Alex Nelson left the University of Wisconsin-Madison three years ago with an engineering degree and plenty of college experiences.
They include attending events over three years as Bucky Badger, the school’s official mascot.
Nelson grew up in Eland, attended elementary and middle school in Birnamwood, graduated from Wittenberg-Birnamwood High School in 2017, received a bachelor’s degree in engineering mechanics from UW-Madison in 2022, earned a master’s degree in aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the University of Colorado in Boulder last year and is now an aerospace engineer at Rhea Space Activity Inc. in Boulder.
Nelson said his twin brother, Michael, helped him get his foot in the door to be a mascot.
“My twin brother was actually in the band, and Bucky was something I knew I wanted to do for a while,” he said. “Even in high school, I just loved going to different sporting events and getting involved. My brother actually met some of the Buckys, and he put me in contact with one of them. I had a little bit of an inside scoop for getting some details on tryouts.”
Nelson went on to spend three seasons as a mascot from 2019-22 as a junior, senior and fifth-year senior.
He had to make it through a tryout before he could suit up as Bucky Badger.
“They have tryouts every year at the end of the school year,” he said. “It’s a three-day process. The first day is the big one and you go through five different stations. One of them is skits and one of them is dancing. You have to do pushups. From there, they narrow it down to eight to 10. The second day is ice skating tryouts to see how good you can skate for hockey games. The last day is a two-minute skit that you have to create props for and a final interview.”
Nelson became a mascot after his initial tryout.
“You try out two years in a row and after that, they figure you’re probably good enough to keep around,” he said.
Nelson figures he suited up as Bucky Badger about 200 times.
“We did football games, we did basketball games, hockey, volleyball, wrestling, soccer,” he said. “We’d show up for a couple of track meets a year. Outside of that, there were a ton of different activities we did around campus. The School of Education might have a meet-and-greet or a welcome event. We’d go to a lot of banquets for the Athletic Department. We also did a lot of weddings and when you walk into a wedding (dressed as Bucky), everybody freaks out. It’s really cool, because it’s usually a surprise for the bride or the groom. Everyone wants to come up for a picture and a high-five.”
Nelson recalled the first time he showed up as an event dressed as Bucky Badger.
“It was a retirement for a teacher at one of the local schools near Madison,” he said. “I think she had 30 years in that school district so I had to do 30 pushups for her at this event.”
Nelson would carry his costume in a large duffel bag.
“It’s a very big bag that fits on your back,” he said. “It’s form-fit for the head. People can tell. If I was going to an event, I’d have my headphones on and sunglasses. I’d keep it a secret.”
Several UW athletic programs — including football, men’s basketball, volleyball and women’s hockey — had success while Nelson was a student.
“You get some really good interactions with people, even when (teams) aren’t doing so well,” he said. “People are like, ‘Well, that was unfortunate, but let’s pay attention to Bucky now, he’s doing something funny.’ There’s still a lot of fan support at the not-so-great games.”
If teams weren’t doing well, fans didn’t take it out on the mascot.
“Wisconsin fans are the best,” Nelson said. “Even after a tough loss, people are always happy to see Bucky. Opposing fans can say some pretty funny things. I got called a skunk a couple of times at Purdue.”
Although he now lives in Colorado, Nelson gets back to Madison and the Eland area as often as he can. He said he is proud to represent the school he attended for five years.
“I loved it,” he said. “I felt like I was always making a difference for people. They were always so happy to see us. We would do some events at the Children’s Hospital and those were always incredibly special seeing the kids’ faces. It was a neat experience to go out and make a ton of people really happy, bring life to whatever event I was at and get everybody going.”
