Director of student activities Jessica Pritzker will be holding and judging ‘Big Red’ mascot tryouts in the Student Commons after school on Friday, April 26.

Any student, girl or boy, freshman or senior, can tryout to become Big Red as long as they meet the requirements. Students must be a height of 5’9 or taller because of the mascot uniform. Students will be judged on their ability to move around, and excite a crowd.

“The most important thing about being Big Red is you have to know how to keep a secret,” Pritzker said. “If a student becomes Big Red, I put a lot of trust into them to keep their secret identity a secret. Big Red can never reveal his identity. It’s kind of like a top mission.”

Big Red represents Niles West as a whole. He comes out to every home football and basketball games, high-fiving young fans and cheering on our team. Big Red also makes appearances at every North vs. West games, CEC basketball games, and freshmen orientation.

Pritzker also said that becoming the school mascot is a great way for a student to give back to his or her school.

“The best mascot is usually a shy kid,” Pritzker said. “It’s almost like once the student gets behind the costume and can’t be seen, they become this outgoing individual who pumps up the crowd.”

Senior Tony Soldo said that he wouldn’t want to be a mascot.

“I wouldn’t want to be the mascot. It guess it takes a lot of courage to be the mascot, so I’m happy for whoever gets it, but that’s not my thing,” he said.