Handsome Dan XIX’s present whereabouts: managing his first athletic season
Handsome Dan XIX’s handler, Kassandra Haro ’18, provides an update on the mascot's day-to-day activities during the fall athletic season.
Jessie Cheung, Staff Photographer
Following a lively and active return to full in-person learning at Yale, Handsome Dan XIX, otherwise known as Kingman, has encountered thousands of smiling students eager to give him love. Over the past couple of weeks, he and his handler Kassandra Haro ’18 have navigated the exciting and challenging factors that come with filling the role of Yale’s mascot.
According to Haro, Kingman is “back in the office,” and the two do six tours a day based out of the Yale Visitor Center. The nine-month-old puppy has an office in the center, complete with dog-themed wallpaper and a cardboard cutout of his face gifted by the gymnastics team. Apart from charming prospective students visiting campus, Kingman spends his free time engaging in photoshoots, video shoots, meet and greets and “impromptu walks around campus,” Haro said.
“Prospective students just light up when they see [Kingman], and they say, ‘Well, that makes my decision [to attend Yale] easier,’” Haro said.
Kingman has “quite the social calendar,” Haro said, given his tightly-packed tour schedule and the beginning of football season. He sits behind the cheerleaders at all of the home football games, and he enjoys every moment of the tailgates. Every so often, he needs to “spread out his paws a little” during a game to make sure his energy can last through the full four quarters. According to Haro, Kingman is “a little scared of the marching band at the moment” but is working on overcoming this fear.
Walter, Kingman’s predecessor, was based out of the Athletics Department and handled by Kevin Discepolo ’09, former assistant athletic director of facilities. The impetus to base Kingman out of the Visitor Center was to make him more visible on campus and more accessible to current and prospective students.
Though Kingman is not directly under the purview of Yale Athletics, his handler promises to bring him to as many games as possible — especially any against Harvard — but the duo unfortunately are unable to attend all of them. The University expects Handsome Dan to make an appearance at least one game for each varsity team, and the duo have fulfilled all appearance requests made so far.
According to Haro, Kingman is a “teenager of the human variety” and is “very sassy.” She believes that the puppy has “quite the personality,” which makes him a very lovable and approachable mascot.
Haro, who describes herself as Kingman’s “pup mommy,” tries to make sure the puppy isn’t overstimulated by the attention received at events. She is trying to create a set of rules for students to follow when interacting with the puppy because Kingman is not a “seasoned veteran” compared to his predecessor. This, in particular, is in preparation for the Yale-Harvard football game, where Handsome Dan expects to encounter plenty of support from fellow Bulldogs.
Handsome Dan can be tracked through his Instagram and TikTok accounts, where Haro tries to keep the community updated on his whereabouts. Besides social media, Kingman can also be spotted on his morning and evening walks around Silliman College. Haro hopes to do another tour of all the residential colleges soon so more students can meet the famed mascot.
Kingman was named after Kingman Brewster Jr. ’41, president of Yale from 1963 to 1977.
