After the videos are judged, the top 10 mascots go to Orlando for a live competition. Each mascot does a 90-second skit, complete with props.
"There's just one person in costume at that point, but we all come up with the ideas," DeKleine said. "After we won in 2004, that next week, we started planning for the next year's competition."
BUSY BODY
Little did DeKleine know, as a sophomore a few years back, what he was getting into when he attended a tryout to be Sparty.
"I thought it was just football games and stuff," he said. "I didn't realize all the things Sparty was involved in. It's enough to keep five people busy full time all year."
Sparty does appear at Michigan State football and basketball games, as well as other sporting events. But Sparty isn't exclusively associated with MSU athletics. In fact, he's a part of the Student Alumni Foundation, a group that organizes school spirit programs such as the Izzone at MSU basketball games.
"We do events ranging from athletics, like home and away football games, home men's and women's basketball games, volleyball, hockey, baseball and softball, and then everything from weddings, charity events, parades, fund-raisers ... Sparty even visits sick kids at the hospital," DeKleine said. "Sparty does just about anything you can imagine. He's at openings for banks and businesses around Lansing, retirement parties and birthday parties. It's quite an ordeal."
DeKleine said Sparty makes an appearance at an average of four weddings per weekend during the summer months.
"We have multiple costumes — nobody's supposed to know that," DeKleine said.
DeKleine said most of his appearances at weddings are a surprise.
"The best thing about being Sparty is, and 99.9 percent of the time, it's a surprise," he said. "You'll walk in and ask for the contact person, and they'll say, 'I can't wait — Nobody else knows!' The bride and the groom will be out on the dance floor, then the MSU fight song comes on and Sparty runs in. People go nuts. It's really fun to be a part of that."
DeKleine had a blast during his two years as Sparty, which is good, because he wasn't compensated in any other way.
"It' all volunteer. There's no scholarship that goes with it," DeKleine said. "The way I relate it, when I was in costume, the places I've been, the things I've gotten to see and do make up for any amount of pay I could ever have received."
This past fall, DeKleine was in Hawaii for five days with the Spartans' football team. The year before, he went to San Antonio for the Alamo Bowl. Last summer, he spent several days in Atlanta for an MSU alumni event.
"It was an annual meeting, so they paid our way down there," he said. "It was a lot of fun."
It's not all fun and games. In fact, being Sparty can be quite a chore at times.
"It's about 40 to 50 degrees warmer in the costume than it is outside," DeKleine said. "So if it's 80 degrees at a late August football game, chances are it's 120, 130 in there.
"Then there are times when you run into intoxicated people who want to pick you up, do crowd surfing, pass you around. Each costume costs about $15,000, so when people start trying to pick you up and throw you around, something's going to get broke. That's why we have escorts there, to intervene, because Sparty doesn't talk."
Two escorts follow Sparty everywhere he goes, to act as both contact people and body guards for the popular mascot.
During high school, DeKleine would attend MSU football games with friends. When Sparty would run out onto the field before games, DeKleine often joked that that would one day be him.
At the end of his sophomore year, he attended a tryout at the urging of his friends, and was shocked when only a total of nine people attended the tryout.
"They give you a minute and a half, and you have to come up with your own skit," DeKleine said. "I came up with a mix CD with a bunch of random songs people would know. I came in to the State fight song, then danced to all these other songs."
During the tryout, applicants also face some sort of an improvisation test.
"There will be a table with a crutch, a yellow cone and a broom on it, and they'll say, 'Sparty, run over to that table, grab one of those props and use it for something it isn't,'" DeKleine said. "A lot of people use the crutch as a guitar. The people who can do that stuff quickly, without taking a moment to think about it, are the people who are going to do well."
The tryout process is fairly extensive, and as a result, Sparty is one of the top mascots in the country, as is evident by his back-to-back national championships.
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