Like most other passionate Georgetown basketball fans, Lily deGroot (SOH ’25) and Virginia Field (CAS ’25) make a point of attending every regular-season home game, sometimes even traveling hundreds of miles to away games. But unlike their friends and classmates, the duo has spent the past four years harboring a secret. 

Since their first spring semester, deGroot and Field have served on Georgetown’s mascot crew, dressing up as Jack the Bulldog in front of the thousands of fans cheering on Hoyas sports teams.

Looking for an adventure after spending their first fall semester settling in, the two friends came across a recruiting call on Instagram for new Jack the Bulldog mascots. On a whim, deGroot and Field decided to send in applications together and were pleasantly surprised when they both received an invitation to audition for the role.

Given the opportunity to audition, deGroot and Field set their minds on performing as well as possible. In the two weeks before the audition, the duo studied other schools’ mascots. 

Field said they also felt nervous about the range of skills that the role appeared to require.

“I really remember sitting in our Copley dorm, and we were watching YouTube videos of other mascots,” Field told The Hoya. “We were like, ‘how can we do this?’ He’s doing backflips. I was like, all I have is the worm.”

Nevertheless, deGroot and Field marched to McDonough Arena on the day of their tryout with moral support from several friends cheering them on. Once they arrived, deGroot and Field each underwent a two-stage audition designed to test their ability to improvise and their creativity in interacting with fans. The first test was a typical club-style interview and the second was an improv-style audition, with the cheerleading coach, mascot coach and several athletic department interns watching.

Both anxiously awaited the results. One week later, deGroot and Field celebrated the news of their acceptance.

DeGroot said processing her acceptance took a moment, yet she became overjoyed when she realized Field was also accepted.

“At first I had a moment where I was wrapping my head around the whole thing, like wow this is real, I am actually going to do this,” deGroot wrote to The Hoya. “At the same time I was so excited and could not wait to start and find out what it’d be like to be the Georgetown mascot.”

“This was probably different than any other position you ‘land’ because we couldn’t tell any of our friends, so we were just extremely excited and could not believe it, and had to keep that all between the two of us,” deGroot added.

Once the duo officially accepted their offers, they underwent an extensive orientation teaching them the ins and outs of mascotting and practicing with the mascot coach weekly to ultimately receive their first in-game assignments as Jack the Bulldog. 

Adjusting to the role in real-time was difficult at first because it required a large amount of thinking on the fly. Field recalled initially struggling with the Jack the Bulldog suit, which has a heavy mesh-like covering over the eyeholes that limits the wearer’s field of vision.

Though the mascot has a handler who guides them at each game, Field said she still had to think outside the box to maintain her bearings, often squinting at different angles to see the scoreboard after crowd-rousing plays.

“You can’t see out of the eyes, which also makes it super tough because when you’re at a basketball game and people start cheering, you don’t know if it’s the other team that did something good, or Georgetown did something good,” Field said.

Field and deGroot also recounted their responsibility to keep fans engaged with each game, even when wins were few and far between. To keep the crowd on their feet, Field said the mascots employed tactics such as dancing with fans to renditions of the song “Hey, Baby!” during timeouts and playing rock, paper, scissors with fans.

“I feel that is what makes people laugh at a mascot,” Field said. “You don’t expect a mascot to be sitting down in the chair next to you. I feel like mascots are funny when they do unexpected things.”

DeGroot said she also had to creatively maneuver when interacting with fans, especially with children, who were often extremely excited to meet Jack the Bulldog.

“There will always be like, ‘Jack, Jack, someone wants a picture!’ And you’re like, looking around,” deGroot said. “You always have to be looking at the ground in case a kid is running towards you.”

At the same time, Field said she found one of the most rewarding aspects of the job to be meeting and positively shaping the in-game experiences of children who look up to them and other mascots.

“When the kids give you a hug, I feel like it’s the nicest, you just feel like the best person in the world,” Field said. “That’s the best feeling. And I would do it over and over again.”

Being the “woman under the suit” as Georgetown’s mascot provided many unique opportunities for Field and deGroot, including attending a bat mitzvah, visits to Congress and a Washington Nationals game, community events and being among the first students to meet men’s basketball Head Coach Ed Cooley — albeit usually while wearing the Jack the Bulldog suit. The unorthodox mascot experience provided many amusing moments as well, such as one time when 5-foot-9 Field swapped for 5-foot deGroot midway through a game — and fans noticed the difference.

“One time, we switched halfway through a game,” Field said, referring to her swap for deGroot. “When she came out in the suit, the people in the crowd yelled, ‘Jack, you look like you’ve shrunk in the wash!’”

“The suit hangs a little differently on me,” deGroot added.

DeGroot said the rare, secret experience of playing Jack for nearly four years was the highlight of her Georgetown experience, even if she could only share it with a select few people.

“It’s something that made my Georgetown experience for sure, which is funny because no one knows it made my Georgetown experience,” deGroot said. “There’s something special about having a secret team.”