Arooj Mustafa was sitting at the bus stop in front of Burruss Hall one windy February afternoon. But before the senior mechanical engineering major's date with Blacksburg Transit, Mustafa saw a shadow fall over her. When she looked up, she said only: "Oh my God."
The ranks of Orange Mann and the Hokie Bird have a new, 10-foot interlocutor: Armored Hokie.
Built from melange of material from a baseball catcher's chest protector to plastic molds intended for sewage disposal (the thigh guards) to construction stilts, the idea Blacksburg's biggest bird was formed in a theme park "junkyard."
The brain-bird of junior Jesse Johnson, Armored Hokie can trace its inspiration to a dread-locked character at the Hard Rock theme park in Myrtle Beach, S.C. It was there that Johnson learned the tricks of the stilt-walking trade from the local master, Dustin Houck while working a summer job as Junkman.
After several near tumbles from his perch, Johnson mastered the stilt-walking trade and took to his job with gusto.
"I just loved the smiles on all the kids' faces. All the kids just loved it," Johnson said.
Returning to Tech last fall, Johnson enrolled in professor Steve Bickley's sculpture course and set to work crafting his own towering creation.
Both Junkman and Armored Hokie have had their fair share of run-ins with rowdy observers. During one of his initial walks in the costume before the University of Virginia football game, Johnson got the scare of his life.
"Two guys saw me standing by War Memorial and decided to charge me. They were pretty drunk and while I'm pretty sturdy (on the stilts), I was almost positive they were going to knock me down," Johnson said.
Adults in the Hard Rock theme park had a strange habit of challenging the Junkman. Standing stone still between two Junkman look-alike statutes, Johnson would often come to life when the park's visitors least expected it.
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"This one group was in a discussion of whether or not the Junkman statues were real. So one of the guys walks up to me and says to his friends, 'Look, I'll prove it,'" Johnson said. "And I'm standing there real still while this guy walks up to me and decides to put his hands up ... in a sensitive area."
When Junkman came to life in the man's hands, Johnson said, "I saw real fear on his face."
Strapping into the costume takes nearly 10 minutes and necessitates a sturdy ledge from which to step into the stilts. Johnson's favorite spot is the loading dock behind the ADLC building where he maintains a small studio.
While the physical transformation is apparent, for the quiet and retiring Johnson, the emotional transformation is more incredible.
"I feel like I'm Optimus Prime," Johnson said. "I'm no longer Jesse."
Johnson's brother said the change is evident.
"I never really would have seen that transformation. He's really shy and held-back. When he's in a mask, he can get away with whatever he wants to," said Will Johnson, a senior computer engineering major.
In a crowd outside McBryde Hall, Johnson's attitude is apparent. With fist-bumps, a patented Johnny Bravo-esque pose and a swagger heightened by his swaying tail feathers, Armored Hokie absorbs the clicks of camera phones and muffled gasps of "That's so cool!" with aplomb.
Which begs the question: Could Armored Hokie be added to the pantheon of Hokie crusaders?
"He's be able to get through crowds easier with all that stuff, but the Hokie Bird is a lot easier to crowd surf," said Candice Wilson, a senior music major who saw the Armored Hokie on the Drillfield.
Armored Hokie does, however, have a high intimidation factor.
"It's fun to see him when he sees fans of the other team and he starts to take these giant, aggressive strides toward them, and to watch them get nervous," Will Johnson said.
Alicia Longworth, the assistant director for sports marketing and promotions, declined to let the Collegiate Times interview the existing Hokie Bird.
Johnson said that he hoped the university would take on his costume for use at official events, adding that he would like to train a successor in stilt walking before he graduates in the fall of 2009.
Longworth wrote in a e-mail that her office would need further information and contact with Johnson before deciding whether they would assume official possession of Armored Hokie.
No matter the university's eventual decision on Armored Hokie, the Johnson brothers jokingly bandy about another idea: building an Armored Cavalier for the Hokie to vanquish.