The players on the field are usually the crowd’s focus during a college game. But a good mascot can’t be ignored, either, bringing hype and hijinks throughout.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not to be confused with Bevo, the famed live longhorn, Hook ‘Em is the costumed mascot seen on the sidelines pumping up the crowd at UT games. He was first introduced in 1975 when UT alumnus Steven Sockler wanted to create a mascot to go alongside the “hook ’em Horns” hand sign. Sockler and art professor Hugh Head created the first “Hook ‘Em” head with a construction helmet and welding rod horns.<\/p>\n
Since then, Hook ‘Em has become a mainstay at gamedays, campus events, and other happenings (including appearances at Austin City Limits Music Festival). Several UT students don the mask each year as a team of Hook ‘Ems, making dozens of appearances each year. He’s known for his energetic dance moves, many social media skit appearances, and for donning a snappy suit when the UT football team and Hook ‘Em walk to Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The players on the field are usually the crowd’s focus during a college game. But a good mascot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[109735,2466,1704,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-371901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-chron-college","tag-chronculture","tag-chronstaff","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}