When faced with the task of making a mascot for a school who calls themselves the Waves, one could only think of so many options.
Pepperdine’s current edition is Willie the Wave. Since the beginning of Pepperdine Athletics, the school was known as the Waves, but the mascot who represented the Waves has a long history of switching between characters.
Sam Perrin, a Pepperdine historian also known as the Ghost of George Pepperdine, has done extensive research on the costumed representative of Pepperdine’s mascot.
“The thing I love about all the iterations of Willie is that they showcase how decades of students combined creativity and commitment to school spirit,” Perrin wrote.
The modern version we have of Willie draws influence from the earliest form of the Pepperdine mascot, Roland the Wave, a cartoon drawing submitted by a student.
Around the same time, Pepperdine had an unofficial mascot during football games, Joe the Pelican. Joe wasn’t your typical mascot; he was a live bird. Joe the Pelican was present at school football games but wasn’t kept around due to the bird being too expensive to maintain.
Following the era of Joe the Pelican, Pepperdine debuted the first official, costumed version of a mascot, a student who wore a papier-mâché mask that resembled Joe the Pelican. The costume drew on inspiration from Roland as well, creating the first edition of Willie.
The course of Willie the Wave over the next 44 years was complicated. Even though Willie became the mascot in 1952, the costume wasn’t set. There were updates that followed with Roland as reference.
Willie remained the mascot but was represented between a wide variety of representation over the years. Around 1979, archival pictures show Willie as a jug of water that students would carry. Just a couple year later, a student wore a cape with the image of Roland on it, according to Perrin’s article.
By 1987, Pepperdine recognized the need for a new mascot and held a design contest for a new costume concept. The school had returned to the costume design we recognize as Willie.
This version of Willie looks different from the modern-day version. Just six years later, Pepperdine called for yet another redesign, from which emerged the origin of the current Willie, according to Perrin’s article.
This new mascot, also known as Super Willie, followed a long line of short-lived mascots at Pepperdine. Three years after the introduction of Super Willie, the Waves switched to a whole different character: King Neptune, according to Perrin’s article.
The costume for King Neptune, who drew inspiration from Roman mythology, was similar to the runner-up in the contest that named Super Willie as the new mascot, according to Perrin’s article. Pepperdine now welcomed their new representative, King Neptune, who sported a trident to go along with his crown. King Neptune was part of a campaign by Pepperdine’s administration to improve the school’s nationwide reputation.
From the beginning of King Neptune’s Pepperdine career, he faced frequent controversy. Opinions around campus didn’t like a pagan representative at a Christian school.
Pepperdine junior Tatyana Sevajian spoke about Pepperdine’s old mascot, King Neptune. Sevajian said she dislikes the name Willie the Wave but doesn’t dislike the look.
“I prefer [King Neptune] over Willie the Wave,” Sevajian said. “But the actual look of Willie the Wave I don’t mind. Maybe if they merge the two, that would be great.”
King Neptune stayed, but he ultimately met his demise in 2003, leaving Pepperdine without a mascot, according to Perrin’s article. That was until 2005 when Pepperdine introduced a brand new idea to the floor: the Wave Men.
The Wave Men were a group of five mascots that resembled the Power Rangers. They were almost immediately shut down, leading to the current version of Willie we see down at Firestone Fieldhouse today.
“The Wave Men debacle of 2005 shows what can go wrong when administrators try to astroturf new traditions on a student body that’s unwilling,” Perrin wrote.
The current Willie sports sunglasses, sandals and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt, highlighting his chiseled physique. The current ensemble completes the odd fusion and harmony of a wave and a surfer, with subtle superhero influence reminiscent of former editions.
Pepperdine junior Max Holdorf believes Pepperdine should get rid of Willie and have a new representative to represent the school.
“I think he’s kind of underwhelming, and it’s a little weird. Honestly, I don’t really like him,” Holdorf said.
Holdorf said Pepperdine should explore a sailor or navigator as the new mascot.
This version of Willie seems set, having represented Pepperdine for over 15 years and giving stability to the back and forth unrest of finding the right mascot.
As the Ghost of George Pepperdine looked back on all the editions of mascots that represented Pepperdine, the Ghost appreciates all the effort that went into the evolution of Willie the Wave.
“What makes the modern Willie such a successful mascot is that the University’s administration has embraced and polished an organic student tradition rather than trying to impose on students the traditions that they [administrators] would have chosen, which doesn’t always go so well,” Perrin wrote.
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Email Nick Charkhedian: nareg.charkhedian@pepperdine.edu
