A 'Dougie'-doing thoroughbread, this Mustang has mad moves

The secondary education major routinely would wear a maroon football jersey ("No. 1"), a pair of white tennies (size 20) and a 10-pound head of a horse.

Chavarria was"Monte the Mustang," Morningside's tail-wagging mascot, at all of the school's major sporting event.

Yet that certainly isn't to say Chavarria was simply a "one-trick pony." The Santa Ana, Calif., native actually came to Morningside to be part of the school's wrestling program.

"I was a wrestler my freshman year," the Morningside junior explained. "But I had to quit due to the damage it was doing to my body."

It was as a result of a bet with the girlfriend of a fellow wrestler that led the muscular Chavarria to join the school's cheer team.

"She knew I wanted to show my school spirit and dared me to try out for cheerleading," he remembered. "Not one to step back from a challenge, I decided why not?"

Though he didn't make the first-string team, Chavarria was offered a different role by Morningside cheer team coach Lindsay Huber.

"Lindsay asked me if I wanted to be Monte the Mustang," he recalled. "After learning the job paid $25 a game, I say, 'Heck, yeah!'"

And it seems like Chavarria took to Monte, well, like a horse takes to water.

Showing off a costume that included a heavily padded football uniform, fur gloves and a cumbersome horse head (complete with a built-in helmet),  Chavarria said he had a "blast" playing the school's most prominent mustang.

"Kids loved being around Monte," he observed, "and everybody wanted to have their picture taken with me."

But there are some cardinal rules in becoming a mascot, with the first one being no talking.

"Talking would break the illusion of being a mustang," Chavarria noted.

Also, being seen without the horse's head is definitely a no-no.

"There's a small, out-of-the-way place behind the (Olsen Stadium) concession stands where you can take off the head," Chavarria said, "but, even there, it's chancy."

Other than that, Chavarria said it was up to him to infuse the silent Monte with plenty of personality.

"I love to dance so I made sure that Monte could move," he said, grinning. "I wanted my mustang to be able to do both the 'Reject' and 'the Dougie' (dance moves)."

"Yes, my Monte could definitely 'do the Dougie,'" Chavarria said with a sense of pride.

In addition to "fly" dance moves, Monte was quite the ladies' man ... um, horse, flirting with cheerleaders and, even, doing a few push-ups with members of Morningside's marching band.

"Gotta tell ya, that wasn't easy," Chavarria admitted. "Monte's snout got in the way."

In fact, everything's awkward when you're inside a one-man horse suit.

"You do have tunnel vision," Chavarria explained, "because you can only see through holes in Monte's teeth."

And what about wearing a heavy horse head continuously throughout a two-hour game?

"It's exhausting," Chavarilla confessed, adding that his trick was to rest Monte's head on a fence or railing.

"That way you can alleviate some of the weight off of your head and shoulders," he said.

But that didn't keep Chavarria from sweating up a storm inside his fur-lined suit. In order to keep from overheating, he traditionally wore a T-shirt and light pair of shorts underneath his costume.

"My first few games were tough because they occurred in late summer, last year," he said. "I was so tired, I needed my friends to help take the costume off me."

Yet, there were plenty of perks from being Morningside's resident horse-for-hire.

"Since I was Monte, I got to keep the costume in my dorm room," Chavarria said, adding that the horse's head frequently sat on top of his TV and came out whenever he wanted to give his guests a good scare.

"A big head with unblinking eyes can be very terrifying when you're not expecting it," he allowed. "Sometimes, Monte looked like he came out of one of those 'Saw' movies."

Still, Chavarria used Monte for good a lot more than he did for evil.

"Oh yeah, it was pretty cool being Monte," he said.

A fan of hip-hop, dub step, even reggae music when he's not wearing a horse suit, the already-outgoing Chavarria said becoming a mascot has done wonders for his confidence level.

"As Monte, I could do all of the stuff I ordinarily wouldn't do," he said. "I could dance and fool around and just have fun."

"It's perfectly fine to make a fool of yourself as a mascot," Chavarria said. "After all, nobody knows it's you in the horse's head."