Hairy Dawg’s Origin Story: An Oral History

Tom Sapp – Creator of Hairy Dawg

A lot of people will know the name Clisby Clarke, who wrote Bulldog Bite (Hunker Down Hairy Dawgs). 

I worked with Clisby as an account executive at McCann Erickson. And I brought in some sketches of what I thought would make a mascot costume of Hairy Dawg and he agreed to take them over to Coach Dooley and show ‘em to him.

Coach Dooley called us and said can you have it in three weeks for the Sugar Bowl? Naively, I said sure.

Without the help of my good friend, Mac Talmadge who was another art director, I couldn’t have finished. We actually built that costume in my basement in three weeks working nights and weekends.

Dr. Stan Beecham – the Original Hairy Dawg

I remember Tom told me the eyes were lenses from pair of ski goggles. It was a fiberglass head that was mounted onto a pair of shoulder pads. And if you remember back in the ’80s, shoulder pads were really big. They’re not like they are now, they really stuck out and they’ve changed the costume a little bit now. Then you just basically wore a pair of football pants and they sewed a tail into the back of it, so it had a little stumpy tail sticking out the back. And then they gave you a bunch of foam that went over your arms. And there was some kind of imitation fur that covered your arms. Then the legs were just football pants and socks. There were these foam calves to make your calves look really big. And then I just wore a pair of football cleats.