Mascot Machismo: Volt 1-on-1

Originally Published: Jun 29, 2010 3:59 PM CDT

Bobby Lewis
Oklahoma Sports Mobile Journalist

TULSA, Oklahoma – Like ice cream cones on a hot summer day, team mascots just have a way of making you feel all gooey inside. That, or they irritate the life out of you, much like ice cream melting down your wrist on a hot summer day, and make you think foul thoughts.

Either way, sports wouldn’t be sports without them. Crazy, goofy and over-the-top, mascots keep us all entertained.

For the most part.

There are plenty of mascots with flashy dance moves. Many of them pull off crazy stunts for the home fans to marvel at. Some even make up some tricks of their own for the crowd.

But, very few leap through fire, shoot a giant t-shirt cannon and get the crowd all riled up quite like the Tulsa Shock’s mascot, Volt.

Volt is Tulsa’s red-hot Red Fox. The mascot does flips and rides a tricycle that he claims goes 500 miles per hour (See the video above for evidence that may contradict that). He’s constantly on the move during games, seemingly a blur of fur a furry. Volt poses for more pictures than the president and still finds time to dance during timeouts.

He admits that he is good buddies with his fellow hardwood crowd-pleaser, Rumble. Volt says he chats with the Oklahoma City Thunder’s mascot a couple times a week either by e-mail or phone. The two have a lot in common, motivating the state’s top basketball teams each night.

The only drawback to being a mascot is the inability to speak. As we found out, that doesn’t mean mascots don’t have anything to say. Check out our interview with Volt and his interpreter, Shock guard Natasha Lacy.