Struggling with fans, the Sixers once asked Phillie Phanatic to save Hoops, their forgotten mascot

The 76ers needed to know in the winter of 1981 why the crowd failed to connect with their new mascot: Was it the costume or was it the person inside the furry yellow creature with a unibrow?

They tried a cast of performers — even the general manager wore the suit — but the crowd’s reactions to “Hoops” remained the same. No one seemed to care a few years earlier when they unveiled Big Shot. And even fewer cared about his new friend.

But the team had paid a few thousand dollars a few months earlier for New York’s Harrison & Erickson — the workshop owned by the creators of several Muppets characters — to create Hoops. The Sixers didn’t want to simply discard their investment. So who better to answer their question — was it the costume or the person? — than an undercover Phillie Phanatic?

The Sixers had a sold-out game that Saturday night in December 1981 against the rival Boston Celtics. The Phillies were still four months from starting, so Dave Raymond, who made the Phanatic come alive 45 years ago this month, had a free night. Of course, Raymond could moonlight as Hoops.

“He comes out of the tunnel and in about 15 seconds it becomes obvious that it wasn’t the costume but the guy in the costume,” said former Sixers general manager Pat Williams. “He took off that evening and made little Hoops come alive. It was a show unto itself. When the night was over we said, ‘OK. We got it.’”

The Sixers begin the postseason Saturday against Brooklyn as one of the NBA’s most popular teams. They finished this season with the league’s second-best attendance, have a waiting list for season tickets, and feature two of the league’s biggest stars. Their games in South Philly are a happening, and the product — despite not winning a championship in 40 years — almost sells itself.

But it wasn’t always like that. The Sixers of the early 1980s had Dr. J and were perennial title contenders yet faced a constant battle to draw fans to the Spectrum. In 1983, fans flooded Broad Street to watch their title parade. But only a few years earlier, owner Fitz Eugene Dixon became so frustrated with the empty seats that he once floated the idea of moving the team south.

The Sixers reached the NBA Finals in 1977 and had an on-court product worth the price of admission. Still, they were forced to find unusual ways to sell tickets. They brought in a singing pig named Pepper and a wrestling bear named Victor. Maybe, Williams thought, the Sixers needed a mascot. When Big Shot flamed out, they doubled down on furry creatures and added another. Predictably, Hoops was a brick.

“It was just a difficult, difficult time to try and fill that building up. It went that way through the Wilt era, through the Julius era, and it took the Allen Iverson era to make it work,” Williams said. “We could never do it, but this current era is just astounding. It was frustrating. Then the questions would come up. Philadelphia is a college basketball town. It’s not a pro basketball town. That wasn’t accurate. That wasn’t fair.

“It’s a great basketball city. The pro team in Philly just always struggled. Wilt didn’t fill the building and Julius didn’t fill the building. They were the two greatest draws in basketball. Finally, the Iverson era filled it up. Then the Embiid era. What turned it? Why suddenly did the thing get turned to the point that the building is filled and there’s a waiting list?”

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Raymond was an intern in the Phillies’ sales department when Bill Giles — the team’s president — decided the Phils needed a mascot. Tubby Raymond, the longtime University of Delaware football coach, told his son to do whatever the team asked during his internship and prove his value. So Dave Raymond, still a college student, stepped into the feathery green costume in April 1978 and became the Phillie Phanatic.

The flightless bird took off, quickly challenging the San Diego Chicken as the most popular mascot in sports. The Phillie Phanatic was everywhere from the Philadelphia Orchestra to dear old Captain Noah. Raymond was an instant hit. He became a full-time employee, proving his value as the creature from the Galapagos Islands.

“He took the city by storm,” Williams said. “He was just all encompassing and dominated. He was highly successful. So we decided we have to get into this.”

The costume was great — it was made by the same New York outfit the Sixers would use — but it was the college kid inside whomade it come alive.

Raymond’s mother, Sue, became deaf when he was 3 years old after a bout with Ménière’s disease. He did not realize it then, but his mother explained to him as she was dying in 1990 that her loss of hearing helped him become a performer. He mastered non-verbal communication from an early age, making it almost seem natural when he couldn’t talk while wearing the Phanatic’s big snout. Yes, it mattered who was inside the costume.

“I fell into this job. I figured anyone could do it and I didn’t want anyone else to get into the costume early on because I thought I would lose my leverage in the costume,” Raymond said. “It took me well into my 50s that I realized, ‘Wait a minute. I was pretty good at this.’

“I started realizing that this ability to have an interaction with people one-on-one without speaking was a skill set that I just didn’t give myself credit for.”

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Raymond’s costume that night at the Spectrum was much thinner than the one he wore at Veterans Stadium, but the act was similar. Hoops couldn’t thrust his stomach like the Phanatic but Raymond leaned on the same dance moves he performed atop the dugout. The fans loved it. The Sixers had found their mascot and figured Raymond could perform as Hoops until opening day.

“I hadn’t realized that I had created a personality with the Phanatic,” Raymond said. “I said I’m going to have to think differently. This is basketball. This is a different character. I had all of about 24 to 48 hours to think about it and then I didn’t have to think about it.”

The gig was up. David Montgomery called the Sixers on Monday morning, telling assistant general John Nash that he saw their mascot on Saturday night and wondered if that was Dave Raymond inside.

“John said, ‘David, I can not tell a lie. It was,’” Williams said. “David said keep in mind that he has an exclusive with the Phillies and he did that illegally. John said, ‘We’ll never do it again.’ But we had the answer. It was who’s in the suit.”

Unable to find the right person for the costume, the Sixers retired Hoops a season later. The mascot lasted roughly a year, becoming a forgotten footnote in team history.

Raymond and Williams had another chance to work together in 1988 after Williams helped launch the Orlando Magic. They were unveiling a mascot — Stuff the Magic Dragon — and needed someone to wear it for the debut.

Raymond flew down, wore it on Halloween Night, and returned to his hotel room. He hung up the costume, took a shower, and soon saw his room was flooded. Raymond had hung the costume on the hotel room’s sprinkler system, triggering it to soak the room. Another Williams and Raymond partnership was spoiled. But the crowd loved him that night. Once again, it mattered who was in the suit.

“Dave locked himself out of the room in a towel around him,” Williams said. “To this day, David will never get over that night. The high of the debut to the low of his room was absolutely soaked with water and the beautiful mascot was soaked. Oh, boy.”